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https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2021/what-invented-languages-can-teach-us>
"Most languages develop through centuries of use among groups of people. But
some have a different origin: They are invented, from scratch, from one
individual’s mind. Familiar examples include the international language
Esperanto, the Klingon language from “Star Trek” and the Elvish tongues from
“The Lord of the Rings.”
The activity isn’t new — the earliest recorded invented language was by
medieval nun Hildegard von Bingen — but the Internet now allows much wider
sharing of such languages among the small communities of people who speak and
create them.
Christine Schreyer, a linguistic anthropologist at the University of British
Columbia’s Okanagan campus in Kelowna, Canada, has studied invented languages
and the people who speak them, a topic she writes about in the 2021
Annual
Review of Anthropology. But Schreyer brings another skill to the table: She’s
a language creator herself and has invented several languages for the movie
industry: the Kryptonian language for “Man of Steel,” Eltarian for “Power
Rangers,” Beama (Cro-Magnon) for “Alpha” and Atlantean for “Zack Snyder’s
Justice League.”
Schreyer spoke with
Knowable Magazine about her experience in this unusual
world, and the practical lessons that it provides for people trying to
revitalize endangered natural languages. This interview has been edited for
length and clarity."
Via Esther Schindler, who wrote "Fascinating article. Worth your time."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
