Language Creation Society

To everyone that participated in the Language Creation Workshop at Renovation, thanks so much for attending! For those that stuck it out to the end, you know we didn’t get through all the material, so I wanted to provide you with links to download what was there:

In particular, take a look at Epochs 5 and 6. At this point, the groups were going to begin trading with each other and dealing with linguistic borrowing. I found some good examples to illustrate different borrowing situations in natural languages in the presentation; I was really hoping to get to them! Live and learn.

Also, for Epoch 4, where I wrote “distinctions based on chance”, I was going to have each group pull a random feature from a hat. The features were as follows:

Again, thanks a lot for attending! If things work out, I hope to run this again at future WorldCons.

[podcast]http://conlang.org/podcast/LCS_Podcast-014-Ball.mp3[/podcast]

David interviews Doug Ball about his conlang Skerre, its history, and his career in linguistics.

.mp3 recording | Dr. Doug Ball’s Faculty Page | Skerre Homepage

Doug is the best (and longest-tenured) conlanging friend I’ve got. I’ve known him ever since I started conlanging in 2000, and we’ve been corresponding regularly since 2003, when we happened to run into each other at a reception for prospective graduate students at UCSD. It’s rare enough to meet someone who conlangs. But someone who (at the time) was also entering grad. school for linguistics and is interested in music and sports (that latter is the kicker, of course)? Doug and I may be among the select few who would be equally happy and at home discussing applicatives, time signatures, and whether or not Randy Moss is really retired (I say no, by the way [and I also say that beyond Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona’s receiving corps looks to be in pretty sorry shape (just sayin’)]). I think it was only a matter of time before Doug and I bumped into one another.

By the way, you did hear (and read) right. Doug conceived of Skerre at a summer camp held at what is now Truman State University. At the time of this interview, Doug had just finished his dissertation at Stanford (hiss!), and had just entered the job market. He applied to a number of universities, and it just so happened that he accepted a job in the linguistics department at Truman State University. I’d like to say that this interview helped to contribute to that hiring, but, well…it’s being published right now. But if you believe in time travel…

If you haven’t taken a look at it, I recommend going to Doug’s page on Skerre. Though my information may be more up-to-date than what’s on the website, I maintain that Skerre’s one of the best naturalistic conlangs on the net. The site is detailed (if not completely up-to-date), and for an in-depth look at some of the syntax of Skerre, you can watch Doug’s LCC1 talk. I’ve always thought Skerre deserved a full treatment—and perhaps a print reference grammar. We’ll see what happens with it in the future.

Audio edited by Jeff Burke; music by Gary Shannon.

[podcast]http://conlang.org/podcast/LCS_Podcast-013-Wells-Jensen.mp3[/podcast]

David and Sai interview Sheri Wells-Jensen about her work in the world of conlanging, and her work as a linguist at Bowling Green State University.

.mp3 recording | Dr. Wells-Jensen’s Webpage

Talk about a really, really good idea. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could google a person and hear what they sounded like? Ooh! Or even better! Take an audio sample of someone’s voice, play it into your computer’s microphone, and have it find that person! I found this aspect of her work the most interesting, and hope it comes to fruition. If you want to take a look at what she has so far, go to VoxDB.org.

For those of you who always wanted to do a little conlanging as part of your college degree, you can check out the webpage accompanying Sheri’s class here. And, of course, if you’re shopping for undergraduate institutions, you might consider Bowling Green State University.

There are, by the way, some wonderful sounding conlangs described by Sheri in this interview. Several bits of the languages created by her students are incorporated into the website linked to above. There are a number of “fun” languages (e.g. the language of vending machines) that sound like they’re worth following up on.

In addition to applying for the Dothraki job, Sheri and I also share a connection to Speculative Grammarian. She’s penned several articles for SpecGram (you can see them here), including proposing a Braille orthography for thlIngan Hol.

In a nutshell, anything Sheri’s put her name to is worth taking a look at. We had a fun time talking with her, and I look forward to being able to talk to her again.

