interlinguistics in the 21st century: planned languages as a tool to learn linguistics by doing

Interlinguistics in the 21st centuryPlanned languages as a tool to learn linguistics by doing

Federico GobboAmsterdam / Torino⟨[email protected]⟩

ACLC seminar, 24 Mar 20171 of 53

What is Interlinguistics?

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Where to put Interlinguistics?

■ General linguistics□ ‘external’ linguistics

■ sociolinguistics■ ethnolinguistics■ language policy & planning (LPP)

Interlinguistics is in-between these areas of ‘external’ linguistics.

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Some basic definitions

■ sociolinguistics investigates language behaviour in relation withsociety;

■ ethnolinguistics investigates the relation between language andidentity, in particular ethnic identity;

■ language policy is at the border with law, economics, and politicalscience, dealing with the policies concerning languages: what theyare, what they should be;

■ language planning is the set of tools to manipulate languages atany level (status, corpus, acquisition) to apply language policies.

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The historical priority of speech over writing

[although] no human society [has been] known to exist or tohave existed at any time in the past without capacity of speech[. . . ] the vast majority of societies have, until recently, beeneither totally or very largely illiterate. (Lyons 1981:12-13)

According to Ethnologue (2016, 19th ed.) on 7,097 living languages(2015: 7,105) only 3,748 (2015: 3,570) have a developed writingsystem, but we do not know if there are people who are literate,actually using the language in a written form. The remaining 3,349languages are likely unwritten.

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Two exceptions on the priority of speech

■ sign languages ← Sign Linguistics

■ planned languages ← Interlinguistics

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■ sign languages

← Sign Linguistics

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■ planned languages

← Interlinguistics

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What is a planned language?

Languages can be planned from scratch if someone decided to do so,writing the (normative) grammar, setting up the (basic) lexicon andgiving some texts in the language.

You can always identify double articulation (phonetic space +morphosyntactic level) in a planned language – they are languagesfor human beings – even the “alien” ones, e.g. Klingon.

Often the language planner acts alone, rarely in committees or groups– but always with a clear leader, that is called the language planner.

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For planned languages orality is a challenge

normative variety

language planning

continuum of language variation

language use

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Community of practice: a sociolinguistic definition

The value of the notion ‘communities of practice’ toSociolinguistics and Linguistic Anthropology lies in the fact thatit identifies a social grouping not in virtue of sharedabstract characteristics (e.g. class, gender) or simpleco-presence (e.g. neighborhood, workplace), but in virtueof shared practice. In the course of regular joint activity, acommunity of practice develops ways of doing things, views,values, power relations, ways of talking. And the participantsengage with these practices in virtue of their place in thecommunity of practice, and of the place of the community ofpractice in the larger social order.

Penelope Eckert (2006), my emphasis

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Is Interlinguistics old-fashioned?

A taxonomy of plannedlanguages

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Why planning languages from scratch?

Languages can be planned for different purposes. The language canbe secret (esoteric) if the grammar is known only by initiates;otherwise it is public (exoteric).

Languages planned with a public in mind can be:

1. auxiliary, if their purpose is to facilitate the communication amongpeople from different nations;

2. non-auxiliary, when languages are planned for other purposes,often for art, literature, especially fiction.

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non-aux

pubsecr

<empty>

Esperanto

Latino sine Flexione

Basic English

Novial

Volapuk (19th c.)

Interlingua etc.

International Auxiliary Languages

Dothraki

Klingon

Tolkien (21st c.)

Volapuk (20th c.

Na’vi

etc.Hollywood languages

Tolkien’s (20th)

Bal-A I-Balan TokiponaEuropanto

Laboratory languages

Tolkien’s languages were secret. . .

Esperanto edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

. . . became public! E.g., Neo-Sindarin

Source: Italian blog Meditazioni Tolkieniane

Hollywood languages: Dothraki is the new reference

Source: Amazon.com

The strange case of Toki Pona

Source: tokipona.org

The importance of publication

Source: Gobbo (2008)

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An evaluation of planned languages

■ whatever the purpose, language inventors have fun

■ planned languages are a-posteriori, i.e., based on existing languages

■ the linguistic repertoire of the inventor plays a role

■ in the last decades, planning languages became more professional

■ knowledge from language typology is a key asset now

■ the more planned languages, the more difficult to plan

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Learning linguistics by doing:university

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An innovative teaching tool

■ Interlinguistics at the University of Torino and here at the UvA

■ no similar experiences elsewhere

■ 8 years of experience in total

■ task: elaborate an existing language sketch

■ Tolkienian model: from Sindarin to Neo-Sindarin

■ laboratory languages are not published afterwards, but. . .

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■ apply (inter)linguistics in practice (learning by doing)

■ working in small groups (3 students each)

■ chance to use all the language knowledge science learnt

■ language is culture: diegetic / extra-diegetic levels

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How small groups work

■ as if a television series for Hollywood would be made

■ consistency with the original linguistic material

■ equilibrium between regularity and cultural background

■ primary sources (original material) vs. secondary sources (fans’)

■ to be used by actors and by fans as well

■ rules to expand the lexicon easily

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Favourite language sketches

1. Herge Tin Tin Syldavian & Bordurian

2. Goa’uld from Stargate universe

3. Minionese from Despicable Me Disney movies

4. Marc Okrand’s Atlantean (now dismissed)

5. The Ancient Language in Eragon saga (now public)

More and more new sketches from popular culture out every day.

