Alien Languages

Level of Linguistic Description: Phonetics/Phonology

Name of The Language: Cet’tiri
Cultural Background
For this project I wanted to create a completely alien language. The speakers of čet’tiri are an alien race,
completely unrelated to humans. Their planet is part of the larger cloud of the Magellanic Clouds, which
are two dwarf galaxies located about 158,200 light years away from Earth.
It has an incredibly violent atmosphere due to its intense radiation and wind, cause by high energy activity
of surrounding stars. In order to survive these conditions, the speakers of čet’tiri have to be incredibly
touch creatures; one of their most protective features are their exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is like that of
an ant or a crab, except much sturdier and strong enough to protect the creature from the radiation. Over
time, the species continued to adapt to their climate and can now tolerate the radiation and weather, which
would be instantly fatal for humans. In appearance, they look similar to humans except smaller, and their
exoskeletons create the appearance of scales on their body. They are social creatures who flock together,
forming large communities. Their communication skills are not as developed as that of humans, but they
are able to communicate complex ideas. Their vocal tracks seems to have developed similarly to that of
humans, but they do have a couple notable physical differences to be discussed, such as no nasal cavity,
two sets of unique vocal folds, no front teeth, and more places or articulation.

Linguistic Description
The parts of the language that I invented are phonetics and phonology. Although I really enjoyed learning
about Klingon and I find it a really interesting constructed language, the language I wanted to create was
different than it because I was curious what an alien language would sound like without the “limitations”
of the human vocal track. So, for the language I am creating, called čet’tiri, I am changing the structure
and very physiology of the vocal tracks of the speakers of čet’tiri, so that the sounds they’re able and
unable to make are different than those of humans. For the linguistic description, I will be describing
these physical differences of the vocal track of the speakers of čet’tiri, and how those changes affect the
phonetics and phonology.
The first major difference is that speakers of čet’tiri don’t have a nasal cavity. Instead, they breathe
through gills located on the sides of their back. Their gills are not connected to their vocal track, but
rather they’re connect directly to the lungs. However, in order to communicate, once they inhale into the
lungs they can redirect the flow of air they are exhaling up through the vocal track to create sounds. Since
they do not have a nasal cavity, there are several sounds they cannot make, for example [m ɱ n ɳ, ɲ N].
They also cannot create nasalized sounds, such as [ẽ], or nasally released sounds.
Another difference I thought that would make the language sound very different and alien, was to make
the speakers of čet’tiri have two sets of vocal folds. By having two sets of vocal folds, in theory they
could produce two different voiced sounds at once. For example, pitch is created by the length and
tension of the vocal chords, which are controlled by the muscles of the larynx. The sounds created using
two sets of vocal folds would make the total amount of sounds possible to voice much larger. A change
that branches off of that, is that their vocal folds would also vibrate at a much slower rate. Whereas
human vocal folds are able to vibrate at really fast speeds (in a conversational tone, the average rate is
about 200 cycles per second!), I would slow down the rate of vibration that their vocal folds are capable
of. So, when they produce voiced sounds their vocal folds vibrate very slow. I would also make the actual
vocal folds stiffer. The effect that these changes would have on the production of sound, I think, is that it
would deepen the pitch and make glottal stops easier. By making the vocal folds stiffer the language
would use more glottal sounds as they should be easier to make, and since the rate at which they vibrate
also slows down, the speakers would be able of making these deep “chattering/clicking” sounds.
Another change is that the speakers of čet’tiri don’t have teeth near the front of the mouth. By not having
teeth there, they are unable to make interdental or labiodental sounds, such as [f v θ ð]. They would still
have teeth further back in the mouth. However, the last major physiological change I want to make, is that
they have larger tongues, starting lower in the vocal track/throat, than compared to humans. This means
they actually have more places of articulation, one or possibly even two, which allow them to create
unique sounds that humans are incapable of making. Those places of articulation would be between the
uvular place of articulation and before the vocal folds themselves. Their larger tongues are also more
flexible and nimble. This allows them to contort it in unique ways for new sounds and also makes it easier
and faster for them to “roll” their tongues, flicking it against the roof of their mouths, like humans do
when we roll out R’s.

