Language Creating Project
This is a semester-long project that is designed to have you as part of a small
group build a “real” language. There are eleven modules as part of this project
(environmental and cultural focus, sound charts, allophones, words, and affixes, sentence
construction, transformations, dialectical differences, greetings/taboos/euphemism, social
differences in languages, gesturing and teasing, borrowing, and orthography). At the end
of the semester each group will present and discuss its language to the rest of the class.
Requirements:
Each language group will keep a notebook. The notebook will record meetings, modules,
and group signatures. If you choose to do your work on a computer, you must print up
each meeting time and place and summary of what occurred during the meeting and clip
it into a three ring binder.
If you would like, you can assign each person a specific task. Here are some suggestions:
 Cultural focus (ethnographer)
 Consonants and vowels (phoneticist)
 Phonemes, allophones, and conditioning (phonologist)
 Base forms, affixes, allomorphs (lexicographer, morphologist)
 Sentences, structure (syntactician, grammarian)
 Differences, politeness (sociolinguist, discourse analyst, pragmaticist)
 Kinesics, proxemics (non-verbal communication specialist)
 Writing system (orthographer, scribe)
 Change (historical linguist)
It is fine to invent alternative names!
Each Notebook will have the following modules (Don’t worry these will become
clear in class and with your readings):
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Environmental and Cultural Focus
o Choose a cultural focus for your group based on your environment
(e.g., Inuit have lots of words for snow and seal fishing).
o Provide a 1 to 2 page summary of your environment and your cultural
focus).
Consonants (Your language will need some consonants)
o Begin by choosing 8 to 12 consonants to use
o These can be as complex as you wish
o Be sure each person in the group can pronounce them all
o Use phonetic symbols and I.P.A., which we will go over in depth
during Week 3.
o Do not use English spellings
o Put your consonant symbols into chart form
 use the workbook charts as models.
Vowels (Your language will also need some vowels)
o Choose between 4 and 6 vowels to use
 be sure everyone can pronounce them
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o These should be simple vowels
 although you can use them to make dipththongs (to be
explained during Week 3).
o Use phonetic symbols (use the I.P.A.)
o Again, do not use English spellings
o Put your vowel symbols into chart form
 use the workbook charts as models.
Phonemics, allophones
o Assume each of your sounds is a phoneme
o Now create a pair of allophones for one phoneme:
 Choose one phoneme and create a variant
 OR
 Convert two phonemes into allophones of one
o Your allophones should resemble each other
 same manner or place of production, e.g.
o Create a rule to describe the distribution of the two allophones.
 beginning vs end of a word?
 following certain sounds?
 preceding certain sounds?
 See Workbook/Reader pp 48 (3.8) and 49.
Base forms—thing words, action words, descriptive words, people words,
function words.
o Please create base forms for:
 9-12 things
 visible body parts, movable items, parts of the room
 4-6 actions
 sit, stand, give, touch, open, close, lift, put down
 2-6 people
 you, me, I, we, he/she/it, you/y’all, we two, we three
 6-8 descriptors
 size, color, number
 2-5 indicators/places
 the, a, this, that, that-over-there, in, at, on, under
 Anything else of interest (consider your cultural focus)
o Use only the sounds in your charts.
Affixes—to go with your base forms, please create:
o an affix to derive one kind of word from another
 e.g. things from actions, or actions from things
o an affix to inflect one kind of word
 for example:
 gender: male, female, neuter...
 number: single, plural, dual, triple, inclusive,
exclusive…
 shape: flat, thin, round, square, oblong, 3-D, floppy...
 time: now, soon, never, always, yesterday, today,
tomorrow…
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validity: witnessed, heard about, heard from reliable
source…
 comparison: strong, stronger, strongest...
o Use only the sounds on in your charts!!!
Allomorphs (not mandatory, but if you feel ambitious):
o develop a pair of allomorphs for one of your morphemes
o develop a rule to explain where to use each allomorph.
Syntax
o Decide on word order for your language
o SOV, SVO?; adjective + noun? noun + adjective?
o Create a simple declarative sentence type
o Develop a way to ‘transform’ the sentence:
o Create negative AND interrogative expressions
o Create at least one tense (past, future, evidential)
o Insert a word
o Or add an affix
o Or change the order of words
o DO NOT just change intonation
o Create a tree to show each sentence type.
Language in Action—Difference in Action
o Identify some different linguistic situations
o formal/informal, teasing/serious
o Or identify a ‘difference’ in identity
o male/female, Senior/Junior, major/non-major
o choose a way for your language to index (mark, indicate, signal) these
differences
o degrees of loudness?
o Specific words only used by one group?
o Specific words only used in certain situations?
Politeness and greetings
o create a greeting
o create a farewell
o taboo a word
 why did you taboo this word?
o create a euphemism for it
 why did you choose this euphemism?
Kinesics and Proxemics
o define degrees of space:
 private, personal, social & public
o Create two or three gestures:
 friendly, obscene, teasing, aggressive, etc.
Writing (optional--but why not make your language look great!)
o create an orthography for your language
Change (borrow words)
o Meet with another group and choose a couple of their words that
would be useful to have in your language.
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Presentation (15 minute skit)
o Everyone should present.
o Explain your language in the first two to three minutes.
o Present your skit based on your cultural focus and language.
o Be prepared to answer a minute or two of questions.