While talking about Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, one of the best hits of 2013, one cannot miss out Russell Crowe’s role as Superman’s father Jor-El. The character was significant in the film for briefly explaining the backstory of Krypton and its culture and even educating Kal-El that the symbol which looks like an ‘S’ is, in fact, a Kryptonian word which stands for hope.
Man of Steel was the starting point for more movies to be made in the DC Extended Universe. The Kryptonian language, which was first used in the standalone film went on to be used in 2016’s Batman v Superman as well.
The beautiful language that was created with painstaking effort by linguists and set designers were apparently spoken by Superman’s father in the film. However, The scene was later deleted as it did not fit in.
In an interview with the SuperHouse Podcast, Linguist Dr. Christine Schreyer said that Crowe spoke a bit of Kryptonese in the film, which later had to be cut. “They did film a few pieces because people got really excited about it, but it was in the middle of production and they were thrown in and they didn’t really flow with everything else, so they got cut out,” said Dr. Schreyer. She also spoke a bit of the language herself before going to describe how the language was used in the film.
Dr. Schreyer also said that the Kryptonian language was spoken by Jor-El in a conversation with Henry Cavill’s Superman. However, she seems to have forgotten the actual lines that she recorded for the film.
The scene in which Crowe spoke Kryptonian was not showcased on the Blu-ray for Man of Steel as well, even though it included a detailed audio and video commentary by Snyder, and many other production featurettes.
Schreyer works at UBC Okanagan as an associate professor of anthropology. Schreyer, who teaches courses in linguistic anthropology, also helped create the Eltarian language from the Power Rangers. The language was spoken by Rita Repulsa in the film.
It’s still possible that we may get to hear Kryptonian language in upcoming DC films (Man of Steel 2?). Perhaps, this year’s Justice League may surprise us with dialogues from the lost fictional language.