Audio edited by Jeff Burke; music by Gary Shannon.

[podcast]http://conlang.org/podcast/LCS_Podcast-012-Varkuza.mp3[/podcast]

David interviews Paul Varkuza about his language Varkuzan. We discuss his language, its name—his name—and the role his synesthesia played in the process of his language’s creation.

.mp3 recording

Before I talked to Paul, I was pretty sure that synesthesia was fake. And by “fake”, of course, I mean “real, but likely to be exaggerated”. That is, if one asks in an online forum, “Is anyone synesthetic?” there’ll be a flood of positive responses, which always led me to believe synesthesia was an internet-transmitted disease spread by asking the question, “Is anyone synesthetic?” or by simply posting about one’s own synesthetic experiences.

But…I guess I was wrong. There are true synesthetics out there, and Paul Varkuza is one of them. Oddly enough, one of the things that made this concrete in my mind was the fact that a good friend of mine—without ever having heard of Paul or his talk—explained to me a relationship between the number line and spatial relations that very closely matches what Paul describes in this interview. For me, that was a truly bizarre experience—perhaps something akin to seeing someone hypnotized for the first time.

I can get down with classifying things as either mellow or harsh. In fact, if you come up with any binary classification system, I think I can put all the world’s objects and concepts into either one or the other category. Here’s a quick thought experiment: Put all the following languages into either the “straight” or “curved” category.

What do you think? I’ve got my answers (and it’s not all one category or the other; there’s a mix).

As we head into LCC4 I’m reminded how enjoyable Paul Varkuza’s LCC3 talk was. It was really different from what we see a lot in various conlang discussion groups, and it’s always nice to see the work of (to the extent that such a thing exists) an outsider artist within the medium of conlanging. Natural languages never cease to amaze, and neither do conlangers.

Audio edited by Jeff Burke; music by Gary Shannon.

Everyone knows Sylvia makes kickass brownies and cupcakes (and cakes). Or, let me rephrase that: Everyone now knows that Sylvia makes kickass brownies and cupcakes. Because I just told you.

And it’s true. I’ve had them. I’ve had them all.

That aside, this is Sylvia’s LCC2 talk on KÄ“len. For those who have heard of KÄ“len but don’t know much about it, this is a good place to start. (Well, that and the KÄ“len website.)

This is our second KÄ“len-related podcast. You can find the first (an interview with Sylvia) here. Listening to both of those, I think, we’ll give you a good background on KÄ“len.

But for even more, there have been two interesting KÄ“len developments recently. The first is the launch of the KÄ“len Word of the Day Blog. The title pretty much tells you the story: Go there, and you’ll find a blog that will introduce you to one new word of KÄ“len every single day (plus some lovely pictures of Sylvia’s cats). I can’t remember exactly who came up with the idea for a word of the day site, but I’d like to think it was me, and that I suggested it to Sylvia (see this way I can angle for more brownies). It has since spawned a number of other word of the day blogs (one for Kamakawi, one for Rejistanian, and several other sites that aren’t necessarily word of the day blogs, but are conlang-specific blogs [for more, check out the Conlang Blog Aggregator]), and the result has been nice (I’ve certainly enjoyed reading the various blogs that have resulted).

The other thing is an interview Sylvia did for the Australian ABC radio series Lingua Franca. In it Sylvia discusses KÄ“len as well as conlangs in general. To listen to the interview, you can go to the Lingua Franca website here.

As a conlanger, listening to this talk is fun, because it gets me thinking. One wonders how one might get by without verbs, but in listening to how Sylvia solves a lot of the problems one faces when creating a verbless language, ideas abound. After spending some time over the past few years with Sylvia and KÄ“len, I can now think of tons of ways to get things done without verbs. If one were to sit down and plan this out, then, the question is not how to create a verbless language, but what type of verbless language would one create. I think KÄ“len has proved that it’s possible: It’s now on us to see what kind of variety can exist in the category of verbless languages.

Any takers?

This video is part of the 2nd Language Creation Conference, held at UC Berkeley on July 7-8, 2007, and hosted by Language Creation Society.

