The why of conlanging, part 94

The good readers of the New York Times have been posing questions about constructed languages to a couple of conlang experts. Never one to miss an opportunity to fill out a questionnaire, here are my answers to some of the questions raised:

What is the process for "making up" a language? Do you just go on inspiration, or is there some preconceived structure to your work? In what order do you proceed? Where do you start?

There's lots of ways to construct a conlang. Some people like to follow a set of instructions or guidelines (such as the ones given in the Language Construction Kit), others prefer a more freewheeling, iterative approach to the endeavour, tackling whatever problem or issue takes their fancy at that time. Some people like to create language families, starting with an ancestor tongue then deriving new languages through shound changes (diachronics) and the like. I'm an iterative conlanger, myself, though I have used the cookbook approach on occassion.

Is any care taken to design the language around (or specifically avoid) the rules of Universal Grammar?

I tend to avoid all things Chomsky - on the rare occassions that I've wandered into linguistic theories I've found cognitive linguistics has been more helpful. Linguistic Universals, on the other hand, are much more fun - especially when it comes to working out how to break some of them in a conlang without breaking the conlang itself.

Do you create an alphabet first? When languages are invented, how do the creators choose the set of vowels and consonants the language will have? Do you utilize the International Phonetic Alphabet?

For my first conlang (Gevey), which I started working on when I was 12, I used the tools I had to hand - namely the sounds of the English language; as time goes by the phonology and orthography of the conlang have changed to meet my changing needs and desires for it. For more recent conlangs (such as Ákat) I've made more of an effort to decide on a phonology and sonority rules (for the syllable stuff) near the start of the construction process - if only to save my sanity: changing the phonology and orthography for a well-developed conlang can be a right bugger, especially if that conlang already has a significant web presence.

IPA is, in my view, an essential tool for any serious conlanger - it's the simplest way of describing the sounds of a conlang without having to resort to recording and posting snippets of the language.

How much (of a language) does one have to INVENT before constructing simple sentences?

Surprisingly little. The simplest conlangs are 'naming languages', for which all you need is a few ideas about how the conlang should sound together with a few roots and derivation rules allowing you to pull together nominal words and phrases for naming landmarks and settlements. Adding verbs into the mix is the point when things start to get interesting.

How do invented languages make room for pidgin or dialects or other natural language developments?

That's entirely up to the conlanger: what do they want their conlang to do, how do they want it to do stuff. Gevey has room for dialects, though I haven't done much work to develop them (yet). Ákat is a different matter, as I designed it to be a language constructed by philosophers within my constructed world Kalieda.

Do you invent a language from scratch without using one or more existing languages as models, or do you base the syntax or grammar on the syntax or grammar of an existing language?

My track record of learning natural languages other than my birth tongue is embarrassingly poor; all my conlangs are a priori, developed from scratch.

Is it preferable for a language (invented or non) to have a relatively small vocabulary?

This depends entirely on what the conlanger wants from their language. Having a well-developed set of derivation and neologism rules can help overcome the need for a large stock of original roots. Deliberately restricting the number of roots available was a key design strategy for Ákat, while no such constraint exists for developing the Gevey lexicon.

Given the mixed success (ongoing but limited speakership) of constructed languages like Esperanto meant to be used in daily life, what room is there for future constructed languages outside of the realm of science fiction/fantasy? Why else would someone construct a language, and how could one feasibly catch on without, say, a spaceship or Peter Jackson involved?

I approach conlanging as an art form; my conlangs are artlangs. I would be astonished if someone told me they wanted to learn one of my languages: I'd probably think they were nuts. I've never had an interest in developing an International Auxillary Language - with all due respect, IAL enthusiats scare me. I see my work on conlanging as a sort of Outsider Art; it's important to me but of little or no interest to others, which is fine.

What’s the best way to create a language for a book or series? … What are the most important things that readers would need as signposts to understanding?

A good naming language can really help add flavour to a book, as can throwing in the occasional oath or invocation. But too much flavour can ruin the narrative. Like most things in life, there's a balance to be had, and what works wonderfully for one reader will lead to another reader hurling the book across the room in frustration (book-wall interactions, as I like to call them).

How long a shelf life do movie languages have?

To be honest, not long. Of all the conlangs, philosophical languages and IALs developed in the centuries prior to the mid-20th century, only one continues to exist beyond the realms of a few diehard enthusiasts. Maybe the internet will change the average half-life of conlangs, maybe not. We'll see.

Wouldn’t it be fair to say that regardless of their inventiveness or complexity, and regardless of the work put into developing them from the "top down," none of these artificial languages (from Klingon and Elvish to Esperanto itself) will ever be more than an elaborate game of codification and translation, until a generation of children grows up speaking it from the "bottom up" (i.e. as a first language)?

This question only refers to IALs, yes? Like I said, why would anyone want to learn my conlangs? The beauty in a good artlang depends not in the numbers that speak the language (often 0 - I can't speak my conlangs fluently) but rather in the inventiveness of the conlanger's imagination and their ability to translate their vision into the concrete reality of the conlang itself.

What are the benefits of learning a constructed language that relatively few people use instead of a non-invented language that could help one communicate with others across the world?

Beyond self-satisfaction, there are no benefits to learning a conlang. Some people study natlang grammars for the fun of it.

What makes one invented language "better" or more realistic than another? Which constructed languages do you think have the most complete grammars?

See above. There's dozens of conlangs with comprehensive and well-written grammars online. For my part, I prefer to display my conlangs in a less formal manner.

Do people who invent and study made-up languages get grief from those who study dying "natural" ones?

No idea. Most conlangers I've met online are not linguists, though some younger ones have been inspired to study linguistics at college as a direct result of their conlanging interests.

Why not revive and disseminate an endangered language rather than make up a new one? Why would one choose to invent a new language (aside from the whole "wildest academic dreams" thing) rather than revive a "dead" language or a dying one, like Cornish or Manx?

