Constructed Languages at Ohio State

In the Department of Linguistics, students learn about human languages as natural social phenomena, often not consciously designed by speakers. However, some languages are intentionally created by very creative minds. These languages, called “constructed languages” or “conlangs,” serve various purposes. For example, they bring life to fictional worlds, as seen in J.R.R. Tolkien's Elvish languages Sindarin and Quenya, or provide idealistic goals like Esperanto, created for global communication and peace by L.L. Zamenhof in the 19^th century.

Recently, linguists have begun to recognize that constructing languages is not only a fun and creative endeavor, but also one that is beneficial to their own learning. Exploring language creation exposes their creators to the diversity of expression of human cognition found in other languages. Here at Ohio State, Dr. Julia Papke offers a unique opportunity to not only learn about how these languages are made, but also provides an opportunity for students to develop one themselves.

Build a language in LING 3502

The Linguistics of Constructed Languages (LING 3502) was first taught in 2017, and has since been taught a total of 9 times. In this course, students create their own language, exploring the workings of natural human languages and incorporating elements as they please. 

The course satisfies a General Education requirement, specifically in the “Literary, Visual and Performing Arts” Foundation category.  In this category, students must learn to create art, to evaluate art, to understand the context of that art, and to reflect on their own experiences in creating art. While these were always a component of the class, explaining that to the curriculum committee presented a challenge; while language is certainly seen as a medium for art, most are not accustomed to thinking of language creation as art.

The overarching goal of the course is to create a language, which from its initial concept to a functional grammar, takes about 12 weeks. Under Dr. Papke’s guidance, students work on their language in stages week-by-week, going from the rough concept of the language (that is, who or what uses it, how it is transmitted, etc.), to choosing the sounds utilized in the language, making words, proceeding to develop various components of the language’s grammar, and ultimately translating short narratives in their languages. Students are not required to be linguists or experienced language learners; the course is open to all backgrounds, welcoming hobbyists and newcomers to linguistics alike. Students can set the difficulty of the project to their own ability—the more a student is familiar with, the more sophisticated they can make their project.

The course content is divided into three main sections:

1. Linguistic Structure: Focuses on on linguistic structure, with a heavy focus on typology (that is, the study of the types of structures found across the world’s languages). The class discusses language at different levels of analysis, focusing on the ways that speakers of different languages “solve the same problems” of communicating thoughts, experiences, and the natural world around them. Students are provided a plethora of language data, some from conlangs, but most from documented examples from natural human languages.
2. Optional Topics: Offers a look into some “optional” topics for the conlanger, yet still with a heavy focus on typology. The topics include language change, language contact, non-oral modalities (such as in signed languages), writing systems, and so on.
3. Prominent Conlangs: A review of prominent and influential conlangs, their histories, and their goals: the political movements that spawned such conlangs as Volapük and Esperanto;  linguistic relativism, the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and whether it’s possible to create a language that alters human cognition. Discussion of some prominent experiments in that direction, such as Láadan, Loglan, Lojban; conlangs in literature, with special focus on the work of J.R.R. Tolkien and the languages portrayed in visual media (such as Klingon, Dothraki, and Chakobsa, as seen in Dune); and languages created as art for their own sake, several of which have been influential or gained their own followings (for example, Ithkuil, Teonaht, and Toki Pona).

Students finish the class by participating in a Conlang Relay—a game of telephone where one student translates a text in their language, passing it on to the next student to do the same, ultimately with the intention of highlighting the challenges of accurately translating the sense of a text.

Guest lecturers

Ling 3502 has played host to many excellent guest lecturers. Some lecturers have been from within the university: faculty member Micha Elsner, Daniel Puthawala (PhD ’23),  and  Sharon Ross (MA ’12) . However, the class has also had the fortune to host guest lecturers from outside the university, including Marc Okrand, the creator of Klingon, and David and Jessie Peterson, who have worked as language creators on numerous television shows and films, including (but not limited to) HBO’s Game of Thrones, Syfy’s Defiance, Netflix’s The Witcher, the CW’s The 100, Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem, Marvel’s Doctor Strange, Peacock’s Vampire Academy, the second Dune movie, and Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon.

This year, Klingon expert Andrew Miller visited to give a talk called “By My Two Faiths and Troths: Love and Esotericism in the Klingon Much Ado About Nothing.” Starting from a simple throwaway line in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country that Shakespeare is better “in the original Klingon,” fans of the language have since created translations of a few Shakespeare plays, such as Hamlet. Andrew Miller visited Underlings to talk about how the romantic and pagan religious themes of Much Ado were translated into a Klingon cultural context. Andrew Miller also visited LING 5302 to talk about his experience as a Klingon learner, sharing some Klingon “yo mama” jokes with freshly minted Klingon vocabulary such as “Panama,” “thud,” “chiropractor,” and “feldspar.” 

A long awaited course

This Autumn, Dr. Papke will offer LING 2194, a 1 credit weekly discussion group aimed at undergraduates where students will read through The Lord of the Rings chapter by chapter to discuss not only the conlang content (though that will certainly not go overlooked!), but also the other rich linguistic content of the books. The course will offer the unique and often overshadowed insight into the linguistic correspondences between real-world languages and the fictional languages of Middle Earth, and will explore the way Tolkien used his real world knowledge about history, literature, and language change to craft a realistic language landscape for his creation. LING 2194 will be offered in the Autumn 2024 semester Thursdays from 4:10 to 5:05 PM. 

If you are an undergraduate interested in these courses and you have any questions, please reach out to our Undergraduate Program Coordinator Dr. Liz McCullough or to Dr. Julia Papke for more details.