We would like to add closed captioning / subtitles to all the videos from LCC2, including this one. If you are willing to help, install Subtitle Workshop, and email your transcribed .sub file to [email protected].

[podcast]http://conlang.org/podcast/LCS_Podcast-011-Burke.mp3[/podcast]

David interviews Jeff Burke, the creator of the Proto Central Mountain family of languages, and author of The Spirit-Weaver, a novel Jeff has been working on for the past fifteen years. In this interview we discuss his languages, his writing, and the role conlangs play in literature.

mp3 – Jeff’s Blog

Jeff is a bit soft-spoken and reserved—or, at least, that’s what I first noticed about him when I met him at LCC2. By the time he had finished his talk, though, he had my attention—and that of everyone else who’d been watching (including Arika Okrent).

Jeff’s conlanging approach is much closer to historical reconstruction than to modern “drag and drop” conlanging. The approach is not necessarily unique (Tolkien, of course, worked from proto languages, and many conlangers today do the same), but Jeff’s implementation is impressive. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend taking a look at Jeff’s LCC2 talk (the one I linked to above) to see just how he does what he does. (I’d also recommend his recent post to Conlang about Proto Central Mountain which can be found here.)

Totally off-topic. I can tell I was using my external microphone in this interview. I think its permanent malfunction is a blessing in disguise, and future listeners will, no doubt, be grateful not to hear my popping p’s… My apologies.

Yet again, in this interview, we’ve come to the issue of language (or conlang) ownership. And, of course, we came to the same conclusion: There’s no good answer right now. In one respect, neither of us is legal experts, so us discussing the topic is kind of silly. At the same time, it’s a relevant topic for us both, each of us having conlangs that may one day enjoy popular use. Personally, I’m rooting for The Spirit-Weaver to get published and enjoy success, as that will, once again, raise the legal question of conlang ownership in the public sphere.

Jeff suggests, in his interview, that conlangs will one day fall under copyright as artistic works. If this were to be the case, then one wonders: Will conlangers receive royalties if others use their language to create some sort of commercial work (e.g. a book of poems)? Will conlangers be able to successfully challenge derivatives in court (say a relexification of a given conlang)? And is that a desirable future?

Looking at other media, it seems that things are going the other way. It’s easier than ever to download songs, albums, movies, television shows, etc. for free, whether legally or illegally. Artists themselves are venturing forth into the new digital world, some embracing it. One of the most famous examples is probably Radiohead’s “pay what you want” digital release of their album In Rainbows (a fascinating response to the controversy surrounding their previous album, which had, in its entirety, been leaked on the internet a month before its scheduled release), but other artists in other media have followed suit.

A few weeks ago, several video game developers got together to offer the Humble Bundle: A set of five full games with no DRM that one could purchase for whatever amount one wished. As of this writing, the event generated over $1 million for the developers and for charity. Billy Corgan and the newly-reformed Smashing Pumpkins have also gotten into the game, releasing one song at a time from their new 44 song concept album Teargarden by Kaleidoscope free on their website (and, by the way, what I’ve heard so far is incredible; I suggest you give it a listen [it’s free; why not?]).

That aside, I’m of the opinion that Jeff is right, and that some time in the near future we will see some form of copyright being applied to a conlang—perhaps as a result of the recent interest in using constructed languages in other media (most notably film and television). One wonders, though, given the general progression of copyright in the new digital age, will this be a step forward, or a step backward?

It’s been a little over a year since LCC3, and it’s nice to look back. I always feel energized after an LCC. I’m looking forward to LCC4 (which is still in the planning stages, but will happen, rest assured).

Thanks to our podcast backlog, it’s been about a year since this interview took place. Jeff has since finished The Spirit-Weaver, and is now editing. Hopefully we’ll hear some news from him some time in the near future about the status of The Spirit-Weaver. I’ve got my fingers crossed!

Audio edited by Maximilian Krickl; music by Gary Shannon.