'Reviving' a natlang is more a scientific and social endeavour than an artistic one. Heck, I failed my French exams twice: what hope have I got for leading the revival of a near-extinct language. For what it's worth, the best placed people for reviving a near-extinct language are probably the people from the communities that used to speak that language - why not give them the tools and support and see what they can do?

Why waste time with a language that has not aged, like a good wine, in barrels of love and passion?

My conlangs are aging very nicely in a bodega of love and passion, thank you for asking. Though my wine probably tastes like drain-cleaner to the rest of the world.

Gevey Babele translation: para #1

Tconju Babelen - the Tower of Babel

Do you both like the pretty scriptie? It's new - a brand new conscript I've developed for my Gevey conlang - more info (natch) on this page of the Kalieda Encyclopaedia.

In fact the whole language is undergoing some big changes at the moment - yes, even after three decades, I can still find an excuse to rip up my major conlang to redo things. Like giving the language a whole new latin script orthography. And messing around with prepositions to make them work better. A wholesale revision of the lexicon, changes and updates on lots of pages - though none of that is live at the moment; the key words being 'is undergoing'. Forty day's worth of work so far, and at least another 2-3 weeks to go.

What's this got to do with Babel, I hear you both asking? Well, naturally I have to update the Gevey translation of the Babel story, which of course gives me an opportunity to rewrite it. I've never really been comfortable with the existing translation - even adapting it to meet the needs of my conworld, it still reeks of Genesis. So over the next week I'll be translating a new adaption of the old tale.

Here's the English version:

---

The Tower of Babele

During the age of the four Grandsons all the people of the world spoke the same language. Humanity had spread across the continents and oceans, for in that time all the soils of Kalieda were sweet and productive. And where people gathered they built themselves towns and even cities.

It is said that the youngest of the Grandsons, the Lord of Storms, lived in the east of our continent, in the area we now call Cantane. People whispered that he was the least of the four Grandsons, being the last born. When the rumours reached his ears, he grew angry and wrathful. Many people died.

Then a man, seeing the slaughter, went to his Lord and said: 'If I tell you of a way to prove to all people that you are the greatest of Lords, will you stop the killing?'

'Tell me,' said the Lord of Storms, 'and I shall consider it.'

'Let us build a tower, my Lord, a tower so strong and so high that it shall touch the stars. Then no one will doubt that you are the greatest man in the world. But you must stop killing your people, otherwise there will be nobody left to witness your worth and your wisdom.'

'Build me this tower,' he commanded. And so the slaughter was stopped and everybody was set to work scouring the forests around them for wood, gouging the earth for clay and blocking wide rivers for water.

Seasons passed, and slowly the tower grew. Young boys became grandfathers and still the tower grew, passing through the clouds that gathered around to watch this strange activity. Such was the wonder that people from across the world flocked to its base, and the city of the Lord of Storms became the biggest and richest city in the world.

One day an old beggar wandered into the city, and stood to look up at the tower. 'What is the meaning of this thing?' he asked.

'We call it the Tower of Babele, the Lord of Storms,' a man told him. 'It is the greatest thing in the world.'

'Why is it so tall?'

'It is as tall as our Lord's pride.'

'Is it a temple?'

'Who needs temples when we have the tower?'

'But what need do you have of such towers when the Creator has given you mountains to marvel at?'

'We can build our own mountains,' laughed the man. 'We are now more than the Creator could ever have imagined, if he had ever existed!'

And the Creator smiled at the man, and breathed in deeply, and grew, and grew, and grew. Tornadoes formed around him as his height increased, buildings collapsed at the stretch of his feet. Storm clouds built a crown of lightning for his brow. Within minutes he was as tall as the tower, and still he grew.

The Creator said: 'Listen to my judgment! I have seen a man's greatest work, and I see nothing worthy of mankind. There is more beauty and power, grace and honour in the building and birthing of a new baby! This tower shall die today,' and with a touch of His finger the great erection collapsed.

'Go now,' ordered the Creator, 'and learn once again the purpose I gave to your ancestors. See with fresh eyes the world around you. Worship with new words the wonders of the sea, and the air, and the soil upon which you live!'

This is the story of how the over-pride of humanity led to the loss of our common ears and our common tongues. For from that moment, the peoples of the world were scattered, and none could understand the words of their neighbours, their friends, their children. Only one word did the Creator permit all people to keep: babele, that is confusion, to remind us all of how we allowed ourselves to be mesmerised by our own works, forgetting the world about us.

Rikweb website statistics

So last December, as I was sorting things out with my webhost, I got them to add Matrixstats to my service so I could keep track of comings and goings at the Rikweb website. They were offering it for free, and I'm not a person to turn down free stuff - especially shiny free stuff like Matrixstats.

And then, after I got it all set up and running, I promptly forgot about it. Until today, when I stumbled upon the wonderful shininess of website statistics once again. Completely by accident, of course, but then that's often the best way to do these things.

Now webstats, in my view, are pretty meaningless in their raw state. The total number of hits is not a measure of web-worthiness. Especially if a lot of those hits are coming from spiders and other creepy crawlies clambering all round the site to feed snippets back to the Google mothernest. But some of the stats are interesting.

For instance, over the past 10 months over 23,000 sessions requested more than one page on the website, which probably translates into over 20 thousand people (ie humans with pulses and suchlike) visiting the site. Thats 2,000 people knocking on the door each month.

Yes, I know, that's peanuts for a website. But then rikweb.co.uk is not trying to sell anything to anyone, nor am I paying for adverts to get people to visit the RikVerse or the Kalieda Encyclopaedia, nor do I spam my links (much).

More exciting to me, 6,000 sessions (people) have spent more than 15 minutes browsing through the website during their visit - which translates to 600 people a month, or 20 people a day. This is ten times more people than I ever hoped for: I'd be happy if just 2 people a day popped by for a browse!