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An example of Syldavian

Source: Le Sceptre d’Ottokar

An example of Goa’uld

Source: stargate.wikia.com

An example of Minionese

Source: fireflydaily.com

Why Atlantean was dismissed?

Source: duolingo.com

The Ancient Language became official!

Source: private email correspondence

Paolini’s present

Ph: Lauren Zurchin

Eternal glory and fame. . .

Source: KAT-blad, 107, Mei 2015

Evaluation

such a task is really a laboratory of language planning, not sodissimilar to the technical choices a language planner frontsevery day in order to revitalise a minority or an endangeredlanguage, though of course, in the latter case there is a realculture with real people who want to save, restore or promotetheir own language, while in Hollywood linguistics no realpeople or culture is involved (Gobbo 2014: 300).

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Learning linguistics by doing:primary schools

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The context

■ Montessori Primary School in Milan, Italy

■ Montessori method: collaboration and autonomy■ The linguistic laboratory is a two-year programme (age: 9-11)

□ first year: build the language□ second year: put language in use

■ 3 editions so far (one concluded)

■ No grades, everything done collectively

■ Pupils often speak many languages at home

■ Some pupils diagnosed with learning disabilities

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The context

■ Montessori method: collaboration and autonomy

■ The linguistic laboratory is a two-year programme (age: 9-11)□ first year: build the language□ second year: put language in use

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The context

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The context

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The context

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The context

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The context

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How classes are madeyear

language

female

withdisabilities

homelanguages

2012-13 Araık 12 12 1 4: Dutch, FrenchSerbian, Spanish

2015-16 Gatloik 14 8 4 6: Flemish, French,German, Japanese,Hebrew, Neapolitan

2016-17 Ukaltuc 14 12 1 1: Spanish

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Long-term goals

■ Increasing the metalinguistic awareness

■ Orientation and interest towards language diversity

■ All pupils should work (work together as peers)

■ Strengthening self-esteem by bilinguals

■ Favouriting linguistic creativity in textual production

■ Consolidating the class cohesion

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Long-term goals

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Long-term goals

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Long-term goals

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Long-term goals

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Long-term goals

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Metalinguistic awareness

The first step to plan a secret language is to analyse the languageof instruction, in this case, Italian. We start building thephonological space, which is smaller than Italian. This guaranteesthat the new language will be comfortable in pronounciation.

Typically, some letters [phonemes] are cut away as “unpleasant” or“useless”: <q> [kw], <gl>, [λ], <h>.

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Proper name in Ukaltuc

ph: 2016 C Bonazzoli

Language diversity

The second step is to build the Parts-Of-Speech, that mirrorsItalian, but using the other languages known in class.

Araik, Gatloik and Ukaltuc are morphologically regular andagglutinative, as most planned languages are. Pupils try to reducelanguage complexity at their best.

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Example of morphological analysis

Working together

Nobody works alone in the laboratory: the language is shared amongthe class members, while important decisions are takendemocratically by the whole group, under the guidance of theresearcher and the teacher.

For example, in the case of Ukaltuc we have four grammaticalgenders: neuter for objects and abstractions, masculine, feminine, and. . . trans – extreme politically correctness.

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Working in parallel in small groups

Self-esteem in bilinguals

Often pupils who speak other languages at home believe (wrongly!)that bilingualism is a disadvantage, as they feel insecure inItalian, the language of instruction.

Giving the possibility of using their linguistic knowledge in theclassroom when planning the structure of the secret languagelegitimates their home languages through school use.

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Linguistic creativity

Secret languages are used mainly to write nonsenses, haiku, nurseryrhymes, magic spells. After a while, adults ask to write bilingualtexts, e.g. in Gatloik-Italian, in parallel. The Italian version in generalis better than in monolingual tasks.

After the first year, the language structure is complete and abilingual dictionary is produced and evaluated together.

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Example of nursery rhyrme in Gatloik

ph: 2016 F Gobbo

A page of the Italian-Gatloik dictionary

ph: 2016 F Gobbo

Evaluation at the end of the first year

ph: 2016 F Gobbo

Cohesion of the class

An important moment for the sense of belonging of the class is thesecret language name. Of course, the language is shared among theclass member but secret for brothers, sisters, parents, and otherschool members outside the class.

In the second year, pupils want to create a utopian country wherethe language originally belongs, usually conceived as an island.Again, language is culture. They are currently writing the TouristGuide of Gatloik-land.

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Individual proposal for Gatloik-land

Elaborating Gatloik-land in Minecraft

Linguistic landscape in Gatloik-land

Current limits and further directions of the laboratories

■ A pilot experiment (no parallel sections in the Montessori School)

■ Need of two control groups: Montessori vs. non-Montessori

■ A theoretical framework to measure results

■ How much is the laboratory language-dependent?

■ How much is the laboratory Montessori-dependent?

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Thanks for your attention!

Questions? Comments?

If not now, send afterwards to:

⟨[email protected]⟩

Web page: publications.federicogobbo.name

c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

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interlinguistics in the 21st century: planned languages as a tool to learn linguistics by doing

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