Constructed Languages Day 2 - What is a ConLang? ▪ We talked about “Far Cry Primal” ▪ Now let’s talk about you –What brings you to ConLangs? What is a ConLang? ▪ Short for “Constructed Language” ▪ I.e., not a “natural language” (NatLang) Artistic Languages ▪ Klingon, Sindarin, and Dothraki are all ArtLangs ▪ ArtLangs are “created for aesthetic, fictional, or otherwise artistic purposes” (Peterson, 2015: 21) Famous ConLangs ▪ First appearances of what modern scholars call ConLangs were for religious / magical purposes 1. Lingua Ignota, 12th c. CE 2. Balaibalan (Baleybelen), 14th c. CE 3. Enochian, 16th c. CE 4. Damin (???) ▪ Many consider these to be ArtLangs as well Lingua Ignota, 12th c. CE ▪ St. Hildegard von Bingen – Abbess, Christian mystic – Suffered from terrible migraines – Viewed as source of religious visions – Patron saint of ConLangers Lingua Ignota, 12th c. CE ▪ In early 1140s, v. Bingen received command from God to write down what she experienced – Divine revelation led to list of 1012 nouns, which primarily have to do with church ▪ Glossary from Ignota lingua per simplicem hominem Hildegardem prolata ▪ aigonz "God" ▪ zizia "beard" ▪ aieganz "angel" ▪ galschiriz "battle ▪ inimois "human being" axe" ▪ iur "man" ▪ ualueria "bat" ▪ vanix "woman" ▪ gabia "quail" ▪ peueriz "father" ▪ gluziaz ▪ maiz "mother" "spearmint" ▪ limzkil "infant" ▪ orschibuz "oak" ▪ subizo "servant" ▪ sapiduz "bee" Lingua Ignota : Example O orzchis Ecclesia, armis divinis praecincta, et hyacinto ornata, tu es caldemia stigmatum loifolum et urbs scienciarum. O, o tu es etiam crizanta in alto sono, et es chorzta gemma. Conjectured translation: O measureless Church, girded with divine arms and adorned with jacinth, you are the fragrance of the wounds of nations and the city of sciences. O, o, and you are anointed amid noble sound, and you are a sparkling gem. Ritual ConLangs : Balaibalan ▪ Created in Timurid or Safavid Iran, in 14 - 15th century CE – Creator ▪ mystic Fadel Allah (Fazlullah) from Asterabad, founder of Hurufism – Sufi doctrine, Azerbaijan ▪ or one of his followers ▪ or Muhyi-i Gulshani of Edirne, member of the Gulshani sufi order of Cairo – Means “Giving tongues to the tongue” in Balaibalan Ritual ConLangs : Balaibalan ▪ Only existing source of language is the Baleybelen-dictionary in the Bibliotheque nationale de France & the Princeton U library Ritual ConLangs : Balaibalan (14th-15th c. CE) ▪ Lexically, by and large an a priori language (vs. a posteriori) – ConLang whose features are not based on existing languages – Perhaps a secret language, designed as a holy or poetic language for religious purposes – Why? Was believed that each time God reveals himself to humans, was done so in a new language (Abraham [Hebrew], Jesus [Aramaic], Muhammad [Arabic], etc.) – Language viewed as a sign that new revelation would happen soon ▪ However, grammar looks to Persian, Turkish, & Arabic – E.g., agglutinative ▪ Written in Ottoman variant of Arabic abjad b f t g gh h p w v y m sh c k Balaibalan Phonology v ch z d j l n u r i s a e Balaibalan : Example -at ‘INF’ ▪ karat ‘to do’ -a ‘PROG’ ▪ karea ‘doing’ -e ‘DESID’ ▪ kare ‘want to do’ -i ‘PST’ ▪ kari ‘did’ -u ‘perfective’ ▪ karu ‘done’ ▪ eba kar ‘will do’ ▪ ebu kar ‘would do’ ▪ rea kar ‘have done’ ▪ reu kar ‘had done’ ▪ shuk kar ‘can do’, etc. Balaibalan : Example Bašāna y-Āna yafnāna yahabān. Yasnam ray-Ān čunā wazanas ragiwzāwa inaša fājā, afajaš famīma imafnā ra‘ālābī qājā, airfam aimafam ja maknad Sanaš zāt jāma inanšanā ayaxšanā, aja maqri almnābī čunāyā raikarfanā rāyā ya‘šanā. In the name of God, the Indulgent, the Merciful, Praise (be) to God, the Creator of the origin of all things (as) light, who (as) revelation originated from the mouth of those who praise his signs; ... and prayer and praise (be) to our Lord the Praised (Muhammad), origin of all derived and simple things, and (praise) to his family and his companions, who work for those well-meaning to them as mediator. Ritual Languages : Enochian (late 16th c. CE) ▪ Angelic language recorded by John Dee (right) & colleague Edward Kelley in England – Dee : occult philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I – Kelley: spirit medium Ritual Languages : Enochian (late 16th c. CE) ▪ Claimed language revealed to them by Enochian angels – Why Enochian? Acc. to Dee, Biblical patriarch Enoch last human to know language – Required to perform Enochian magic Enochian Alphabet (R to L) Enochian Example, beginning of First Call Ol sonf vorsg, goho Iad balt, lansh calz vonpho. I reign over you, sayeth the God of Justice, in Power exalted above the Firmaments of Wrath. Actual new language? Shows signs of glossolalia. (Laycock 2001) Enochian in the Media Ritual Language : Damin (??? - 1980s) ▪ Lardil Demiin ‘being silent’ ▪ Spoken only by initiated men on 3 islands in Gulf of Carpentaria, south of PNG – most notably by Lardil tribe on Mornington Island (Hale 1997) ▪ Lardil & Yangkaal people believe created by mythological feature in the Dreamtime – Scholars believe invented by elders ▪ Only non-African language to use clicks as part of regular phonemic inventory Damin, from Dixon 1980, The Languages of Australia “The striking feature of Damin is its phonology - besides the consonantal inventory of everyday Lardil (six stops, six nasals, a lateral, two rhotics and two semi-vowels), Damin also has four nasalized clicks - bilabial /m!