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RUNNING HEAD: THE LANGUAGE THEORY OF CONSTRUCTING LANGUAGES
Sociology Report
Construct Language Theory
Pamela Tenesaca
John Jay College
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RUNNING HEAD: THE LANGUAGE THEORY OF CONSTRUCTING LANGUAGES
Introduction
Throughout history, languages have been created for various reasons such as: a means to
communicate with one another, to avoid conflicts between people, and to unite people together
as a whole. However, we currently live in a different era where we create new languages
(conlangs) to artistically express ourselves. There are many reasons why some people construct
their own languages. Some people want to create a language that fits into their own world.
“Others are contracted by motion picture studios to make a language that’s an artistic match for
an already imagined world” (Schott, 2010). While others want to find out how conlang impacts
the human mind and society. In order to construct languages, people need to learn the following:
phonology (the study of sounds), morphology (composition of words), syntax (composition of
sentences), and the lexicon (the vocabulary rules you need to memorize) (Emrys, Fink and
Petterson, 2015). In this study, we will be conducting an experiment to figure out if our cultural
background plays a role in constructing languages.
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Literature Review
A conlanger (a person who construct languages) must learn some important aspects of
linguistics in order to construct languages. To write phrases or sentences the conlanger needs to
learn about the sound system (phonology), the basic rules for word formations (morphology), the
rules for sentence formations (syntax), and the roots of words that are used. To write a language
for other people to speak, the conlanger must take note of the following: the rules for structuring
conversational texts between the speaker and receiver (pragmatic); and the rules for writing
different styles in various writing genres (stylistic). Another thing to keep in mind is to know the
study of phonetics. Phonetics is the sounds or pronunciations that language speakers create. It is
written either in square brackets (phones) or between slashes (phonology). Phonemes are the
basic unit of languages because different phones make the difference between different words.
Once a language has its own words, the conlanger must decide the order of the subject, object,
and verb in their sentences (Emrys, Fink, and Peterson, 2009). In addition, the author explicitly
explains the importance of conlang in linguistics. The use of conlang dates back in the early
times of ancient Greece. Most of the Greek’s snippets required them to make up words. In the
same token, its use can also be seen during the 12th century when the conlang called Lingua
Ignuta originated from the Latin language. This proves to show why colang is important in the
language development of individuals, and in linguistics (Emry, Fink, Peterson, 2009).
Ben Schott interviewed Akira Okrent to discuss about invented languages (conlang).
Akira talks about the reasons people construct languages. Some people create their own world or
culture where a language is needed. For instance; J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings used his Elvish language to express the worlds and cultures he created in
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his novels. Similarly, Klingon and Na’vi (language use in movie film Avatar) were built to
express cultural ideas seen in their own created worlds. “Some conlangers invent languages in
order to challenge themselves as an intellectual exercise” (Schott 2010). For example; the
languages that humans cannot speak are Rikchilk (a language by Denis Moskowitz) and Ilish (a
language created by Jeffery Henning). Rikckilk is language that was constructed for octopus like
aliens that use 7 tentacles to form combinations of shapes to make sounds. Ilish includes no
voice or movement; instead it was created for an eel-like fish that uses electric shocks to
communicate with others of its kind. Another reason for constructing languages is, “some people
are hired by major motion picture studios to construct a language that is an artistic match for an
already imagined world” (Schott, 2010). In fact, Klingon was invented by a linguist major named
Marc Okrand. This constructed language was created for the Star Trek movie series. Due to its
alien like language, it gained popularity from many Star Trek fans (Schott, 2010).
Conlangers have created a media audience for themselves so they can share their
constructed languages to the world. They created blogs or websites where anyone can express
themselves regardless of their sexual orientation. Based on a survey conducted by Sarah L. in
October 1998, many of the contributors to CONLANG were mostly people whose hobbies were
misunderstood by their family and friends. Most of these people invented languages throughout
their lifetime before they heard about CONLANG. Many of them were amazed by other peoples’
websites whom had a list of many different constructed languages. Thus, conlang plays impact
on peoples’ lives because they express themselves without being judged (Higley, 2000).
Methodology
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The researchers of this experiment wanted to know, does person’s cultural background
plays a role in constructing their own language? The hypothesis for this experiment was, in order
for an individual to create their own language they must use their first language as a reference. In
the beginning of this research experiment, the researchers had a group of 4 John jay college
students with different ethnicity backgrounds. There were two people in two different groups.
Group 1 had two female students. Group 2 had one male and one female student. In group one
the female student was Chinese and the second female student was Korean. In group two the
male student was Pilipino and the female student was Mexican. The researchers gave each
student the same 6 sentences. The six sentences included the following: two simple sentences,
two compound sentences, and two complex sentences. Moreover, the students were given
handouts of different types of symbols to give them ideas,so they would not feel overwhelmed .
They were also given a sheet of Latin roots and prefixes to give them the basis of constructing
their own language. They were given 20 minutes to translate the six sentences from English to
their own constructed language. After 20 minutes had passed time they were asked two questions
regarding on their new constructed languages. The following questions were: “what inspired you
to create your own language?” and “what is the name of your new language”. After they given
their responses, the researchers analyzed their results to see if answered their research question.
Results
For this experiment, the data collected was based on how the individual completed the task.
There were two groups; each group consisted of two people. Group 1 had two female students
from John Jay College. Group 2 had one male and one female student from John Jay College.
