14 Ways To Say 'I Love You' In The World's Geekiest Languages
Here are better, more fictional ways to say 'I love you.'
Krakenimages.com | Shutterstock, cokada, anytka | Canva Everyone needs to hear “I love you” sometimes — even the unrepentantly geeky. But the way you say “I love you” is often as important as the words themselves. You have to tailor your declarations of love to their intended audience.
Some want to hear an over-the-top cheesy “I love you.” Others want “I love you” to be said quietly. And still, others want you to say “I love you” in Klingon while you’re wearing chain mail and 20 pounds of facial prosthetics. (It takes all kinds.)
Because geek love is awesome love. Fandom inspires passion in geeks of all shapes and sizes, so, of course, they want their “I love you”s to match their own particular obsessions. If you spend all your time with your partner, working on your couple Stormtrooper costumes, it makes sense that you’ll want to tell them “I love you” in the most Star Wars way possible.
Fortunately, geeks are devoted enough to their particular passions that they’ve even invented new and exciting ways to say “I love you.”
How do they do that? They create languages. Original, fictional languages. That’s right. Forget French, Spanish, and all the other romance languages. If you really want to tell a Game of Thrones addict that you adore them, why not double down and declare your eternal devotion to Dothraki?
If you want to woo a particular fanboy or fangirl — or if you’re just looking to find a date at the San Diego Comic-Con — here's how to say "I love you" in some of the geekiest fictional languages ever created.
Here are 14 epic ways to say 'I love you' in the world's geekiest languages:
1. “I love you” in Klingon (From Star Trek)
“QamuSHa'”
Klingon is one of the grand-daddies of fictional languages. Other books and TV shows created their own languages before Klingon, but Klingon really took off — inspiring phrasebooks, language camps, and so many sweaty convention proposals. Remember to growl this one at your bat’leth-wielding lover.
2. “I Love You” in “Na’vi” (From James Cameron’s Avatar)
“Nga yawne lu oer”
If your lover is super into Avatar (which remains one of the highest-grossing movies of all time), you know two things: that they’re really into big, dramatic declarations of love and that they know how to get blue makeup stains out of their bedsheets.
3. “I Love You” in Dothraki (From George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones)
“Anha zhilak yera norethaan”
Translates literally to “I love you completely.” Super-romantic when you’re saying this to your fire-proof, dragon queen. Be sure that someone is around when you say it.
4. “I Love You” in Binary
01001001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00001010
Because what could be geekier than declaring your love in the language of our eventual robot overlords?
RELATED: How To Say 'I Love You' In More Than 100 Different Languages
5. “I Love You” in Interlac (From DC Comics’ Legion of Super-Heroes)
This is some hardcore comic geek stuff right here. Interlac is the “designated communication language of the 30th century United Planets,” which you would know if you geeked out about the Legion of Super-Heroes, DC Comics’ long-running series about heroes in the far-flung future with crazy names like Cosmic Boy or Matter-Eating Lad.
We couldn’t find any spoken-word guides to Interlac, but it does have its own font, so here’s how you’d write “I love you” to your matter-eating lover in the 30th century:
6. “I Love You” in Esperanto
“Mi amas vin”
No worries if you’re not familiar with Esperanto — it’s like the metric system of languages. (Except, unlike the metric system, it didn’t just fail to catch on in the United States. It failed to catch on everywhere.) But still, it’s obscure enough to win you some major geek cred, and Esperanto has shown up in nerd staples like Gattaca, Red Dwarf, and William Shatner movies.
7. “I Love You” in Elvish (From J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings)
“Gi melin”
Tolkien geeks take language very seriously, so there are many different languages and dialects associated with the various races in the Lord of the Rings books. This “I love you” comes from the Sindarin Elf language, which probably means something to hardcore Tolkien fans.
So, before you get your Viggo Mortenson on with your date, make sure you’re trying to woo them in the proper elf fashion.
8. “I Love You” in Newspeak (From George Orwell’s 1984)
“Pluslike you”
Newspeak is the crazy language from Orwell’s dystopian classic that Big Brother uses to limit thought and creativity. So, if you want to say “love you” in the most totalitarian way possible, you might find this useful.
9. “I Love You” in Parseltongue (From J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series)
It’s hard to imagine anyone trying to woo a lover in Parseltongue, the official language of Lord Voldemort, and weird snake people, but, hey — it takes all kinds.
We couldn’t find a written transcript of how to say “I love you” in Parseltongue, but we did find an online translator (bless you, geeks) that gives an audio translation of how to say “I love you” to your favorite Parselmouth.
10. “I Love You” in Furbish
“Kah may-may u-nye”
Yes, Furbys — those bizarre talking fuzzballs that have, inexplicably returned to the public’s consciousness — have their own language. Which is almost as weird as their existence itself. So, if your partner is into odd artificially intelligent furry toys, they will love when you whisper this into their ears.
11. “I Love You” in Vulcan (From Star Trek)
“I ashaya du”
Our second Star Trek language on this list — it comes second because Klingon is more popular and, well, Vulcans aren’t supposed to be this emotional. But still, if your partner has ever called you “Spock” when it comes to expressing your emotions, this might be a good way to tick them off or get them hot under their Starfleet collars.
12. “I Love You” in Minion (From Despicable Me)
“Tulaliloo ti amo”
This is slightly less creepy than the Furby language, if only because the Minions are funnier and have made way more money at the box office. If your partner is into super-villains and ba-na-nas, they’ll love to hear this.
13. “I Love You” in Ewokese (From Star Wars)
“Meechoo nuv kush”
Star Wars, surprisingly, only has a few speakable fictional languages. Ewokese is one. (Official language of Return of the Jedi’s teddy bear picnic.) Another is Huttese. (Official language of Jabba the Hutt.) We’re confident in saying EWOK is the more romantic choice here.
14. “I Love You” in Alienese (From Matt Groening’s Futurama)
Hardcore fans of Futurama know that the writers made secret messages, written in a coded alien language, in almost every episode. So, if you and your partner consider yourself to be the Fry and Leela of the 21st Century, why not slide them a note, saying “I love you,” in the series’ patented alien code?
Here’s what it would look like:
Tom Burns has served as a contributing editor for 8BitDad and The Good Men Project, and his writing has been featured on Babble, Brightly, Mom.me, Time Magazine, and various other sites.