Conlangs: How alien is alien?

If you want to create a constructed language spoken by non-humans, then you’d better go all the way, baby!

The sentence on the left translates to “Your tail is beautiful” (suitable flattery for an aquatic creature). Can you guess what the sentence on the right means? Image by the author, all rights reserved.

I’ve never been a fan of the Star Trek “pretty much human with a bump on the forehead” kind of alien. Nor for that matter, some of the languages made up for these fictional aliens. Take Klingon — spoken by warrior aliens with — sigh —…