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Participant one from group 1 told the researchers that her background knowledge of Chinese and
English inspired her to create new words in her sentences. She named her language “Carpio” and
there was no meaning behind it. Based on the participant’s sentence structure she used pictures,
some Chinese characters and symbols to represent each word of the sentence. For instance:
sentence four (compound sentence) stated “every morning I drink chocolate milk, even though I
am lactose intolerant.” Participant 1 wrote “E” to represent “every”; she drew the sun to
represent “morning”; she wrote a Chinese character to represent “I” and she drew a seesaw for
the word “even though”. This shows how her first language Chinese had helped her to construct
her own language. She repeats this step for other sentences as well. Another example is shown
in sentence 5 (complex sentence) stated “As I am walking down the street, I heard someone
singing one of Taylor Swift’s song “Fairy Tale”. Participant 1 used a Chinese character for “I”;
she drew an ear for “heard”; she drew a music note and a written notebook for the word “Fairy
tale”. Her creativity and her use of Chinese characters helped her express her language
“Carpio”. This proves the idea of conlang, which states how languages originate from other
languages; it later becomes a rule when many people start speaking it. That is how languages are
first established (Emry, Fink, Peterson, 2009).
Participant two from group 1, named her language Koranglish because she said “I used
all four of the English vowels in my sentences, and some Korean characters as well”. Based on
her sentence structure she wrote a mixture of English letters combined with Korean characters.
The student hardly used any of the symbols sheet and the Latin prefixes-suffixes. Therefore, her
language played a big role in constructing her own language.
Participant 1 from group 2 drew pictures to represent each word of the given sentences.
He did not incorporate anything from his native language into his new language. He said “I took
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the idea of hieroglyphics, and incorporated this idea in my new language”. Sentence 1 (simple
sentence) stated, “Sally went to the Halloween party”. Participant 1 wrote Sally in English; he
drew an arrow for “went to”; he drew a creepy face for “Halloween”; and he drew a birthday
cake for “party.” As a result, participant 1 from group two did not use his first language to help
him construct a new language. However, the idea of conlang also states how creating languages
is a form of expressing ourselves and it tells others who we are (Higley, 2000).
Participant 2 from group 2 told the researchers that her background knowledge of the
Spanish and Portuguese language helped her construct her own language. Based on her sentence
structure she drew some pictures and used both languages as references. In this case, in sentence
2(simple sentence) stated “The cat wants to drink milk.” Participant two approached this
sentence by using the Spanish word gato for “cat”, and the Portuguese word “bebes” for “drink”.
It’s important to realize how her cultural background influenced her choice of words when
creating her own language. Henceforth, this indicates how having a cultural background of
languages inspire individuals to construct new languages.
As it been noted, only three out of the four participants used their cultural background to
help them construct their own conlang. However, only one participant used a different approach
to create his new language. This proves the idea of conlang, and how over the centuries
individuals incorporate their native language into their new constructed language (Emrys, Fink,
and Peterson, 2009). Therefore, all the languages that we know now used to be conlangs, before
they were ruled or established.
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Discussion
The result of this experiment proves how an individual can create their own language
based on their first language. But there is not enough information about the Conlang Theory,
which makes this experiment invalid. However, the researchers did manage to make a correlation
between the participants’ background and the language they created. This conclusion results
from the fact that three out of the four participants constructed a language that referenced their
ethnicity. The Pilipino created a language using strictly English characters, instead of his ethnic
language. However, this may have resulted from the fact that he knows more English than his
native language. There are many aspects of conlang that was not covered in this experiment.
With this in mind, the participants needed to know the following: the composition of words
(morphology), how the words fit together to form complete sentences (syntax), phonemes, and
the order of subject, object and verb in sentences. In this experiment the researchers did not
inform the participants that their sentence structure had to be grammatically correct; also that the
sentences must consist of SOV (subject, object, and verbs). In addition, this experimental design
was done poorly because there was not enough print outs of Latin prefix -suffixes for the
participants to utilize. This was probably the reason why majority of the participants drew
pictures instead of creating their own symbols or language characters. Lastly, the participants
were confused about the task given to them, because the researchers did not explain to them
about the theory of Conlang.
To conduct future research on the theory of Conlang, future researchers must consider
the following: it is recommended to change the research question to “what type of conlangs do
individuals find interesting?”; there should be a video explaining the idea of conlang for future
participants to comprehend; future researchers should show 5 minute videos on different types
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conlangs such as Klingon, Elvish, and Na’vi; there should be at least 10 questions regarding on
the importance of these conlangs, and how each participants felt about each conlang ; lastly, it is
recommended to make charts or graphs to indicate what type of conglang captured the interest of
the participants. Having a well- organized experimental procedure will make the research
credible and reliable for future references. Conducting this new research as discussed on the
pervious page, will show future researchers how conlang plays an important role in our society
and why it is important in the study of languages.
References
Sarah L. Higley. (2000) Audience, uglossia, and conlang: inventing languages on the internet.
m/c: a journal of media and culture 3(1). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/languages.php>.
Schott, B. (2010, March 10). Schott's vocab questions answered: invented languages. <i>New
York Times</i>. Retrieved January 18, 2015, from
http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/questions-answered-inventedlanguages/?_r=0
Emrys, S., Fink, A., & Peterson, D. (2009, December 28). Conlang 101. Retrieved January 20,
2015, from http://conlang.org/cl101.pdf
Addendum: Sentences
The six sentences used in this research experiment
1.) Sally went to the Halloween party. ( simple sentence)
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2.) The cat wants to drink milk. (simple sentence)
3.) Angela wants to hang out with her friend, but she is grounded for a week. (Compound
sentence)
4.) Every morning I drink chocolate milk, even though I am lactose intolerant. (Compound
sentence)
5.) As I am walking down the street, I heard someone singing one of Taylor Swift’s song
“Fairy Tale”. (Complex sentence)
6.) After the couple finished studying for chemistry, they both went to the movie theatre to
watch “The Fault in Our Stars”. (Complex sentence)
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