[podcast]http://conlang.org/podcast/LCS_Podcast-010-Frommer.mp3[/podcast]

David and Sylvia interview Paul Frommer about his creation of the language Na’vi for the movie Avatar. We discuss his experience working on set, and working with movie folks, as well as the language itself. Please note that this interview was conducted in mid-January, and reflects the state of affairs at that time. A lot of things have changed since then—in particular, the size of the Na’vi fan community, and the level of interaction Dr. Frommer has with that community.

mp3 – Na’vi links – Unofficial website

David

Probably the most fun part of this interview for me was hearing the stories that came from the set. Listening to Paul, you get a sense of what it’s like to work on a major production like Avatar. I can imagine Dr. Frommer sitting there at the studio for hours on end, and then someone suddenly rushing in, their arms flailing, screaming, “Quick! I need to know how to say ‘Give me your pack’ in Na’vi!” And then after that’s done…back to hours of sitting. I suppose “that’s showbiz”, as they say.

Dr. Frommer mentioned that he didn’t look at any other conlangs while creating Na’vi. Usually the first time one sets about to create a language, we see a number of assorted phenomena (e.g. free word order, mobile adpositions, uniquely English vowels, a high degree of optionality where one wouldn’t expect to find it, etc.) that a conlanger eventually grows out of, but for a first language, Na’vi does well enough, and the response has been overwhelming. It’s great to see how excited fans are to actually learn and use the language itself. That response is something future conlangers will remember, and something which production companies should sit up and take notice of.

This lack of clarity means that rights are practically a matter of negotiation, not law. In recent contracts, the implications have been clear: professional conlangers get no royalties, and when they want to use their own language in some commercial medium, they have to ask permission. Furthermore, the studio may decide to be nice and ask the original creator about future changes made by someone else they’ve hired, but they don’t have to (and often don’t, as has been the case with Klingon)—sometimes to the detriment of the language involved.

This state of affairs is certainly undesirable at best. To be honest, I laughed out loud when I read the petition to Paul Frommer concerning Na’vi. This is a petition written to Dr. Frommer from the Na’vi community asking him to teach them the language. That’s kind of like asking a man dying of thirst to please take a drink of water!

There are larger issues at stake here, and I think if the Na’vi community wants to do not only Dr. Frommer some good but conlangers as a whole, the real petition you want is this: petition Fox to give publishing rights for Na’vi to Paul Frommer. If Paul has Fox’s blanket signoff, then he can publish a grammar, start a website, create a dictionary, talk freely about it, etc. As is, the language is a work for hire, which means that Fox owns it exclusively.

For this to change, studios need to realize the value that conlangers bring to their productions. There is already a growing demand for professional, well-done created languages in movies, and Na’vi, Klingon, and Quenya are testaments to how much fans really get behind these languages. Cameron is one of the producers who realizes this, and more will follow his lead.

Fans simply need to more vocally demand that all fantasy worlds have the same attention paid to their languages as is paid to other aspects of the production. Not only are modern audiences unsatisfied with gibberish for a made up language (something like the “foreign” languages in Danger Man), they expect to learn the invented languages used in modern productions—to use them, to see how they work, to learn more about them.

David: Paul [Bennett] also asked—this is a fun one—how do I get a paid conlanging gig?

Paul: Well… My suggestion would be in the right place at the right time, and be very, very fortunate.

I’m afraid this an answer the conlanging community cannot—and should not—accept. This is certainly how it’s happened in the past (read up on how Mark Okrand got the job for Klingon and Atlantean; how Tho Fan was created; how Pakuni was created; and now Na’vi…), but it would seem a bit odd to suggest that the best way to get a paid conlanging gig is to get lucky, and the best way for a production team to find someone to create a language would be to throw out feelers at random to linguists who have no experience creating a language.

Fortunately, we now have a better way. The Language Creation Society maintains a pool of highly skilled conlangers (which you can join), and is currently fielding job offers. Most recently, we were hired to develop the Dothraki language for HBO’s upcoming adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones.

