#invented languages

LCC11 will have over 26 hours of content (over twice as much as our last in-person conference); two invited speakers (Deaf linguist Dr. Erin Moriarty Harrelson and blind linguist Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen); ASL and BSL interpretation; two tracks; multiple specialty sessions, including sign languages, loglangs, and writing systems; both open and private meetups (Christian, pro conlanger, ASL signer, autistic, disabled, plural, queer, and trans & non-binary); and a special conlang-centric performance from the Riddlesbrood Touring Theater Company.

Please register by March 4th to have a say in scheduling and time allocations (it's in the registration form).

Register by March 11th to get early registration discount, and to order an LCC11 shirt (and to contribute your conlang to its design).

Regular in person registration is $95, online $30 — with discounts for early registration and LCS members, and as-able rates for self-declared financial need. Shirts are $20 plus shipping (if any), only available if ordered by March 11th.

We look forward to seeing you all there! Please, I would ask anyone who sees this to spread the announcement and news far and wide. It would really help us get the word out about our event! This year’s conference is *by far* the largest and most ambitious LCC yet.

Fiat lingua,

Margaret, LCS President

Being the losers in one of the closest and most exciting Eurovision scoring sequences can't be easy. It hadn't been the easiest Eurovision journeys even up to that point for Urban Trad for various reasons. However they remain one of the more beloved songs from 2003 for Eurovision fans and represent an ongoing trend for folk music and instrumentation at Eurovision.

Then of course there's the language question. Sanomi is sung an entirely invented language. Given that, it's difficult to say what the meaning or story of the song is, even with the hand movements and vocal expression even deciding if this song is sad or celebratory is not certain. It's probably the case that the song overall is intended as a gesture of peace and coming together of two previously opposed sides.

Urban Trad were the choice of the French broadcaster in Belgium this year - no national final or selection competition. Choosing a 'neutral' language was an interesting decision given the language and cultural divide within the country. The group themselves were also a mix of French and Flemish speakers. They'd had one album in 2001 already and were the centred around Yves Barbieux. Sanomi is not far removed from their usual musical expression - European folk with an emphasis on the Celtic, and memories of the Irish folk fixation of mid-1990s Eurovision.

There was one hitch. One of the members, singer Soetkin Collier, was removed from the band shortly before Eurovision on the advice of the Belgian security services with allegations of Flemish nationalism, extreme far-right activism and arrests on neo-Nazi protests in the 1990s. Hardly the political views of someone selected to promote peaceful reconciliation.

Those accusations eventually resulted in legal action and backpedalling on behalf of the authorities when it emerged that it was her parents who were the nationalists and Soetkin had distanced herself from them and their politics years before. It was too late for her to sing at Eurovision however, even though she appears on the version of Sanomi that appeared on the album published following the contest.

Given that fly in the ointment that RTBF were hoping would signal a coming together of the two-halves of Belgium, it must have been even more galling to see a good lead at the top of the scoreboard with three countries left to vote evaporate amid boos and cheers for two other countries. They were there in the green room, in front of the audience with nowhere to hide - but at least the cameras went straight to the winners and the boos were definitely not for them.

also like, why is it not offered in schools

did people give up on it??

(i know very little about it but am very interested)

like i guess english has become what esperanto was supposed to be??

like as far as i know, a lot of students in non english speaking countries are taught english in schools

why english??

(i'm sorry, this ask turned into me ranting, feel free to ignore)

Hi Nico, thank you for coming into my ask with linguistics questions because I am *always* excited to talk language stuff! I’m going to answer your questions with some quotes from my favorite book on the topic: In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent (2010).

Do I speak Esperanto? No. I’m actually awful at learning languages (my Spanish proficiency was hard won) so I have no desire to try to acquire it. 

Why is it not offered in schools? Well, it isn’t in the U.S. but according to Wikipedia it is actually taught in schools in China. For more information, click here.

Did people give up on it? Sort of? It definitely hasn’t become what Zamenhof (it’s inventor) dreamed for it but the movement decidedly lives on. There is an annual World Esperanto Congress which was founded in 1905 and continues on to this day. Esperanto has cultural artifacts like books and music, written in the language.

“Esperanto did not become an auxiliary language for the whole world, but it did become a real, living language, and in the small sphere of people who use it, it does seem to promote a general atmosphere of international understanding and respect.” (255)

“‘Success’ is probably not the first word that comes to mind when you think of Esperanto, but in the small, passionate world of invented languages there has never been a bigger one.” (85)

Finally, Zamenhof himself said his vision might take centuries to achieve, so who knows? 

Has English become what Esperanto was supposed to be? Yes, pretty much.

Why English? Because of British Imperialism 

I got my copy of Rule of Wolves!!! Yaaayyyy!!! I can't wait to get to read it, though I'll have to wait to power through it until at least after Thursday :(

I have made it to the 8 sources I need for my annotated bibliography!! Finally!!! I switched my topic to focus on sisterhood/sisters in Jane Austen novels for my paper. So now I have all the sources I need for my annotated bib, I just have to annotate them now lmao. Which will take a while, but that's that on that :)

From the seven-part series “The Materialization of the Girl of Jairus” by Hélène Smith.

SPEAKING MARTIAN

Daniel Rosenberg

I have a fantasy story in the works and in it I incorporate a few glimpses of languages I have invented to add depth to the cultures of my world. An example would be in the prologue where I have a character come across a dying grove of trees and in his native tongue he asks them why they are sick, after which I translate into english using italics. It seems to work without causing pause but I was wondering what you would do to navigate the challenge of conlang utilization, and what are the most successfully fluent approaches you've seen?

~ Des

Hi Des,

This is a great question. Working a conlang into the story without burdening the reader is tricky. Foremost, what you need are characters who don't know the language, but still encounter it. That gives you the best chance of showing it off to the audience in a natural manner.

The problem is that when you have a viewpoint character that's fluent, there is no reason not to focus on the meaning of the words instead of the sounds - because they understand the meaning perfectly. It feels out of viewpoint when there are words the viewpoint character understands but readers don't. Plus, readers are reading the story for the meaning, words they don't understand won't be interesting to them. If you spell out what your character is saying in conlang before translating, readers are most likely to skip past that part to the part where you explain what it means. Unless your story is told in audio, in which case they can't, and they are likely to get annoyed by listening to meaningless words.

When you have a viewpoint character who doesn't understand the language, it can instead become an intriguing mystery. However, to be an effective mystery it has to have some plot significance. The inscription on the One Ring is the example I like to use, that's clearly important to the story. If there's a message in the language that has to be decoded for plot reasons, that can work well. It's still not a good idea to have lots of words of low importance in the conlang, the payoff isn't worth the effort of figuring them out.

The next best use of a conlang is proper names. You can give the name of a significant place in your conlang, and then a fluent character can explain to another that it means "weeping mountain" or something else colorful. By re-using the same words as a part of several proper names, readers can slowly learn words in the conlang without much effort.

Frequently repeated phrases such as greetings and prayers are also good places for an ignorant character to encounter a conlang.

If you haven't seem it, I have an article on the basic rules for using invented words: The Four Rules of Using Fake Words