Motivations
As mentioned, I was very intrigued by the concept of alien languages like Klingon. However,
Klingon, although it was created to sound alien and inhuman, was created so that human actors could
speak it, and thus humans are physically capable of speaking in that language. I was curious how I could
change the vocal track, take away from it and add onto it, and see what those changes resulted in
regarding to the sounds that the speakers of čet’tiri could make. I wanted to actually make it a language
that humans would not be able to speak, because they could not actually pronounce the sounds necessary
to talk in čet’tiri. Some of the changes I made were random, like the larger tongues and vocal folds that
vibrate at a slower rate and are stiffer, as I was curious to what would happen if I made those changes.
Other choices weren’t random, for example, I decided to make speakers of čet’tiri breathe through gills
because it seemed like a more filtered way to breathe, which can help them since they live in such a
dangerous and even toxic environment. Another intentional change I made was to remove the teeth at the
front of the mouth, which I did because I wanted the creatures to be herbivores. Through some research
into the functions of different teeth, I found out the cuspids (incisors) and bicuspids (canines), which are
the teeth in front of the mouth, are usually used for breaking and tearing flesh. The teeth at the back of the
mouth though, the molars and premolars, are meant for thoroughly chewing food, like plant material, and
that’s why I kept them. Overall, the choices I made were in hopes of creating a truly alien sounding
language.
1. Level of linguistic description (1 point): Morphology

2. Name of the language (2 points)

in English - Oursong

in Oursong - (possession) . (sound + art)

3. Cultural Background (4 points)

The Soong, a dolphin-like species with bioluminescent spots of consciously adjustable color, evolved in
an aquatic environment and naturally live their entire lives underwater. Although they are now an
advanced civilization with the technology to build suits which allow them to leave the water and interact
with other members of the galactic community, most Soong engage in this artificial out-of-water lifestyle
only when necessary.

Their reticence to leave the water stems from a variety of factors. One issue is that they tend to have a
difficult time making themselves understood when interacting with other species, largely due to the nature
of their language. Another problem is that they must remain in their suits for the duration of their journey
from the homeworld; accustomed to freely roaming oceanic expanses, most Soong experience debilitating
claustrophobia when confined. Finally, they are an extremely proud people prone to quick anger and
haughty disdain for the less intellectually-inclined, so many have little interest in speaking to alien races
they perceive as less intelligent. This has led to their language changing minimally in response to alien
influence.

However, they are renowned for their creativity, especially in the visual arts. The Soong actually tend not
to think much of visual art, but are happy to reap tourism dollars from those who do. The creative
endeavors they pride themselves on are their poetry and literature. However, these works are notoriously
difficult to translate – every word must be written in color, often multiple colors, and even fonts represent
patterns which affect meaning – so they meet with less outside recognition.

4. Linguistic description (8 points)

The Soong can produce several types of clicks, which convey “letters” through a pattern much like Morse
code. All auditory morphemes are formed out of these “letters”, with the exception of the auditory
separator (a humming noise used between every word to indicate separation so that the clicks can be
parsed correctly).

There is no way to indicate tone with these clicks beyond the speaker explicitly stating their mood, and
every word must be spelled out using a series of clicks, so conveying anything with the same level of
emotional richness and description found in most natural languages would be very time-consuming if
Oursong were a purely auditory language. Fortunately, there are many visual morphemes!

Like human sign languages, Oursong has plenty of morphemes which cannot be expressed as sounds.
Using their bioluminescence, the Soong can combine visual morphemes with their auditory morphemes.
The visual morphemes are generally bound morphemes which simply modify the concepts expressed
orally and make little to no sense when used alone; the only exception to this is infrared, a morpheme
indicating danger, which can stand alone as a general alert.
The visual morphemes are mostly colors, but there are also several patterns of light. All visual
morphemes in Oursong are listed below.

Color Morphemes:

infrared: danger

red: command, take direction

orange/yellow: self

green: not used in polite conversation. Essentially, green lights tell the listener to interpret whatever the
speaker is saying in the worst possible way

turquoise: affection, happiness, goodness

blue: not-self, causing the speaker to blend into the background underwater

purple: disgust, dislike

white: default; no meaning on its own, but used in conjunction with light pattern morphemes in order to
display light in the patterns without “contaminating” the pattern’s meaning with a color morpheme

Pattern Morphemes:

repeated blinking: deception or sarcasm

increase in brightness/intensity: high importance

oscillating: doubt, uncertainty, hearsay (faster oscillation indicates increased degree)

rippling (progressively lighting up the body’s front dots, then middle, then back): calming

Examples of Morpheme Combinations:

1. A Soong swimming with only one other companion could display both blue and purple lights and
blink them rapidly while clicking a single auditory word for “here/now” to playfully joke “you’re
the worst”. As the clicks specify that the speaker is referring to something about the current
situation and there are no other Soong nearby, blue (the not-self morpheme) would refer to the
speaker’s sole companion - essentially it would be like saying “you”. Purple would then add a
negative sentiment to “you”, indicating that the speaker harbored negative feelings towards the
listener, but the blinking would assure the listener that this sentiment was purely in jest.
2. While the visual morphemes are typically combined with click-based morphemes or other visual
morphemes, they can also be paired with the humming separator in order to modify the clicked
word either preceding or following the separator. Generally the Soong speaking will use two
hums, one plain and one paired with a visual morpheme, to indicate whether it is the preceding or
following word which is being modified, but ambiguity can be created deliberately by using a
single hum and leaving the listener to guess which word the modifier applies to. A common
 example would be to say something insulting without blinking, wait a bit to allow the listener to
take it seriously, then blink during the following hum to indicate that it was just a joke.
3. Instead of euphemisms like “is no longer with us” in place of “died”, adding the rippling visual
morpheme (especially with the color turquoise) allows the same softening of the blow without
being any less concise time-wise.
4. A Soong could say “Everyone talks about your intelligence” as a compliment with no paired
morphemes, but as an insult with the green light morpheme added to the “intelligence” morpheme
– the sentence would then most likely mean “Everyone talks about your REMARKABLY LOW
intelligence”, although green directs the listener to take it as negatively as possible and the
listener could choose to interpret it as “everyone talks about your WASTED intelligence
BECAUSE YOU ARE AN UNDERACHIEVER” if they found this more insulting. The green
morpheme is one of the most subjective units of meaning in the language.

5. Motivations (5 points)

The limitations on auditory communication are due to the Soong living underwater. Any child who has
played with their friends in a pool knows that human languages (other than sign languages) don’t work
well underwater; sounds don’t travel as well as they do through air. However, many aquatic species on
Earth, such as whales, communicate effectively in the water using clicks, so this was how the Soong were
created to communicate. With only a few types of clicking as phonemes to choose from, constructing
auditory morphemes is time-consuming, hence the inclusion of visual morphemes.

The inclusion of visual morphemes allows the Soong to communicate complex ideas in a short timeframe.
This is critical in an ocean full of predators – when danger is spotted and action must be taken to survive,
there is often no time to calmly dictate precise descriptions encoded by a lengthy string of clicks.
Sentences can be expressed with a single clicked word.

This contributes to the isolated nature of the Soong species, as described in Q3. Their communication is
full of rich meaning which cannot be simply conveyed in most other languages. As almost no other
species on the galactic stage is capable of bioluminescent communication, this keeps anyone from
speaking their language and ensures the Soong have very distinct thought patterns from other species (in
this alternate universe where the Soong exist, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been proven true) which
leads to their unique creativity.
Special needs
1. Phonetics/Phonology

2. Bada. (Pronounced bah-dah)

3. Bada will be a human language. The purpose of this language is to create a new language which
is extremely simple for the severely mentally handicapped to learn. As someone who worked in a
special needs school for years, it was hard to watch some of the children (and young adults)
struggle to speak and understand English. Many of them were not able to properly communicate
with the adults in the classroom, whether they needed to use the bathroom or needed something
else. With my new language, I will be creating words with sounds that are easily to pronounce,
with letters that do not have multiple sounds. The severely mentally handicapped are often
compared to children in intelligence and mental development, so my language will be constructed
around sounds that children pick up the easiest. According to the article Child Speech Sound
Development: Part 1 from talkingkids.org, there are 45 sounds in the English language, even
though there are 26 words. The article also notes that the easiest speech sounds for kids to learn
are vowels, p, m, h, n, w, b, t, and d (Child Speech Sound Development: Part 1 2011). Since the
mentally handicap’s intelligence is often compared to that of a child’s, these sounds will be the
easiest for them to understand and use. The phonetics and phonology of my language will be
based upon these specific sounds. Since the language will be very simple, it will be easy for those
who work with and teach the mentally handicapped to pick up on. I believe the creation of my
language is very important because there have not been many efforts in creating a “conlang” for
the mentally handicapped. I believe this new language has the power to truly help the severely
mentally handicapped communicate, whether it be speaking, or even reading and writing.