Our goal is to introduce the entertainment industry to the expert language creation community. Hopefully from now on when producers, writers, directors, game designers, etc. are looking for someone to create a language, they’ll be able to find and hire someone who has real experience and skill at creating languages, as opposed to rolling the dice on someone who’s never done it before.

Second, I received a number of questions to ask Dr. Frommer both from LearnNavi.org members, and also from conlangers. I asked a number of them, but not all of them. Fortunately, most (if not all) of those questions have since been answered by Dr. Frommer directly in one form or another. A big thank you goes to the people who submitted questions: Paul Bennett, Peter Bleackley, David Edwards, Fredrik Ekman, Steven Lytle, Kate Rhodes, Olivier Simon, and numerous members of the LearnNavi.org fan community (special thanks to ZBB/LearnNavi member Nessimon for posting my original request at LearnNavi.org!).

Sylvia

At first I thought I was going along with David to interview Dr Frommer as moral support. I didn’t intend to speak, just to sit quietly, listen, and make a back up recording in case something happened to David’s recording. That’s why you don’t hear me until about half way through the podcast. I was also a little embarrassed about Peter Bleakley’s question, but it did lead to an interesting discussion of other alien conlangs, so, thank you, Peter.

Oh, and I am so going to steal those floating jellyfish thingies from the movie.

Audio edited by Maximilian Krickl; music by Gary Shannon.

Conlang (the movie) was just selected to have its film circuit premier in February at the Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival.

It’s got a new website, and the “Herculean Tournament” scene is posted.

As you probably know, the movie was screened last year at the 3rd Language Creation Conference, and earned our enthusiastic support.

Now is the time for you to voice that support:

1. Join & post to the Facebook fan page.

If you saw the film at LCC3, post a review!

2. If you want a copy of the film by DVD or online distribution, email the producer/director, Marta Masferrer: [email protected]

3. Email her information about any other film festivals, ‘cons, conferences, or other venues you think would be interested in screening the film.

4. Subscribe to the LCS Conlang Blog aggregator, which includes the Conlang movie announcements feed.

Please pass this on to anyone you think would be interested. Twitterable link: http://bit.ly/clDhtL

Fiat lingua!

– Sai Emrys

[podcast]http://conlang.org/podcast/LCS_Podcast-009-Editor_needed.mp3[/podcast]

Hi, this is David Peterson from the LCS podcast.

You may have noticed that the last podcast (John Quijada’s LCC2 talk [which was excellent, by the way!]) was the first in some…six months? Podcasts can’t come everyday, of course, but one would hope they’d come in smaller increments than half-years.

And given the great amount of time between podcasts, I’m sure there are many who are wondering if our podcast has lost steam—perhaps we’ve run out of ideas, or people to interview. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you view it), this is not the case. Content isn’t an issue at all. We have the rest of the LCC2 and LCC1 videos to stream, and also a backlog of at least four interviews (probably more) that have already been recorded. Some of those we’ve interviewed have been asking us when the heck they’re going to air.

That leads to the actual problem: audio editing. Our production is entirely voluntary, and unfortunately, Sai and I don’t have the time or the skill to successfully edit an entire interview. We need someone to do the content edit—also known as the “make people sound incredibly smart and articulate” edit—and our current editors have gotten a bit bogged down with real life and related matters. This is why the LCS podcast has stalled.

So, what to do? Well, we need help, so we’re turning to you. If you have audio editing skills, please contact us at [email protected]. There’s a post on our jobs page describing what’s involved in the two editing stages. You don’t need to do all of them; we’ll take any help we can get.

If you, like me, don’t happen to be skilled as an audio editor, you can always donate to the LCS; just mention that it’s for the podcast in the notes section on PayPal. Perhaps some day soon we’ll be able to pay a professional audio editor to do this instead of relying solely on volunteers, and we’ll be able to keep the podcasts coming more consistently.

We could also really use a video editor for the LCC3 video; if you have a MiniDV camera and know how to use Final Cut, this means you. Again, see the jobs page for more details.

Thanks, again, for listening, and fiat lingua!