And then I found the statistics for downloads (in other words how many times my poetry chapbook files have been downloaded) ... and I was blown away.

Over the past 10 months:

• 22 Facets of my Father has been downloaded 177 times


• Play Time has been downloaded an amazing 218 times


• From Each Skull, a Story has been downloaded 168 times


• and that raunchy little tome Poems to Quote to your Lover has been downloaded 172 times

So even if only 10% of those downloads were by people who wanted to download my poems, that's still a lot of people who cared enough about my poems to download them. If you were one of those people, can I just say: thank you! I hope you enjoyed reading my poems.

... and no, you can't have a refund.

Jobhunting

Looks like the redundancy money will be running out quicker than I had hoped. Which means that I'm starting the process of looking for work. Though I won't have to look to hard this side of crimbotide. Bastard bankers and politicians ruining the economy.

Anyways, the CV is loaded onto the Guardian Jobs website (at least I think it is - they're sending me links to jobs they think I'll be interested in). This time next year I'll probably be comfortable in the shackles chaining me to the office workstation, and resigned to the daily commute.

In the meantime, I still have the luxury of applying for jobs that are a little more off the wall. I'm currently pulling together a submission for a work contract in a creative area rarely trod by others; the competition looks stiff, but you never know. The rewards, should I win the contract, will be modest - though there may be a credit involved too, my name appearing in the listings somewhere alongside Best Boy, Dolly Grip, and Assistant Teamaker to the Executive Producer's Chauffeur. More I cannot say: merely to bid for the contract I've had to sign papers promising to mention or discuss nothing (beyond what is already public knowledge) about the work or the employers. What I can say is that this opportunity excites me far, far more than any of the posting adverts the Guardian is ever likely to send my way.

my latest poem's a bit different ...

... on account of being my very first Akat poem:






Making any sense yet? No? 'Kay, let's try looking at it written out in a more conventional script:

ninagreqesetfùxzavihxda!otoks syhnfos tiàpakúvezda!dot
ciriàkasêfuszyhnvihxzbabda!ateqs àfos tioỳkyk myliùadobáot
ỳqykentaphriáke! egrexezeibadêhcòhxdoul mylàcupniàsyssysap
cirivz ỳkelcitaqoksiéfoxhnest fylivz ésefliỳfopehnit

Not working, huh. How about if I add some sound info to them there letters:






... that's IPA letters up above; they tell you how to say things rather than pretending to tell you like those delinquent latin letters.

By this point you should be able to read out the poem and admire the sounds - though given that this is the first 'poem' I've written in the language it's probably not what the native speakers would consider to be sonically pleasing.

But in case you're after some more visual information, how about we look at the poem through the lens of a different script:






Sure is pretty, huh? There's some form coming through now. See how there's an equal number of columns in the first three lines? That's a common technique for some flavours of Akat poetry - ruined in this instance by the last line only being eight and a half columns wide.

Is it a poem for you yet?

No?

'Kay, here's a translation of the poem. It is, like all translations, a bit of a dog's dinner - to make it seem more 'poetic' in English, I've had to sacrifice some of the poetry in the original:

Night steals my chest-cradled terror
like the hawk lifts a rat from the wheat;
you loosen your hair, let it flutter
in the moon's breeze - a nest
for faces: two bleached eggs.

... and anyways, I never claimed it was a good poem ...

Sprucy!

Following the unexpected link from Mr Ron's blog, I thought it was time for the poetry website to get a quick spruce-up. Five poems in the Workshack have been killed, and a further ten promoted from the 'shack to the comforting obscurity of the Archives.

I've also re-hung the Showcase - it hadn't been touched for over a year!

One last development: the Rikweb Forum is up and running, and slowly becoming populated with archive data and suchlike - for instance, all my short stories are now ensconsed within its shelves, alongside a single thread for the Rik's Blog Story work in progress. There's even some short excerpts from the book wot I wrote - though that book faces a reasonably major revision in January before being submitted to Agents (again).

On the poetry side of things, I've done threads for each NaPoWriMo bloodbath, together with details on how each day's draft subsequently fared. And there's plenty of stuff for the Conlanging and Conworlding lovers amongst us - in particular, a whole subforum dedicated to Ákat translation sentences (complete with logoscripts), for those who like such things.

As the Man said: enjoy!

Happy feasting ...

(as the Nakap philosophers would write, and say)

Ákat - as constructed by logoscript

This is an Ákat sentence, as rendered in the Ákat logographic script:



Want to know what it means?

Well, over the past few months I've been conducting an occasional teach-in on this very question over at the Scriptorium website, and tonight I've made the post that completes the exercise. Of course, the thread isn't finished - the above example is fairly simple. Next up, we'll be tackling this little bugger:



And people though Hallowe'en was scary stuff!


People occasionally ask me why I bother to conlang - invent my own languages. My response is simple: it's art. In fact, I think conlanging is where a person can really come to terms with the English language: who needs the Avant Garde poetics'n'stuff when you've got conlanging, huh?

It's ART! Enjoy it!

Kalieda Encyclopaedia - the answers

Just in case people looked at the questions I posted before Crimbotide and are wondering what the answers were, here's the answers:

1. How much of the planet surface is covered by ocean?
Around 87.5 per cent of the surface of the planet is water, with just 12.5 per cent being land - link to page.

2. What is the current total population of the continent of Cheidrah?
Approximately 11 million, from a pre-Disaster high of just under 54 million - link to page.

3. In which orbit did the ice at the north pole first fail to melt?
The website doesn't give an exact date for this, for various reasons. Currently the best answer available is provided on the 'Lands of the Ambostak Society' webpage: "The Hambosga authorities first grew worried about the impending Disaster in the early 460s, when the northern ice first failed to break up during the summer months, but chose at that time to concentrate on developing new crop strains resistant to the cooler weather. Not until the early 520s did the authorities begin to view the Disaster as a serious threat to the continued existence of all Hambosga Society." - link to page.

