#i come adjacent to it because adaptation theory rubs up against translation theory which also Isn't linguistics but there's overlap

[innocet]

Sherman's Gallifreyan is interesting in this regard — because I think it did appear a couple times on the show before? But not on such a prominent prop yet, as far as I remember. And I, too, am so happy that now it has. :) Because I've been doing another thing in personal writings for a while — combining it with Teegarden Gallifreyan, which is a conlang without a documented script, at least not anywhere I can find, to get writing where both layers are not-English. It's fun either way, with one or both layers, though. I've wondered before what the 'this is only a script, not an entire conlang' thing is supposed to mean in-universe. Does the TARDIS translate the language, but not the script? Does the Doctor write some things in English, but in Gallifreyan script for some reason or other? Is Gallifreyan just canonically English with weird letters, like the whole 'you look Time Lord, we came first' thing? Is this all linguistic bubble wrap that represents, theatrical-style, something weirder but less achievable in practice? Fascinating to think about.

Yeah!! I know basically nothing about linguistics; my fluency in Sherman's came from a habit of doodling in it while in high school, so I don't have many coherent or valuable thoughts about it as a diegetic language. As with all translation matrix implications, it's all a bit wibbly. I think what actually might be going on in-universe with this language is Weird, and what we're seeing is a narrative tool to stop episodes from becoming hour long debates about the nature of translation.