4. The part of the language I will be focusing on is the phonetics/phonology. Phonetics can be
defined as, “The science concerned with the study of speech processes, including the production,
perception and the analysis of sounds. It is closely connected to phonology”(Cameron 2014)
while phonology is defined as, “The study of the sound system of a language or
languages”(Cameron 2014). It is important to note that my language will be using letters and
sounds from the English alphabet, but they will be heavily altered. The sounds of my language
are extremely important, as I will be constructing the sounds to be as easy to pronounce as
possible. Along with vowels, p, m, h, n, w, b, t, and d being the easiest sounds to learn and say,
Child Speech Sound Development: Part 1 also notes that, “Easiest Syllable Shapes: V-V (uh oh),
CV (me), VC (up), CVC with the same consonant (mom) and CVCV with the same consonant
(daddy)”(Child Speech Sound Development: Part 1 2011). I will be focusing on this concept in
the creation of my language. My language will consist of 13 letters: A, E, I, O, U, P, M, H, N, W,
B, T, and D. These letters will only consistent of one sound. For example, in English the letter c
makes a different sound in the word “cat” than it does it the word “cereal”. This way, mentally
handicapped people with the ability to read and write will have a simple learning process. These
are concepts that are hard for the mentally handicapped to pick up on when learning how to speak
and write, but Bada will make this easy. However, it is important to note that my language is
focused on speaking; reading and writing should be looked at as a possible additional tool.
Furthermore, the sounds th, ch, and sh are considered difficult to pronounce for children and
therefore do not have a place in my language. Moreover, the article Development of Speech
Sounds on Toddler Speech Info notes that some of the hardest sounds to pronounce are “v, th (in
this, or three), zh ( as in treasure and garage) ch, j, r, and consonants spoken together such as str,
tr, dr, br, sq, st, sw”(Development of Speech Sounds 2017). It appears that sounds without vowels
after the first letter are not easy to pronounce. Therefore, all Bada words will have vowels as
second letters in my language. I will focus on creating a multitude of words that start with the
 sounds “ma”, “da”, and “ba”, as these sounds are some of the easiest to pronounce. These are the
sounds that inspired the name of my language.
According to Understanding Toddler Words, “sounds that call for lots of tongue movement, such
as "l" and "s,"”(Understanding Toddler Words 2016) are among the most difficult to pronounce.
For that reason, I have not included L and S in my language. Overall, the simplicity of the sounds
in my language will make it easy for the severely mentally handicap to communicate on an every
day basis. It may be hard for someone to pronounce the word “bathroom”, but it would be
extremely helpful if they spoke a language where all they have say is “ba” instead. Words that
start with s, such as sleep, stop, and sick and can be pronounced as “pa” “top” and “ih” instead.

5. I chose my sounds based on simplicity. I am not trying to create the next Dothraki or Klingon
language here. I am not trying to create a brilliant, groundbreaking system of sounds. I am simply
trying to make it easier for the severely mentally handicapped to communicate. Obviously many
of the severely mentally handicapped can simply make a specific sound and their parents/helpers
know what they are trying to say, but it would be more useful if there were an actual language on
paper. The mentally handicapped can be taught this language from day one to make
communicating much easier and effective. This language can be taught all over the country, and
even the world. My language is not meant to replace English entirely for the mentally
handicapped, but rather be an important tool they can use if English is too complicated. I spent a
ton of time researching sounds that are hard to pronounce, and I made sure I found out about
every single one. I omitted all of these sounds from Bada. The simplicity behind my language is
the driving force. Overall, I hope that my language will prove to be useful for the severely
mentally handicapped and for those with severely mentally handicapped people in their lives. My
language will make communicating easier and better than ever for them.

Works Cited

Cameron, Janet. “Linguistics: Semantics, Phonetics, Pragmatics, and Human Communication.” Decoded
Science, 16 Feb. 2014, www.decodedscience.org/linguistics-short-introduction-beating-heart-human-
communications/42808.

“Child Talk.” Child Speech Sound Development: Part 1, 1 Jan. 2011,

www.talkingkids.org/2011/04/speech-sounds-and-kids-part-1.html.

“Development of Speech Sounds.” Toddler Speech Info, 2017, toddlerspeechinfo.com/articulation.html.

“Understanding Toddler Words.” Whattoexpect, WhattoExpect, 27 Feb. 2016,

www.whattoexpect.com/toddler/language-development/understanding-toddler-words.aspx.
1. Morphology

2. Rebs

3. This language is designed specifically for my family to communicate more effectively with my
brother, John, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder. This language will also be spoken the people
close to him, such as friends and co-workers. Due to his disability, he has trouble understanding
and articulating the English language because of its complexity. Rebs is based off the English and
European languages but is simplified to easily articulate thoughts with fewer words. Rebs has
simple sounds for easy spelling so we can easily write and speak with John. The style of Rebs
will be polite since he does not understand sarcasm and internalizes negative emotions directed
towards him. Speaking Rebs will allow us to communicate with John in a language that is easily
understood with specific meanings to reduce confusion.

