Lapine is an artificial language constructed by Richard Adams and spoken by the fictional rabbits of his novel Watership Down. The fragments of language presented by Adams consist of about a few tens of distinct words, and are used for naming rabbits, their mythological characters, and objects common to their world. "Lapine" comes from the French word for rabbit, lapin. An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose vocabulary and grammar were specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture as with natural languages. ... Richard George Adams (born May 9, 1920 in Newbury, Berkshire, England) is a British novelist who is best known for two novels with animal characters, Watership Down and The Plague Dogs. ... Peter Rabbit & wife, Benjamin and Flopsy Bunny and the little Flopsy Bunnies, from the Beatrix Potter stories This is a list of fictional rabbits. ... Watership Down For the hill named Watership Down, see Watership Down, Hampshire. ...

Adams commented that the motivation for the sound of Lapine was that it should sound "wuff-fluffy" (as in the name "Thethuthinnang") and akin in some phonological respects to Arabic (from his time in North Africa in World War II). For example, the proper Lapine name "Kehaar" is quoted as being reminiscent of the Arabic "Behaar". The Arabic language (; , less formally, ) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... North Africa is a region generally considered to include: Algeria Egypt Libya Mauritania Morocco Sudan Tunisia Western Sahara The Azores, Canary Islands, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Madeira are sometimes considered to be a part of North Africa. ... World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atom bomb. ...

Other authors, academics and fans of the book have attempted to expand on the few words and phrases extant in the corpus of "Watership Down" and develop it into a fuller language.

External links

• Expansion of the Lapine language by Patrick Jemmer
• Frithaes! A Guide To Colloquial Lapine
• Lapine Conlang Profile