4. How much of the total life on the planet is classified as Type Two lifeforms?
Over 95 per cent of all Kaliedan life is Type One life, with less than 5 per cent being Type Two - link to page.

5. Where does 'boucha' come from?
"Not only can people eat the meat and drink the milk produced by the goats as they start the work of soil brewing and cultivation, but they can take the stomach microflora and produce 'boucha' - a sort of living pancake which can be introduced to a wide variety of Type One produce to turn the inedible into life-supporting foods." - link to page.

6. What makes the Zeenore Ark unique?
" ... it is the only aquatic haven discovered anywhere on the continent. Lifeforms include seemingly mythological creatures such as water-algae, reeds, snails, leeches, shrimps and fish - some of which grow to more than half a metre in length" - details given on the same page as the Q5 answer.

7. The Ramane State collapsed in which orbit?
"The collapse of the old Ramane State, in 796, was both rapid and bloodless." - details given on the same page as the Q3 answer, and also on the Land of Ramane webpage.

8. Why is Fenstrhuuwine different from other Ambostak cities?
There's a number of reasons, the main one being the continued existence of the Kumatti culture and language in the city and surrounding settlements - link to page.

9. Where do the Ba'hadim people live?
In the Land of Ba'hade - link to page.

10. On which river will you find the Exile's Rock?
On the Nuulimuu river, at latitude 23.4°N - link to page.

11. The New Bartekol Agreement was signed in which orbit?
Orbit 751. "The New Bartekol Agreement was a formal treaty between the members which reorganised Bartak Society into a series of Lands and established a new, tightly limited administration - initially based in the city of Defe." - link to page.

12. What beverage do people from the city of Krhiste drink at weddings?
"The 'national' alcoholic beverage is said to be fermented goat milk. It tends to be drunk on important occasions - birthdays, pair-bond ceremonies, deaths - though most people, given a choice, will drink imported alcohol before touching the local brew." - link to page.

13. Translate the Gevey phrase 'tuusrhe jarhizhe loifen velizhe'
'The old man's big dog' - you can work it out from the examples on the Gevey modifiers webpage.

14. If someone in the city of Gevile served you 'shnaathuu', what would you be eating?
"You would probably have been born in one of the jaarvagzuush (temple infirmaries) found across the city. Your moeme (mother) would have given birth standing or crouching, assisted by a jwe'he (midwife). Your bizhve (father) would probably not have been present at the birth. Your shnaathuu (placenta) would almost certainly have been cooked and shared between the whole family." - link to page.

15. Who invented Balanced Ákat?
"Balanced Ákat is, in essence, a reformed language which was first developed around a thousand orbits ago by spiritual, ecological and other groups (who called themselves the Nakap) living in the Telik Nations on the continent of Falah. The purpose of the reforms originated in the thinking of the Nakap philosophers, whose aim was to align human thought and action with that of the natural and spiritual (they called it "real") world in which they believed all people lived." - link to page.

16. In Ákat grammar, what are 'the guests at the feast'?
The agent and patient markers on the verb - link to page.

17. How many main calendars are found across the continent of Ewlah?
Lots, but there's four main ones - link to page.

18. Who was Joes the Explorer?
"You will have heard stories of Joes the Explorer? Joes was the captain who lost his way sailing the Northern Oceans, whose life was saved by his discovery of the Fire Isles long after his ship had run out of food and fresh water ..." (from the Istran creation myth story) - link to page.

19. Which team currently leads the Weestruu Cauvizhuu?
As of this moment of posting, following the Round 18 results, Merundeme have 31 points, with Tratintesh at 29 points and Tuusrhesh on 25 points. With four rounds of the season left, it's beginning to look like a two-horse race - link to page.

20. How do òicustiỳtac players pronounce the name of their game?
/jO.i.XUs.ti.jA.t{X/ - link to page.

The Kalieda Encyclopaedia

After that nasty fifteen minute encounter with 'poetry', something much more interesting and upbeat. I am very proud to announce that the Kalieda Encyclopaedia is once again up-and-running.

And to get you both in the mood to explore the Bumper Book of Kalieda Facts, here's some fun questions:

1. How much of the planet surface is covered by ocean?
2. What is the current total population of the continent of Cheidrah?
3. In which orbit did the ice at the north pole first fail to melt?
4. How much of the total life on the planet is classified as Type Two lifeforms?
5. Where does 'boucha' come from?
6. What makes the Zeenore Ark unique?
7. The Ramane State collapsed in which orbit?
8. Why is Fenstrhuuwine different from other Ambostak cities?
9. Where do the Ba'hadim people live?
10. On which river will you find the Exile's Rock?
11. The New Bartekol Agreement was signed in which orbit?
12. What beverage do people from the city of Krhiste drink at weddings?
13. Translate the Gevey phrase 'tuusrhe jarhizhe loifen velizhe'
14. If someone in the city of Gevile served you 'shnaathuu', what would you be eating?
15. Who invented Balanced Ákat?
16. In Ákat grammar, what are 'the guests at the feast'?
17. How many main calendars are found across the continent of Ewlah?
18. Who was Joes the Explorer?
19. Which team currently leads the Weestruu Cauvizhuu?
20. How do òicustiỳtac players pronounce the name of their game?

There will be extra helpings of ice cream to folks who manage to answer more than four questions correctly. Seven correct answers will get you an extra shiny Gold Star. More than ten and I'll know you've been cheating.

Most importantly, of course: have fun!

Conlangs make the news

... or rather, the LA Times, courtesy of reporter Amber Dance. An interesting and well-written piece, I think.

In their own words -- literally, Amber Dance, LA Times, 24 August 2007.

