Conlangs

Most introductory courses in linguistics involve a type of exercise meant to imitate what’s known as fieldwork: A range of methods for collecting and analysing information about languages you don’t speak yourself. This isn’t because fieldwork is the automatic fate of every linguist, but because these exercises are an effective way to learn about the nature of language. When learning to collect linguistic information this way, you get a sense of what kind of information can be conveyed grammatically, and how.

But as mentioned, not everyone who studies linguistics ends up doing fieldwork. I personally haven’t yet needed to use those methods in a professional context, and since it was a large part of my introduction to the field, I … ↪

Conlangers are generally aware that their hobby is a little bit inaccessible. It’s one thing that you need some knowledge of linguistics to invent interesting languages, but quite another that it takes a similar level of knowledge to understand and appreciate the decisions made in someone else’s conlang. A detailed noun class system can subtly express a lot of cultural nuances… but only to an audience who knows what a “noun class system” even is. This nuanced inaccessibility is a trait which the medium shares with the 2019 video game Heaven’s Vault, developed by the English game studio Inkle. The game takes an experimental approach to language, game mechanics and narrative, and this is at the root of … ↪