4. Rebs will use case as a way to mark nouns by function (Rosenfelder, p. 60). This helps make the
language compact and simple. Case also will assist with understanding what exactly is being
talked about and is less confusing than English’s irregularity. To help simplify Rebs, there will be
verb inflections for person and number. This is to help eliminate excess words and easy
conjugations. We will be able to use simple sentences to convey our messages by conjugating
verbs instead of clarifying who or how many is being spoken about. Conjugations help to express
the relationship between the elements in the sentence. Nouns will use articles, which will include
plural forms, to clarify what the distinction really means (Rosenfelder, p.78). Sentence order will
be the simple form of subject-verb-object. This is common among languages and less
complicated to get used to. This order does not have to be definite depending on what is being
said and will sometimes allow for subject-object-verb as the order. To form questions, unlike
English where you invert the subject and verb, in Reb you will simply add a particle to the
beginning of the sentence so it is known that this is a question. This will allow for full
understanding that a question is being asked instead of a statement.

Reduplication will allow for an easy way to place emphasis on a statement without having to add
multiple words to convey a point. This is an easy way for John to express a thought without
having to think of so many different words to get his point across. Suffixes and prefixes are less
complex than infixes which may cause confusion when writing and speaking Rebs. We will not
have to use confusing infixes inserted within a root word and will make it an easy way to
understand what is being conveyed by using the root word as a context clue. Rebs will not use
silent letters like more complex language. For example, the English word subtle has a silent b that
makes writing the language perplexing. Words will appear as they sound and root words will not
be disturbed when adding prefixes and suffixes.
5. The reason I chose to design Rebs in this manner will overall make language simpler for John to
communicate his thoughts. The common word order chosen will allow him to use what he has
already heard and has some familiarity with. By conjugating verbs, this will allow an easier way
of conveying what is being discussed, about whom, and how many. This helps avoid extra word
use that becomes too complex to speak. Since John speaks in short sentences or sometimes just a
few words, decreasing the amount of words that need to be used in a sentence will help him
articulate his thoughts more. He also will not have to process so many words when having a
conversation with another person. Once the conjugations are known, he will only have to
remember the endings and what they mean. Articles used to indicate gender and plurals will also
reduce the number of words that need to be spoken. You will not have to clarify for him and he
will not have to process too much. Rebs is made to easily understand, speak and write so it does
not include complex sounds, grammar rules and is straight forward.
Fantasy
The Phonology of Enashane

Cultural Background
The Enashane language is spoken by the clans of the Forest of Feyrior (abbr. Feyrior). The language is
named for their goddess of knowledge and truth, Enasha. They believe she took the sounds of the Forest
and weaved them together to aid in communication between not only the people of the Forest, but
between the people and the Forest itself.
The Feyrion people have stuck to what they call the Old Ways far longer than the rest of the world. They
live with the Forest, not just in it. The use it’s resources, but respect its life. They still practice “magic”,
which involves the ability to manipulate the fabric and order of nature while still keeping things in some
kind of balance. They have a much higher proportion of child born with this ability. They hold the belief
that magic is the oldest force in existence, is born from the world itself, and that it holds power over every
being - even their gods.
According to Feyrions, magic has its heart in the center of the Forest. The magic that runs through the
veins of the world breathes a strange sort of life into the Forest. The trees are not confined to their
birthplace, they are allowed to shift and move. This gives the Forest a reputation of witchcraft and evil
magic. The surrounding peoples avoid it. In fact, the entire concept of magic is forgotten or looked down
upon by the rest of the world. As such if any child is born with magic outside of the Forest, often times
they are abandoned just on the edge of the Forest, returned to their accursed origin. These children are
rescued and raised by the clans, and consequently their ethnical and racial makeup is very diverse.

Linguistic Description
In Velcari, the larger world Feyrior belongs to, Enashane is the oldest language but has since faded from
use outside the Forest. In many parts of Velcari is has been replaced by the Common Tongue (abbr.
Common), which bears remarkable resemblance to English. Therefore, Enashane will be described with
Common in mind, to aid the reader in understand how it is different and what features of Common came
from Enashane.
The orthography of the Enashane language is synonymous with the standard Common alphabet.
Therefore many of the phonemes correspond to the letters the way they do in Common, for example /θ/ =
“th” and /f/ = “f”. The only difference is the /w/ sound, which is represented by “vh”.
In Enashane, there is a very small pool of vowels that make up the language. There are no central or back
vowels, and none of the vowels are rounded. Therefore, Enashane only uses the front vowels /e i ɛ a/. At
the end of words, “e” is pronounced /e/ and in the middle it’s pronounced /ɛ/. The other two vowel sounds
/i a/ correspond to the letter of the Common alphabet, and only have the one sound pronunciation.
The consonants that make up Enashane come from the range of labial to alveolar with two exceptions, /j
w/, that come from the palatal and velar sounds respectively. There are absolutely no uvular and glottal
sounds. Enashane avoids all plosive sounds but /t d/. The most common manner of articulation is
fricative, with four of the eleven consonant sounds being fricatives: /θ ʃ s f/. There are two nasal sounds,
/m n/, and three approximants /w r l/. The only consonants that are voiced are /m n d/.
There can be no more than one consonant sound between vowels, even across words, unless one of those
consonants is a nasal. The /l/ sound only occurs as the last consonant sound of a word.
Syllables like to start with a consonant, though there are examples where this rule is broken, especially in
multi-syllable words. All the singular pronouns are one syllable and begin with a consonant. In the plural,
the affix e- is added, and they become two syllables with the first just being the affix:

1st: ma 1st pl: ema

2nd: ne 2nd pl: ene
3rd: vhe 3rd pl: evhe
It is a fixed rule that syllables must only have one vowel, therefore diphthongs are not possible in the
language.
Since in most cases there is only one consonant sound at a time, there is no need for assimilation. The
most common instance of two consonants together is /n/ followed by /d/, and there is no need for
assimilation in this case since there are both alveolar sounds.
In general, there is a light stress on the second syllable of the word. When one syllable words occur, it is
generally unstressed.
The consonant sounds /t r w d f l s m n/ are always aspirated unless they end a word or are followed by a
consonant. Aspiration does not lend itself to a difference in meaning, it is simply for sound effect.

Motivation
Since the language was, according to legend, composed of the sounds of the Forest, but even if that were
not to be believed it is spoken by a people who live exclusively in the Forest and therefore I felt the
language should reflect that. It’s meant to be light and airy, to sound like the rustling of leaves and have
the fluidity and melody of a running stream. All the deep, guttural, and harsh sounds had to be removed. I
got rid of anything that broke up the flow too much, like /p/ or /k/. The back vowels were too weighty and
they dragged the whole motion down, so I got rid of those as well.
I couldn’t justify taking out all the harder sounds, so to compensate for sounds like /t/ and /l/, most
consonants became aspirated to that it would lend itself to a kind of airiness.
The decision of only have one consonant sound at a time was born of the same desire. A Common word
like “empty” and “catchphrase” are loaded with consonant sounds. Enashane should be able to flow
straight from one sound to the next, one word to the next, without having to work through four or five
consonant sounds. This decision got rid of any assimilation that might have occurred otherwise, so that
was more of an after effect than a conscious decision.
Pronouncing each vowel as its own unit was for ease of speech and unambiguity in pronunciation. There
is no need to figure out which vowel dominates in a diphthong or worrying whether a certain vowel is
silent or pronounced.
There was no plot behind the stress pattern, it was simply when I wrote out a sentence or two of the
language, that’s where the natural stress pattern for me.
Regularized languages
1. Morphology
2. Name of the language: Labet
3. Cultural Background
The way I came up with the title of the language “Labet” is to recognize that the language
symbolizes the Latin Alphabet. I didn’t want it to be too similar to English but ever since I
learned about what conlanging is through the lessons, I’ve begun to notice the subtleties it has in
languages such as Spanish as well. After learning about Esperanto, I’ve become interested in the
idea of a true language that can break speech barriers. The reason I believe Esperanto isn’t
renown as a language is mainly due to the vocabulary, as it seems foreign to me as an English
speaker. But I admire how the grammatical rules are so few that even I as a foreigner can
understand the morphology just through lectures. Therefore, Labet will yet be another attempt at
an international language that can break language barriers through the simplicity of the language.
I’m familiar with this kind of background because I’m Korean-American and when I speak to my
international relatives, we basically communicate through both broken Korean and English.
4. Linguistic Description - Morphology
I will mostly be deriving my language from the information provided through Lesson 4. The
Language Construction Kit - Word Building pdf has a pretty clear cut section on derivational
morphology. As I’ve mentioned before, those speaking ‘Labet’ will be for individuals who
recognize the latin alphabet at least, and hopefully a basic vocabulary, but still needs an
appropriate way to accurately communicate. Therefore that is why this language will mostly try
and avoid any sort of grammatical irregularity, and will attempt to minimize complex phrasing to
basic morphology. Derivational morphology is a conlanging tool allowing a single root to
multiply into several different meanings; and for those who understand the basic vocabulary of
the language will already have an understanding of words to place the root.
For the sake of Labet not having an extensive vocabulary yet, I will be using just a single word
for each example. One thing I like about the conlang Kebrini is the idea of adding infixes within a
root. “-Lo” as an infix indicates a plural meaning in Labet. Therefore the word “twisto” which
would equal “open” in english, would then turn into “twilosto”. Therefore the word “twilosto”
indicates a plural action for opening things such as boxes and jars. Another infix is “-do”, which
would indicate the meaning of “made of X”. A random noun for example in Libet, “Puree”
(strawberry) would then turn into “Pudoree” to indicate that something is made of strawberry -
like a smoothie.
Another concept of derivational morphology is the process of reduplication. When a word or root
is repeated, it then provides a sense of emphasis or urgency. Another Labet word for example is