Kalieda time

People over at the ZBB have been talking about time. It's not just about tenses; what if you design a universe where you can go back and kill your Grandparent - and live. Given that the Kalieda universe is the same as our universe, the grandma issue remains a puzzle. But here's a contribution from me on how my confolks think of time ...

Kaliedan science does not view time as a sequence of events - that's just cause and effect. Rather, they view time as an accumulation of information that passes from one moment to the next moment (as perceived by humans, who they believe tend to operate by taking 'digital' snapshots of their 'analogue' surroundings). In this view, information is continually gathered, but is also lost as it is forgotten or destroyed.

Kaliedan science sees people mostly as a bundle of reactions to stimuli. Large-scale future actions of people can be predicted on knowledge of their past reactions - leopards don't change their spots. Consciousness (sp?) is an artifact of brain activity - a predictive mechanism for guessing the short- and long-term possibilities based on history. Free will exists within the constraints of habits and physical possibilities.

For Kaliedan science, time travel is not an issue. If you want to change the past, you change the information. The idea of travelling back in time to kill your grandfather is nonsensical, as your grandfather is manifest in your genetic information - which is impossible to supress. It makes a lot more sense just to claim your grandfather was in fact someone else - killing your grandfather by denying the existence of his information in you; if enough people believe you, you have killed your grandfather.

Many Kaliedan scientists are also religious people. Religion is seen as a human construct - a social contract between people which is part of humanity's genetic inheritance - a survival trait, if you like. It's also a big comfort to believe in something. God (or gods, spirits, demons etc) exists because people have constructed an information base in which god can exist, and their reactions and decisions are based on this information base - thus god is made manifest in the world without having to go to the bother of actually existing.

The cognitive metaphors associated with the passage of time vary between languages. Ramajal, the main Ambostak Society language, has a view of time a a road to be travelled upon (information is gathered as you journey along the road, you have limited information of what is in front of you, but a more extensive collection of information about the past, stored as memories, notes, photos, friends, offspring, etc). Thus the past, present and future are viewed as an integral part of space-and-motion within the language.

Gevey, the main Balhe Society language, prefers to view time as a series of interlocking circles and springs - for Gevey speakers time is a separate entity from space-and-motion; it has its own oblique case. Gevey also has two past tenses, one for acts with unavoidable consequences and the other for acts whose consequences can be ameliorated by applying some free will.

A third example are the Telik languages, spoken by the Telik peoples. Their languages' view of time is similar to the Ambostak view of time, except here the direction of travel is different - the direction of time is upwards, from the future beneath one's feet to the past above one's head. For the Telik, the future is not something that is encountered as one travels, but rather something that can be prepared, tended, planned for. The past is in the skies (some believe you can see history in the formation of clouds or the position of the stars - information that can be used to cultivate a preferred future).

Logographic scripts

Whoever came up with the Chinese writing system was out of his tree and off down the garden path in his three-wheel trolley. Even developing a system of writing that uses thousands of stylised pictures over the course of hundreds of years is, in my view, an act of bedlamic proportions on the part of the society that did it.

So of course I had to try it for myself.

The script below says: "The food has lost its taste" in my constructed language Ákat. I think it looks rather nifty. Of course, it isn't the full logographic swuush (that's a technical term, by the way) - my logographic script will be restricted to no more than a thousand different logobits (another technical term) which can be combined to form phrases and sentences.



More stuff on the various Ákat scripts can be found here and here. Enjoy!

Ugly bags of mostly water

Now, I know that my conlanging habit is a bit, well, wierd. But I'm happy to indulge myself because I know nobody is harmed in my pursuit of my hobby. Unless they ask me about it, of course, in which case I'm quite happy to bore them into taking refuge in the cat litter as I whitter on about conjunctions and the importance of redundancy in a constructed language.

I can't imagine that anyone would want to make a film about conlangers. I mean, Derek Jarman made a 2 hour film of blue paint drying (or something) and, even with no soundtrack, that would be more interesting than a film about conlangers.

Believe me on this point. I am a conlanger. I have a good understanding of my capacity to bore.

But then something comes along and I think that maybe I really am living in an alternate reality. For instance, somebody really has gone and made a film about conlangers. It's called Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water. I can do no more than quote the synopsis from the film's website:

On August 1, 2003, 33 people met at a Philadelphia hotel to celebrate and speak a language from Outer Space. The comical documentary, Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water, captures the life, passions and quirks of the members of the Klingon Language Institute. Interviews of KLI members (Linguists, Psychologists, Star Trek fans and steadfast individualists), reveal the intellectual, fraternal, liberating and no-nonsense, direct qualities they enjoy within the constructed-from-pop-culture Klingon language. From Louise Witty, who becomes fascinated with the language from her interest in Star Trek boots (and then fabricates and sells them) to a Paintball King who shouts strategic, military movements in the Klingon tongue, Earthlings examines the interplay between culture and language, communication and emotion, and the rather delicate line between reality and fiction.

Produced within a visually interesting and texture-filled, Sci-Fi style setting, Earthlings might be categorized as a Picture Show, a highly-stylized subjective documentary that emphasizes specific narrative strands and takes liberty with the tone, pacing and composition for comic effect. This is not a Trekkies (1994) imitator, but instead an entertaining view of an intellectual (and not-so-intellectual) endeavor to sort out and to explore humans and language, and the definitions of success and failure.

I can see the queues forming already.

But don't let my cynicism get in the way of anybody going to see the movie. Instead, lets hear from some people who (claim to) have already seen it. Mr Cranky gives the movie 2 bombs. He concludes his review by saying:

"You'd think there'd be ample opportunity to mock this curious assemblage, but director Alexandre O. Philippe passes up this opportunity and instead focuses on two things:

- Linguistics and social dynamics and how studying a "constructed language" like Klingon can provide insights into our own and... zzzzzzz....

