LING 1526
First-Year Seminar: The Linguistics of Constructed Languages
What's "wrong" with English, or French, or Chinese, or any one of the 6,000+ languages spoken natively by humans today? Why invent a language like Esperanto to be a common tongue among all people, or invent a "calculus of thought" to "perfectly" express pure meaning? Why is it hard to sound romantic while speaking Klingon? What are the benefits of Lojban's attempt to rid the world of confusion and ambiguity? This course explores the design of and motivation for constructed languages from a modern linguistic point of view. Constructed languages are those that are the result of some conscious and deliberate design rather than ones occurring naturally. We will explore the different motivations for language construction, from the desire to create a "perfect language", to fictional world building, to fostering global harmony. In characterizing the different types of invented languages, students will develop familiarity with the basic tools of linguistic theory, focusing on phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Languages analyzed in detail include Klingon, Esperanto, Heptapod B, Lojban, Dothraki, Valyrian, Elvish, and various philosophical languages. This class is only open to first-year students.
Instructors
Reviews
2-4 hrs/week
Dumb and stupid class >:( annoying and not fun. Not a hard class at all but you could use your time learning about literally anything else and it would be more productive.
5/19/2024
Professor Danis has always been passionate about constructed languages and linguistics. The extra readings are inspirational and well-chosen. I walked into the class not knowing much about constructed languages, but I walked out of the class only to find myself willing to explore conlangs more.
5/13/2024
Dr. Danis was such a fantastic professor! The class was engaging with really interesting lectures and discussion. Great dad humor. You could tell Dr. Danis really was passionate about the class. Will definitely take more linguistics classes from him and HIGHLY recommend taking a class with Danis.
2/4/2022
Entertaining lectures and a really caring guy. Professor Danis really made linguistics interesting to learn about. Thoughtful and meaningful class discussions. Light homework load.
1/10/2021