“midas” which means the multitude of things in english such as litter, garbage, trash. So to
indicate there being a lot of “midas” on the floor, or if “midas” is used as a verb to litter, one
would simply just repeat “midas midas”. In conjunction with the previous rule, to show that the
garbage is consisted of strawberries, the phrase would then be “midas-pudoree”.
There still lies the concept of the verb “to be”. Similar to the language of Esperanto, there will be
just three different different suffixes to derive past, present, and future tense. Suffixes ending with
“-o” represents the past tense, “-os” represents the present tense, and “-oms” represents the future
tense.
For instance, look at the phrase “midas-pudoree”. In conjunction with english for example sake, a
sentence can be formed as “He threw the strawberries out” into “He midas-pudoree-o”. The
future tense can be represented through this phrasing, “I will throw those strawberries out.” In
Labet, it would simply be phrased “Yo midas-pudoree-oms”.
5. Motivations
While the sentence structure I imagine can be very clustered, Labet is supposed to be a language
that is easy to learn for those who cannot afford to learn a new language that has a foreign
grammatical structure. Labet as a constructed language serves to minimize grammatical
complexities such as irregular plurals. To replace those, simply all pluralistic meaning is
emphasized through the infix “-lo”. I believe replacing irregularities such as with plurals is
essential to simplify a language because many fluent english speakers often get irregular plurals
confused. Even for myself, I’m not sure what the plural version of an octopus is (octopi?). In
addition with suffixes, (-o, -os, -oms), the complexities of telling which tense is minimized as
well. One thing I admire about the Spanish language is the conjunction or compounding of words
to indicate meaning and that was a similar process I was trying to reflect. While many more rules
could be formulated for Labet, I was aiming to provide a glimpse on how Labet breaks down
certain phrases that incorporates irregularities or complexities.
Pan-languages
1. Chinpan.
2. Syntax
3. Chinpan will not be a priori language since it will be based on two existing languages that already
exist – Chinese and Japanese (An interesting observation that I made earlier during my study in
Introduction to Japanese is the fact that even though Japanese’s written language used many
words from the Chinese language, the spoken language is completely different than spoken
Chinese). Chinpan will actually be a posteriori language since I am borrowing elements from two
existing languages. As an Asian-American student who understands Cantonese, Mandarin,
English, and basic Japanese, I notice a lot of similarities in Chinese and Japanese since the
Japanese language borrowed many Chinese words during its early days. While China and Japan
are very different countries, I want to take this opportunity to create a bridge between Chinese
and Japanese so that it would be easier for people from both countries to understand both
languages through Chinpan. Chinpan will have syntaxes that are directly taken from both
Japanese and Chinese, which will act as a hybrid of the two languages. Therefore, the purpose of
Chinpan would allow people from China and Japan to be more comfortable, as well as
understanding with the other language. This is similar to how Latin can help students build
vocabulary in not only English, but also other European languages.

4. In Chinese, the word order is normally S-V-O, or Subject-Verb-Object, which is similar to

English. For example, let’s examine the sentence “我喜歡你,” or Wǒ xǐhuān nǐ (pinyin). When
we split the words in this sentence, we would ascertain that “我” would be “I”,” 喜歡” would be
“like”, and “你” would be “you.” However, Japanese is a little different; even though Japanese is
a flexible language, the basic sentence structure is S-O-V, or Subject-Object-Verb. Translating
that same sentence to Japanese, it would be “私はあなたが好きです,” or Watashi wa anata ga
sukidesu (romaji). For simplicity purpose, let’s ignore the following syntax rules: particles (は for
wa, and が for ga in this sentence), あなた usage (“anata,” or you, is often omitted because it is
unnatural and rude), です (“desu” is a Japanese copula), and subject usage (subject is usually
omitted when the speaker/listener knows who or what the subject is). “私” is “watashi,” “あなた”
is “you,” and “好き” is “like,” and it literally means “I you like.” Now that we have a good
understanding of Chinese’s and Japanese’s word order, we will explore the syntax Chinpan uses.
Chinpan will follow the rule that the subject of the sentence must be defined and placed first in a
sentence. This would provide more clarity to new speakers, especially Japanese speakers since
subject can be omitted. Chinpan will, however, allow for either object or verb to come next. This
means that the last element in the sentence can either be object or verb, depending on what the
second element is. This provides flexibility to speakers who are used to either S-O-V word order
or S-V-O word order, and enable those speakers to comfortably learn and speak any languages
that use S-O-V and S-V-O word order.