- Lamps. Given that the KLI's interplanetary gala seems to have been held in a motel off the interstate somewhere, Philippe takes the only visual prop available to him -- lamps -- and uses them the frame the film in otherworldly ways. Which helps explain why I spent so much time feeling like I was lost in space."

And, erm, that's it! Nobody else seems to have been able to bring themselves to review the film. I'm tempted to go and watch it - it's on a limited release in London's Prince Charles Cinema this week - but I've got to strip wallpaper off the hall walls and the tropical fish tanks need a good scrubbing and I promised my Significant Other I'd sort out the laundry that's been piled in the back bedroom for the last 6 weeks so maybe I'll just wait until it comes out on DVD.

I hope the DVD comes with its own brown paper bag. There's some things I'd prefer the neighbours not to find out about ...

Foucault's Pendulum

Every now and then someone on the ZBB will come along with a bright idea, say a translation exercise. "I can do that", I think, and off I go.

This time someone suggested translating the first four paragraphs of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. Bastards. It's taken me the best part of 4 days, but here are the first four paragraphs in Gevey:



Yuu citwhaj gluefathe ta'skesnisuulhs telaa te.

Laebuu kuun oucizhuu li seduu citwanti blodrateh ska'suatismuuksim zhek suusyuu jaevmizhuu daebouwg les seduu boisendou cozheh stieshtuu daesovizhuu les seduu shaamanti ta'kuubz.

Sekate naslateh koiy te - ulgaarh galshone klov waplate koiy, yuu kon draav ghep yuu kon giejohb vae'hizhuu les seduu butsanti. Sekate te evd nonhuu onizhuu ghep traviejuu daebwuun al sievwuu khmeden yuu kon acituuwhk les seduu ristanti. Sievwuu tuzaa zhek as suu tsiethanti cisa'zdan'hales apuu as suu bliedronti cisa'zdanfoeddhes - yuu traviej al yuu trafoedadh laes frouconuunesh as shuu moufrhanti kuu. Sliezmizmuu askrhanizhuu yuu traviejizhuu skesk cat yo brants acituuwhk rhuut laeb les seduu noisoghtuumanti di'jetohpuuks ta'jetohpuugz vih'taelhgohpuuksesh antsskesaevduush: onistrhuu noezd boiseefuu; drasistrhuu noest taelhgohpuum togrhuun; besistrhuu noezd beecuu onizhuu sievwuun khmeden; vilistrhatsiethuu noest nonhuu onizhuu; sievwistrhuu savaevduu noest froucono.

Pits sekate te evd batuu uhn snondomuu gwoizizhuu yuush kuun agizehr cisyuu togrhebesuu les seduu primanti kosh cuu righisem suusyuu gripent polate al sosh tsiethate ta'righismuubz gles'laebuus, broisuu yuu giejohp les suu shmigrhonti. Batuu telaa yuu citwhajuun zgakfyeets na seduu liscanti, rhuutapuu yuu kuun akhnafehr se seduu friethonti; mikas baluu shonaa iscuu jarhizhuu cofehrh les suu boisendou modo'daebwuuks taelhgohpmarhizhuu zheks nana seg suu pruestanti al zhekteh yuu erodrisem al yuu abrol nana suu stiganti brois skas'sedhuu giejendou laes dezde'skesuulhs kuu.

Transliteration of the Gevey:
I saw the pendulum at that moment.

Its heavy ball swung to-and-fro in equal moments of time, hung from a long wire that the ceiling of the temple hugged tight to itself.

I knew it immediately - although anyone could have sensed it, its magic built from its uncomplicated motion. I knew the square root of the length of the wire and the number pi governed its period. That number which hides from the idiot but performs for an intelligent person - it binds the circumference and diameter of all possibe circles. An arcane conspiracy determined the timelength for each swing of the sphere from stillness to stillness between the most timeless of measures: the one-ness of the point of suspension; the two-ness of the dimension's measurements; the three-ness of pi's first digit; the hidden four-ness of the square root; the unnumbered perfection of the circle.

I also knew that a magnetic driver centred under the floor directed a cylinder hidden in the heart of the sphere, thus assuring continual motion. This engine did not frustrate the laws of the Pendulum, but rather permitted its manifestation; for any object hanging from a weightless and unstretchable wire inside a great space will oscillate for all time.

Original (English) text:
That was when I saw the Pendulum.

The sphere, hanging from a long wire set into the ceiling of the choir, swayed back and forth with isochronal majesty.

I knew - but anyone could have sensed it in the magic of that serene breathing - that the period was governed by the square root of the length of the wire and by pi, that number which, however irrational to sublunar minds, through a higher rationality binds the circumference and diameter of all possible circles. The time it took the sphere to swing from end to end was determined by an arcane conspiracy between the most timeless of measures: the singularity of the point of suspension, the duality of the plane's dimensions, the triadic beginning of pi, the secret quadratic nature of the root and the unnumbered perfection of the circle itself.

I also knew that a magnetic device centred in the floor beneath issued its command to a cylinder hidden in the heart of the sphere, thus assuring continual motion. This device, far from interfering with the law of the Pendulum, in fact permitted its manifestation, for in a vacuum any object hanging from a weightless and unstretchable wire free of air resistance and friction will oscillate for eternity.

Anthony Artichoke - line 1

To test out the ideas and structures in Wakat - the new conlang I'm currently developing - I'm going to do a bit of translating. I'm going to translate a funny-but-flawed poem written in the heat of NaPoWriMo. Here's the first line:

Anthony Artichoke loved to eat honey
(actually translating: he equates-to great-personal-value from-family pretty-food of-flat -branches, he likes the eating of honey)

jake' cowokrhapkeh'uf tanakus ejapxikuhs fejefy'lys, echfiniwachovjaateqs wafsakuhs rhajapyhpsof

Wakat

Oops! Long time no post.

I have my reasons. Work has been extremely busy, which is a bugger for someone like me whose ideal job would be some policy area so obscure you'd be unlucky to be asked more than a couple of questions a decade.

