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Ever since I
was in elementary school, I have yearned to become a polyglot. From sixth grade onwards I eagerly studied
Spanish, assuming my love of languages would remain confined to learning
already-existing languages. About four
years ago, however, my interest in languages took a dramatic turn. For in June 2013, I began to write a novel
which I had been contemplating for months.
As my story grew in scope, I thought one of the countries in the work
should have its own language to make the novel more realistic. Thus, that year I began to invent words for
my new language. I derived many of these
words from English, Spanish, and other languages, but I devised many other
words from scratch. In this early stage
of language creation, I had not learned about linguistics, nor had I laid out a
precise range of the sounds that would be present in my language. Working in an ad hoc manner and without firm rules for my language’s grammar, I
developed a vocabulary for the language so varied as to appear disjointed in
hindsight. Meanwhile, my work on the
story continued throughout 2014 and into 2015, without regard to my language’s
expansion.
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| Evan Clark - Class of 2020 |
By 2015, this
first stage in the growth of my language grew to a close, for I learned about other
individuals who created their own languages through a process called conlanging,
a term that refers to constructing languages.
I realized that these conlangers used highly organized techniques to
create their languages, laying out their language’s sounds and grammar early to
provide an orderly structure for the language.
My little language, built on whim rather than rules, would no longer
suffice in its present state. To
transform my language into a sophisticated constructed language, I rewrote most
of my language’s vocabulary to correspond to predetermined rules about
acceptable sounds and broad grammatical concepts. I created a new alphabet for the language and
gradually built a much improved vocabulary in my free time. My language began to look and sound more like
a realistic human language. Even as my
ideas for my novel changed and my progress on its writing slowed significantly,
the growth of my language blossomed.
Since 2015, my revised language has entered a third stage of
development, in which I reworked its 2015 vocabulary and began to compile a
list of all of the words in my language.
As of October 2017, over 2,100 English words can be translated into my
language, and its grammatical rules are largely complete.
While my
language remains a long way from completion and I have decided to rewrite the
story for which I created it, my experience with conlanging has expanded my
love for languages and has taught me a great deal about linguistics and
organizational strategies. Although my
interest in conlanging may seem like just a hobby, conlanging can teach a
person much about human communication.
Crafting a language requires that one think creatively about new ways to
express a concept, that one learn about how people associate meaning with words
and ideas, and about how people’s words influence and reflect their
worldviews. For instance, my language’s
vocabulary clearly displays the views of its fictitious speakers on social
relations and cultural issues. Thus,
conlanging reveals the critical role language plays in shaping people’s ideas,
for no two languages depict the world in identical ways.
In addition,
conlanging teaches individuals a respect for other languages’ means of
conveying meaning. Word-for-word
translation between distinct languages rarely works, but languages do not need
to function in the same manner. Despite
their significant differences, each language’s expressions can provide a unique
appraisal of a subject while arriving at a generally similar understanding of
the topic. This diversity of approaches
to describing the world makes languages more than just communication
systems. Like an individual’s
personality or a work of art, each language is imbued with its own special character. It is for that reason that I remain so
fascinated by linguistics. Yet those who
do not find linguistics interesting can still learn much from researching
conlanging. The process teaches humility
because it reveals that one’s own language is not the only way of seeing the
world. Instead of limiting themselves to
one language, individuals should learn to appreciate and respect the ways
through which speakers of other languages conceptualize their environment. Thus, while conlanging may not be for
everyone, the themes it teaches are useful to anyone.
Evan Clark, of Owensboro, Ky., is a sophomore McConnell Scholar studying Spanish, history, and political science.