Some interesting thoughts I had when thinking about Chinpan for the past few days were the
particles and copula ending that I brought up earlier. In Chinpan, they are not needed to make a
complete sentence. Syntactically, the sentences will make sense once the words are put together.
For example, instead of saying “私はあなたが好きです,” or Watashi wa anata ga sukidesu
(romaji), it would simply be “私あなた好き” (watashi anata suki) or “私好きあなた” (watashi suki
anata) in Chinpan. Particles like “は” (wa) and “が” (ga) are completely omitted, as well as the
copula ending “です” that’s demonstrated in that sentence. Also, the sentences can follow either
S-O-V or S-V-O word order. Another thought that I deeply considered is how Japanese omits
“you.” Chinpan will have a replacement word that could politely and formally address another
person.

Additionally, Chinpan will be an analytic language, or a language that will depend on the word
order and sentence structure (One other example of an analytic language that we all speak would
be English). This unfortunately creates a conflict because Chinese is an analytic language and
Japanese is a synthetic language, which is expressed through inflection or, in other cases,
agglutination. Even though it was difficult decision for me to choose which form to take on, I
personally believe that analytic languages are easier than synthetic languages, which would
benefit all speakers.

Unlike Japanese, Chinpan will have no conjugable words. Japanese adjectives with “い” ending
(i) are conjugated differently than adjectives with “な” ending (na) when discussing tenses. For
example, “美味しい” (delicious with an “い” ending) becomes “美味しかったです” in the past. On
the other hand, “綺麗な” (beautiful with an “な” ending) becomes “きれいでした” in the past. To
complicate this topic, “い” ending verbs and “な” ending (na) verbs have their negative forms.
Not- “美味しい” becomes “美味しくないです” and not- “美味しい” becomes “美味しくなかったです”
in the past. Similarly, “綺麗な” becomes “きれいでした” in the past, and not- “綺麗な” becomes “
きれいじゃなかったです.” I personally believe that this rule will cause a lot of confusion, and will
make it difficult for new speakers to learn Chinpan. Instead, there will be words in Chinpan that
will help the speaker describe which point in time the event is taking place or has already taken
place. For example, “已經” in Chinese means “already” and “將會” means “will,” and these
words will identify what happened, what is happening, or what will happen.

While Chinpan seems to follow many Chinese syntactical rules, one of Chinpan’s syntax rule that
is similar to Japanese’s syntax rule is the formality of how the sentence is spoken. The way you
speak Chinpan to your professors, for example, will be different than the way you speak Chinpan
to your friends. When thanking your professor in Japanese, you would say “ありがとうございます,”
(“arigatou gozaimasu”). When thanking your friends in Japanese, you could drop the
“gozaimasu” in the last sentence or simply say “どうも,” (“doumo”). Chinpan will have that ability
to express formality depending on the listener. This actually links to my cultural belief that I must
respect my elders regardless of who they are. I really admire the fact that Japanese has different
ways of changing sentence formality depending on who the listeners are.
5. In conclusion, Chinpan is a language I have devised to mainly help people from China and
Japan understand the language the other party speaks; Chinpan acts a bridge between Chinese and
Japanese because there are so many differences and similarities between them. Many motivations
have already been discussed after every syntax rule, but the goal of Chinpan is not just having the
ability to speak Chinese, Japanese, and Chinpan. The ultimate goal of Chinpan is to understand
each other’s culture and embrace the differences that China and Japan have. This may be difficult
due to certain cultural and historical events that happened such as the Rape of Nanking, but I
believe that the tension would eventually be resolved. Chinpan will further ameliorate the
situation because there’s no other language that connects the two countries. There are so many
interesting cultures and traditions that both parties have and appreciate, and it’s better if we could
share those. For example, Chinese New Year’s idioms can be translated to Chinpan without
losing its meaning; “恭喜發財,” or congratulations and prosperity, can be said in Chinpan,
allowing both Chinese and Japanese people to understand. Certain Japanese sayings in Manga or
Anime can also be translated to Chinpan so that it’d be easier for Chinese readers to enjoy
reading the manga or watching the anime without having to constantly translate every saying.