We've also had the kittens neutered. Mr Dolly's bollocks were getting scarily big and had to go. Ms Jojo got speyed alongside her brother as part of a package deal.

I've also been reworking an idea for a conlang I had a couple of years ago. The first attempt at the language had been a bit utilitarian and not very cohesive. This attempt - which I've been working on for about a month now - is coming along quite nicely:

ewaqhabnaam
I cook you

ejaqhabneat jaxrhaohf
we (both) burn the tree

ejaqhabnagat jaxrhaohf
I burn that (near) tree

ewakamixofjaqhabja'at jaxrhaohf
the farmer wants to burn the tree

omhwapuxnuxofjaqhabja'at jaxrhaohf
but the farmer might have burned the tree

Yep, it's a little bit polysynthetic. And I'm going to call this conlang Wakat.

Conlang Spotlight: Klingon

In conlanging terms, if the 19th century can be seen as the search for an idealised international auxillary language (such as Solresol or Esperanto) and the 20th century can be considered as the development of conlangs for fantasy and storytelling - Tolkien's languages, for instance - then what of the 21st century? What sort of conlanging experience can we expect over the course of the next 100 years?

I think we can already see signs of where the art and practice of conlanging are moving, and the roots of this movement lie in the last 20 years or so of the 20th century. Role-playing games became very popular in the 1980s - partly as a result of the success of Tolkien's books, but mainly because publishers and game manufacturers found ways of popularising and standardising the game playing experience. The development of the internet and world wide web in the 1990s helped increase the popularity of role-playing fantasy, to such an extent that today there are whole virtual worlds, with virtual societies and virtual economies flourishing online. For some people, these venues are more "real life" than real life itself!

According to his biographers Humphrey Carpenter and Tom Shippey, the central tenet driving Tolkien to write his novels was not just the story - an ancient history for England - but also the languages: place names and titles would lead to sketches which outlined how such names developed, which in turn could be incorporated into the greater stories of the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. When role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons began to take on some of the feeling of Tolkien's creations, some people wanted more of an immersive feeling - either through learning a few words of Quenya or Sindarin, or by developing new conlangs for use in their games.

Suddenly, conlanging had a purpose.

Because RPG manufacturers discovered that adding a smattering of conlang to a game could help give players a more interesting gameplaying experience. A conlang could become part of the package - for instance, the D'ni language, script and counting system in the Myst series of computer games.

Alongside all this a television phenomenon was transferring to the movies. When Star Trek: The Motion Picture rolled onto the big screen in 1979, few believed that this would be the start of a renaissance, yet the film was successful and led not only to further movies but also to a host of spin-off TV series.

The premise of Star Trek is the meeting of human and alien cultures. The original TV shows, and the first movie, assumed that all humans and all aliens spoke - in effect - English. Nobody considered that any other language (natural or constructed) should be used because the target audience was not likely to understand. Alien scripts did have a place in these shows, but only as decoration.

But then somebody at Paramount Pictures decided that some of the alien species should speak a non-English language, and various grunts and hisses made their way onto the soundtrack. Then for the second movie someone decided that these sounds ought to have a bit of coherence to them to make them more believable. Enter Dr Marc Okrand, a linguistics professor in California. His first work with the studio was to re-dub the Vulcan scenes, though this was not a working conlang as such. Even so, the studio was so impressed with the effect of including "Vulcan" in the film that they hired Dr Okrand to develop sounds and phrases suitable for Klingons to speak in the third movie.

The result of Dr Okrand's work for this commission was more than just sounds and phrases: the language he produced was reasonably complete, with grammar and syntax. It met the studio's requirements in being sufficiently harsh and alien sounding (to English speaker's ears). It was also good enough for some fans to decide that it would be fun to learn the language, a wish the Good Doctor obliged by producing a Klingon-English dictionary in 1985, and extended and repubished in 1992. Other Klingon-based books followed in the 1990s.

And thus was born one of the most successful conlangs the world has yet seen. Klingon is probably more popular than Esperanto at the moment. The language has its own website - the Klingon Language Institute. It has it's own literature, including a translations of some of Shakespeare's plays. It has its own (unofficial) conscript as well as one of the most hideous latin transcriptions yet invented. It is, in short, a successful conlang.

So what of the language itself?

Klingon benefitted from Dr Okrand's earlier work on Native American languages - this is not another euroclone language! The sounds of the language are harsh, gutteral and short for a specific purpose, namely to help characterise the rase of aliens that speak the language - and as such they are entirely successful for their purpose. The grammar and syntax are also worth a closer look, if only to see that there are many patterns languages can take. Klingon marks both the subject and direct object on the verb, and has a rather wonderful system of affixes for both nouns and verbs. The script is different enough to make it interesting both from an aesthetic and from a demonstrative point of view - though interestingly the script you see in the films and spin-offs has nothing to do with the language.

The best introduction to the language is no doubt Dr Okrand's dictionaries though the KLI website is also very useful, providing both some online lessons and links to places where people can get together online to help each other learn the language.

Because make no mistake, this language is driven by its fanbase. Paramount Pictures has no interest in the language beyond making occasional use of it in its products. And Dr Okrand seems to have taken little interest in the language for the past few years - his latest excursion into the world of entertainment was producing a language (Atlantean) for the Disney Studios film Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

Klingon, in my view, is a demonstration of where the future of conlanging may well lie. Tolkien's secret vice will not be secret in the 21st century; nor will it be a vice - a shameful thing to admit to. Rather, there will continue to be a demand for constructed languages in works of fiction, in films, in other entertainment outlets - Enya's latest album includes a number of songs written in what she claims to be a collaborative conlang between her lyricist and herself.

