SS Rajamouli is once again pushing Indian cinema into territory that very few filmmakers have attempted before.
Now, another fascinating detail has emerged about the film.
According to a report by Variety India, the Varanasi team has brought in a linguistic expert to develop the fictional language. The language will reportedly appear during one of the film’s time-travel sequences.
The sequence is said to involve the characters entering a cave where the walls contain writings in an ancient script. They have to understand the language and decode the writings to uncover mysteries connected to their journey.
Rajamouli has already experimented with this idea. Baahubali featured Kiliki, the fictional language spoken by the Kalakeya warriors. Varanasi appears to be taking the concept several steps further.
Creating an entire language involves more than inventing strange-sounding words. A proper fictional language needs its own vocabulary, grammar, syntax and writing system if it is going to play a meaningful role in the story.
International fantasy franchises like Game of Thrones expanded fictional languages such as Dothraki and High Valyrian with the help of linguist David J. Peterson. The languages became part of the identity of those fictional worlds rather than merely background details.
Now Rajamouli appears to be attempting something similar in Indian cinema with Varanasi.
The film stars Mahesh Babu, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Prithviraj Sukumaran and is being designed as a time-travel adventure spanning different locations and periods of history.
If the ancient script becomes an important part of the mystery, audiences may not just hear an unfamiliar language. They could actually see its written form, understand its rules and watch the characters gradually decode it.
That is a level of world-building rarely seen in Indian cinema.
Varanasi is scheduled to release on April 7, 2027.
