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Lapine is a constructed language created by author Richard Adams for his 1972 novel Watership Down,...

Lapine is a constructed language created by author Richard Adams for his 1972 novel Watership Down, where it is spoken by fictional rabbit characters. The fragments of language presented by Adams consist of a few dozen distinct words, and are chiefly used for the naming of rabbits, their mythological characters, and objects in their world. The name "Lapine" comes from the French word for rabbit, lapin, and can also be used to describe rabbit society. Adams commented that the motivation for the sound of Lapine was that it should sound "wuffy, fluffy" as in the word "Efrafa". It is akin in some phonological respects to Arabic—for example, the Lapine name "Kehaar" is quoted as being reminiscent of the Arabic "Behaar"—and this was probably influenced by his time in North Africa in World War II. Fans of the book, including authors and academics, have attempted to expand on the few words and phrases extant in the corpus of "Watership Down" and develop it into a fuller language. Within the book, only the rabbits speak Lapine; other animals communicate in a lingua franca known as "hedgerow."