Inventing a new tongue

Tejaswat Kadam created a fictional language, Angae, for his animation series. He tells mid-day how linguistics add to storytelling and world-building

When Ayushman Kirar was a first-year foundation student at the National Institute of Design in 2023, like most juniors in the hostel, his gallivanting was cut short by a senior enlisting him in a project. Kirar’s skill at voice-acting was well-known, and Tejaswant Kadam, a final-year student, told him that’s what he would be doing for his project.

Four months later, he was summoned to the Bhopal campus’ sound studio and handed a script written in an unrecognisable script. An unspoken language was introduced to the world. Kadam had created an entirely new vernacular for his graduation project—Pandari.

It is an animated historical fantasy series about an eponymous protagonist caught in the middle of a war against the newly crowned queen of a fictional kingdom called Anga, set in the golden age of the Silk Route. He spent seven months on the project’s initial draft, of which two went into developing Angae. “World building is of utmost importance to me,” Kadam says. “The language represents the class structure within the story.”

The world of Pandari is inspired by three Indian cities, including Mumbai

The story is a critique of conflict, war, and morality. “We forget that in war, it’s people who suffer regardless of the side they pick. Pandari is a cautionary tale about a commoner who is far removed from those who lead the fight, but bears its consequences,” Kadam tells mid-day over the phone.

Pandari is creating buzz on the festival circuit and even won the ‘Best World TV/Web Series Pilot’ award at the World Indie Film Awards (WIFA) 2024.  His favourite part during interactions with viewers post screening is when they ask which language was being spoken, only to be told it’s the director’s invention.

The language is reflective of Kadam’s own cultural heritage as a Maharashtrian in Bengaluru. He studied archaic forms of Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, and Kannada to create Angae. “I started with studying old Devanagari [scripts] and moved onto understanding patterns of speech progression,” he says. He deliberated on intonation of the words and sentences, and developed a script.

Tejaswat Kadam, director and screenwriter

However, unsure of what would sound authentic in that time period, he explored regional languages but differed from them as well, fearing it would limit the work’s reach and came to a middle ground.

Pramod Kumar Marshal, his guide at NID, was reluctant about the original language. “Given that animation is still in its developing stage in India, my instructor didn’t think it was a good idea to make the audience get used to a new medium as well as a language.” But Kadam stuck to his decision, and international accolades have only validated his conviction.

Kirar, who voiced the primary antagonist, says Kadam was meticulous about voice direction: “He colour-coded the script to indicate tone and enunciation. It was mind-boggling because he was the only one working on the language.”

The voice actors were stoked to be on the team and went through a week’s training. To get them comfortable with Angae, Kadam broke down established patterns of speech. “When you’re used to a certain language, you’re used to its sounds. But we broke that conditioning through constant practice; we made the voice actors speak gibberish.”

Some voice actors are now comfortable enough to not require warm-ups. Arya Lede, who voices Pandari, was able to grasp new dialogues in minutes and record for re-edits.  Kirar cheekily admits that he randomly slips his dialogues in Angae in normal conversation, and he does so with us during our chat. 

The language is only a small part of a larger story—Kadam cannot wait for the audience to discover the mythical creatures that inhabit Anga. Pandari’s journey is far from over, and the artist is currently looking for producers to complete the show.

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