‘Black Panther’: Someone Has Created A Wakandan Text Translator

When people pledged ‘Wakanda Forever’ after Black Panther debuted, they weren’t joking around. It has been over a month since the superhero film debuted, and it has yet to let up at the box office. The culture impact of Black Panther has been massive, and fans are integrating every bit of Wakanda they can into their everyday lives.

Now, you can even text and chat in Wakandan if you want. There is a website up that will translate your English text into the language of Wakanda — and it is kind of awesome.

If you want to upgrade your language, you just have to head to Type Wakanda. The website was created by Wayne Sutton, and it uses codepen to bring the Wakandan language to life. All you have to do is type in a short message and hit enter; The website will convert your text into Wakandan in real-time, and the script looks pretty on-point with what fans saw in the movie.

Unfortunately, the text itself isn’t necessarily a legible one. While real languages are spoken in Black Panther, its written text was heavily imagined by production designer Hannah Beachler. During an interview with Indie Wire, the creator said she drew inspiration for Wakanda’s written language from the Nigerian language of Nsibidi.

“It was a secretive language, based on pictography, so it was about how you put the symbols together and the image you create,” Beachler said.

“The language needed to evolve from the older hieroglyphs into a more modern version,” she continued. “We used it in a pictography way but the numerical system stayed the same.”

For Beachler, the designer said she worked with director Ryan Coogler to update the ancient language and turn it into some afrofuturistic. The six-month project turned Beachler into a burgeoning linguistics guru, but all of her hard work was done so Black Panther could pay homage to Africa’s rich textual history.

“It was a process of trying to pay homage to lost languages but also infusing the idea of Afrofuturism of reclaiming languages lost,” Beachler said.

Do you wish you could learn how to write Wakandan? Do you think Marvel Studios should publish study books on the text? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!

Marvel Studios’ Black Panther is now playing in theaters. Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on April 27, 2018. It is followed by Ant-Man and The Wasp on July 6, 2018, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.