Creating a Language: Getting Organized

1. Creating a Language: Getting Organized • Form a group of 4-6 individuals • Give the group a name • Exchange contact information with your group members. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

2. Creating a Language: Keeping a Project Book • Use a notebook or folder to keep track of everything. • By the end of the semester you should have: • A title page (the name of your group) • A jobs and names page (who did what?) • An introduction page (general description of the language and the experience of creating it) • One page for each language-creating module • Your final skit, with a translation • A conclusion page (what you have learned about language from this experience) • Be sure to maintain maximum consistency between all of the modules in your notebook. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

3. Creating a Language: Jobs and Names • Here is a list of modules and suggested job names: • 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! (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

4. Creating a Language: Cultural Focus • Choose a cultural focus for your group • Some previous foci include: • Fishing • Sports • Shopping • Eating • Drinking • Dating • Be creative!. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

5. Creating a Language: Consonants • Your language will need some consonants • Begin by choosing 8 to 12 consonants to use • These can be as complex as you wish • Be sure you can pronounce each one • Use phonetic symbols (use the I.P.A.) • do not use English spellings • Put your consonant symbols into chart form • use the workbook charts as models. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

6. Creating a Language: Vowels • Your language will also need some vowels • Choose between 4 and 6 vowels to use • be sure you can pronounce them • These should be simple vowels • Use phonetic symbols (use the I.P.A.) • do not use English spellings • Put your vowel symbols into chart form • use the workbook charts as models (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

7. Creating a Language: Phonemics • Assume each of your sounds is a phoneme • Now create a pair of allophones for one phoneme: • Choose one phoneme and create a variant • OR • Convert two phonemes into allophones of one • Your allophones should resemble each other • same manner or place of production, e.g. • Create a rule to describe the distribution of the two allophones. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

8. Creating a Language: Base Forms • Use the sounds on your charts to create: • 9-12 thing words • visible body parts, movable items, parts of the room… • 4-6 action words • sit, stand, give, touch, open, close, lift, put down… • 6-8 descriptive words • size, color, number… • 2-6 people words • you, me, I, we, he/she/it, you/y’all, we two, we three... • 2-5 “function” words • the, a, this, that, that-over-there, in, at, on, under • Be sure you can pronounce your words. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

9. Creating a Language: Affixes • Now add to your base forms by creating: • an affix to derive one kind of word from another • e.g. things from actions, or actions from things • 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… • validity: witnessed, heard about, heard from reliable source… • comparison: strong, stronger, strongest... • Remember to only use sounds in your charts!! • Be sure you can pronounce your words. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

10. Creating a Language: Allomorphs • If there’s time and you feel ambitious: • develop a pair of allomorphs for one of your morphemes • develop a rule to explain where to use each allomorph. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

11. Creating a Language: Sentences • Using your words (base forms & affixes): • Create a simple declarative sentence type • Decide on word order • SOV, SVO, VSO; adjective + noun? noun + adjective? • Using your declarative sentence • create a negative OR an interrogative sentence type • insert a word • add an affix • change the order of words • change the intonation • etc • (you can create both if you want to). (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

12. Creating a Language: Structure • For each of your sentence types: • Show the structure using slots and fillers • AND, if there is time, and you are feeling ambitious: • Show the structure using trees (and rules) • In each case, give examples. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

13. Creating a Language: Difference in Action • Identify some different linguistic situations • formal/informal, teasing/serious, • And identify a ‘difference’ in your group • male/female, Senior/Junior, major/non-major • choose a way for your language to index (mark, indicate, signal) these differences • degrees of loudness? • Specific words only used by one group? • Specific words only used in certain situations? (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

14. Creating a Language: Politeness • Taboo a word • Choose an existing word from your lexicon • You will never be able to use it again • Develop a reason for tabooing this word • Create a euphemism for it • Choose another word from your lexicon • Or create a new word which suggests the tabooed word • It should sound different from the tabooed word • Develop an explanation for why this euphemism ‘works’ • Create a greeting • Create a farewell. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

15. Creating a Language:Kinesics & Proxemics • Create two or three gestures: • friendly, obscene, teasing, aggressive, etc. • Create a proxemic system • define degrees of space: • Intimate • Personal • Social • Public. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

16. Creating a Language: Writing(optional) Create an orthography for your language. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

17. Creating a Language: Change • Borrow a word from another group • visit, send someone, invite someone…….. • What word did you borrow? • What does it mean? • Why did you borrow it? • Can you pronounce it correctly? • How does it affect your language? • Phonology, new concept,…... (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

18. Creating a Language: Presentation • Prepare a short skit in your language • Your skit should include: • A greeting • A request or command for someone to give/do something to someone • A use of your tabooed word (and its euphemistic substitute) • A farewell • Be sure to use your proxemic system in your skit • Be sure to use your kinesic system in your skit • Once your skit has been presented, present it again in English, so your classmates can follow along • Then please present a very short summary of the key features of your language for your classmates. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer

19. Creating a Language: The Final Product • Turn in your notebook for grading • There should be: • A title page • A jobs and names page (who did what?) • An introduction page (general description of the language and the experience of creating it) • One page for each language-creating module • Your skit, with a translation • A conclusion page (what you have learned about language from this experience) • Remember to maintain maximum consistency between all of the modules in your notebook. (c) Harriet Ottenheimer