/, dental /nh!/, apico-alveolar /n!/ and apico-domal /n.!/ - an ingressive lateral fricative /L/, a glottalised, or ejective, velar stop /k'/ and an ejective bilabial stop /p'/. No other language in Australia has sounds of this nature; Hale remarks that the nasalised clicks are like those found in Khosian languages of southern Africa but that he knows of no language with sounds like those which he symbolises by /L/ and /p'/ (the latter is formed not with glottalic pressure, but by creating pressure between the tongue and the bilabial closure). Damin has a system of only three vowels, a, i, and u, with contrastive length, whereas everyday Lardil distinguishes long and short varieties of four vowels, a, i, u and e.” Damin, from Dixon 1980, The Languages of Australia “The phonetician J. C. Catford has pointed out that Damin employs five phonetic initiation types - pulmonic egressive (which characterises ALL sounds in most other Australian languages), pulmonic ingressive (/L/), velaric ingressive (the clicks), velaric egressive (/p'/) and glottalic egressive (/k'/). No other language in the world has this variety of initiation types, leading Catford to 'perhaps hypothesize that [Damin's] sound system is a deliberately invented one.' (Interestingly, the Lardil attribute Damin to a legendary personality called Kalthad 'yellow trevally.')” Damin, from Dixon 1980 “Damin has a small vocabulary, perhaps no more than 250 words in all. It works mostly in terms of generics - m!i refers to any member of the class of vegetable foods, thuu is used for large sea-dwelling mammals such as dugongs and turtles, thii for elasmobranch fish (stingrays and sharks), Li for bony fish, n!un!u for liquids, and so on. Detailed specification is possible in Damin by appropriate modification of the generic noun: wiitjpur is the Damin term for various woods and wooden objects but a precise correspondent of Lardil mungkumu 'wooden axe' can be given by m!iwu titi-i-n wiitjpur, literally 'sugar-bag (= honey) chopping stick,' a reference to one of its major uses.” Damin, from Dixon 1980 “There is a Damin form for the negative pole of each major adjectival opposition, the positive term being derived by preposing kuri-, e.g. tjitjuu 'small,' kuritjituu 'large.' While Lardil has nineteen pronouns and several demonstratives, Damin has a two- term opposition, n!a 'ego' and n!u 'other' (no other language in the world is known to lack a contrast between first, second and third person singular pronouns). All bound grammatical forms are, however, identical to everyday Lardil. The fact that the suffixes used with Damin words are from Lardil (rather than being related to Lardil) can be seen from the occurrence of the normal four vowels of Lardil in these suffixes, as against the three-vowel system of Damin roots. Damin plainly involves the same semantic and grammatical system as Lardil, although lexical representation is at a more generic level; despite the phonological differences it is essentially a further variety of the Lardil language, rather than being any sort of separate language.” Damin : Example (Wikipedia) Ordinary ngithu dunji-kan ngawa waang-kur werneng-kiyath- Lardil n ur. gloss my wife's.younger.brother- dog go-fut food-go-fut gen[4] translation My brother-in-law's dog is going to go hunting. Damin n!aa n!2a-kan nh!2u tiitith-ur m!ii-ngkiyath-ur. Other types of ConLangs ▪ Auxlang (auxiliary language): created for international/intercultural communication – a created lingua franca ▪ Examples of Auxlangs: a.Solresol b.Volapük c.Esperanto (Ido) d.Latino sine Flexione, Basic English, Globish e.Lingwa de planeta Famous ConLangs ▪ AuxLangs’ purpose is to replace natural languages (NatLangs) as a means of communication across cultures. ▪ Why not already use an existing language? AuxLang : Solresol ▪ Devised by Francois Sudre, a French violinist, composer, and music teacher, in 1827 – His book Langue musicale universelle published 4 years after his death in 1866 ▪ Was popular for a short period of time, until the rise of Volapük and Esperanto AuxLang : Solresol AuxLang : Solresol AuxLang : Solresol ▪ Words made from 1-5 syllables (notes)