Why? Because people - fans - like a bit of wierdness in their commodity, and constructing a language for a specific product helps give it that edge of wierdness. One day, maybe, conlangs may be bought and sold in the marketplace. One day I expect we'll see litigation over conlang copyrights and patents, perhaps even accusations of plagiarism. Conlanging, in the 21st century, is going to lose its innocence.

Is this a pity? Yes and no, I think. No, because it's nice to see conlanging get the recognition it deserves - a good conlang, well developed and robust, deserves to find wider and more appreciative audiences. And yet yes also, because to me conlanging will always be an artform, an exploration of words and structures and the very basis of language itself, and sometimes these endeavours are best left untouched by commercial expediency. I remain convinced that Dr Okrand could have produced a superb conlang for the Klingons to speak if it had been born from his necessity to conlang rather than from his contract with a major film studio. But ïscuu vosalbizhuu cohmap taabrasee ïsel, as we say in Gevey.

Conlang spotlight: Solresol

I've decided that there's not enough conlanging on this blog. Conlanging - as an artform, as an obsession, even as a social tool - is one of those things that end up as a mild curiosity in miscellany books or blogs. Well I think conlanging deserves better, not merely because it's my other hobby but rather because inventing and presenting a constructed language is a massive labour for their creators - who mostly (until the last 10 years or so) worked at their art/obsession/social tool outside the mainstream of polite society: a secret vice indeed, as Tolkein once referred to it.

But where to start? The obvious place would be with that Granddaddy of all conlangs, Esperanto. But I have issues with Esperanto - which have been summed up far more concisely than I could manage by others such as Justin Rye. And in any case I don't see much point in starting a series of blog articles on conlanging in such a negative way.

So instead I'll start with Solresol - a language that predates even Esperanto, and stands at No 10 in the 2005 Top 200 Conlangs List on langmaker.com. The best article I've read to date on Solresol comes courtesy of Paul Collins writing in Fortean Times, and other articles are available by typing "solresol" into Google.

A conlang, in my opinion, cannot be separated from the conlanger who devised it. One is a part of the other, even in the most commercial of products. For those rare conlangs that survive the death of their creators, there may be opportunities for supporters to imprint some of their own hopes and desires into the language, but the core language remains the coded thoughts and desires of that creator.

So what of Solresol's creator? Jean Francois Sudre was French, born in the last, stuttering years of the French monarchy before the revolution washed the streets of Paris in blood. Sometime between Napoleon Bonaparte's final exile to St Helena and Sudre's arrival in Paris (in 1822), our hero had started thinking about communication and language in a different way to other people - though given that he didn't arrive in Paris until the age of 35 his fascination may well have started much earlier. Anecdotal evidence from many conlangers seems to indicate that many catch the conlanging bug around the same time as they catch puberty - which also seems to be the time when children lose the ability to pick up languages easily. If so, then it is possible that Sudre's fascination with conlanging can be dated back to a time in French history when everything was changing: measurements, institutions, rights and freedoms - even the calendar for four years or so. If the world was changing, then why not language itself?

Sudre studied music at the Paris Conservatory and later became a music teacher. While at the Conservatory the first glimmerings of the conlang madness in our hero began to emerge into the public domain. Sudre developed a code - not tied to his native French language but rather to the letters of the Latin alphabet - which could be played on musical instruments. Tonal in form, this invention demonstrated its ability to pass messages across greater distances than the human voice could achieve. This attracted the attention of the French military, and led to Sudre developing another code - the Telephonie - for their use.

But codes aren't conlanging. Solresol took its time to emerge from Sudre's mind, and made its first tentative steps in the world around the end of the 1820s. Much of it's inventors remaining life was dedicated to perfecting the language, and promoting it's use as a universal language.

So there's the potted history of Solresol, the first of many attempts to devise an effective International Auxillary Language (IAL) during the 19th century. But how does it perform as a conlang? And how is it presented today?

The best place to view the conlang on the web is probably the Solresol webpage maintained by Stephen L Rice (though that page hasn't been updated since 1997). This page links to an html-ified version of Boleslas Gajewski's Solresol grammar published in 1902, offered both in the original French and an English translation. There are also links to some dictionaries and other resources relating to the conlang. The website is more than adequate for its purpose, simple in layout and free of unnecessary images. It is also small enough not to need a comprehensive sitemap or navigation system. The original book opens as a single webpage. If I have one criticism it would be that the page has not been updated for more than 8 years - a link to more recent articles on Solresol (such as the FT article) would have been very welcome.

The conlang itself remains unique in many of its features. I've always been fascinated by the number of ways Sudre devised for communicating the language: it can be spoken, played on a musical instrument, semaphored, displayed on flags, written in Latin and in its own alphabet, and even painted in stripes of colour! This is entirely possible because the language limits itself to just 7 constituent "letters".

Also impressive is the systematic way Sudre tackled the problem of devising words for the language. Words of 1, 2 and 3 "letters" are used for the structural parts of the language, and for common words. Most of the rest of the words are of 4 syllables and are divided into groups according to the first letter of the word - "The class of DO belongs to man, to his faculties, to his good qualities and to food.", "The words beginning with FA are are set apart for the country, agriculture, war, the sea, and travel.", etc.

There are, in my view, difficulties with the language. The method chosen to distinguish various parts of speech by means of accenting the first, second, third or last "letter" reads as very messy, especially when tied in to the shenanigans to differentiate masculine from feminine nouns, and plurals. It must work in some way as Sudre demonstrated the conlang in public on many occasions and managed to gather a large number of supporters (and speakers?) during his lifetime, but without comprehensive audio or visual examples it's difficult to see how the system pulls itself together.

And in the end, Solresol wasn't up to the job its creator intended for it. Other people developed other IALs which, either through design or better marketing, outperformed and outcompeted it. The conlang survived its creator by no more than 40 odd years, by which time it's supporters could probably fit into the proverbial telephone box. Only the books remain, and a few stattered references to the endeavour across the wastes of the internet.