Now, if you are not an H.P. Lovecraft fan you title of this post might look like absolute gibberish, however, it is in fact, an actual language, albeit a constructed one. The strange and very much unpronounceable language called R'lyehian was created by the esteemed American, horror author H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was well known for his very unique genre of Gothic horror, the eventual evolve into its own genre, Lovecraftian horror. Through his many works, Lovecraft often wrote many different stories that all belong within the fiction. So the R'lyehian language appears in many of his works, the most notable of which would be the short story, "The Call of Cthulhu". And yes, i'm spelling that correctly.

   You see, unlike many other constructed languages that exist, R'lyehian was not created for the intended use of human speech. In Lovecrafts stories, the R'lyehian language was spoken by ancient godlike monsters, who did not have traditional means of vocalization. In place of mouths and vocal chords these monster morally had an olfactory opening hidden by tentacles. As disgusting as this sounds, it brings to light a very interesting topic concerning constructed languages, and linguistics in general. What would a language sound like if it where spoken by creatures who had non traditional vocal arrangements? 

(Cathulhu, pronounced "Kathooloo" is an elder god within Lovecrafts fiction, and is an example of the type of creature that would speak R'lyehian.)

    While its easy to think of hundreds of different sounds we can make with our mouths to construct and language with, it becomes infinitely more complicated when we consider adding sounds that we cannot produce. This happens to be the case with R'lyehian. It is a language that no human could speak because we do not posses that physical anatomy to produce the sounds that a required to speak it. And reversely, any of Lovecrafts monsters, while possessing the ability to speak and comprehend language, would be unable to speak English, for they to lack the anatomy to produce the sounds it requires. 

(The Xenomorph from the movie "Alien" has very unique anatomy and is a prime example of non traditional alien vocal anatomy.)  

    As food for thought this is a very interesting topic. It brings to light a topic, those  of which who would seek to create languages should be aware of, as well as the idea of what it would be like for us to learn an alien language or vise versa. If in the vast expanse of the cosmos there is alien life and we where to meet it, there is a very slight chance we would be able to communicate through spoken language because of this reason, however unlikely this situation actually is. But within the context of constructed languages, it can be used as a powerful tool, to help one create a realistic and vibrant alien language. 

     

The Quirks Of Language And How To Use Them

Today I am finally going to start discussing something I have been dying to talk about since the beginning of this course and something I have been meaning do to for a very long time know. As I have mentioned before I have always been fascinated with constructed languages, and so it has been my dream for some time know to actually construct my own, and this course has given some of the preliminary knowledge to make that happen. So for today's subject we get to dip our feet into the process of actually constructing a language, and more specifically, the quirky attributes that languages naturally develop. 

              So the idea behind this is that when you are trying to create and constructed language, usually the goal is to fit it into some sort of fantasy world, so you are trying to make a language that seem like it has naturally developed over hundreds or thousands of years. So with this in mind, it’s a good idea to make sure when creating your language to include a fair number of linguistic, grammatical and syntactical quirks. Having grammatical rules that aren't universal, and adding odd exceptions to rules may seem odd at the time, but really adds a sense of depth to your language. A great example of some of these oddities in English is this poem I found. It wonderfully demonstrates how some things in a language just don’t make sense.

               Now as fun as it might be to make an odd and twisted language with conflicting rules, it is also important to show some restraint in a number of areas for a number of reason. firstly if you make you language too convoluted no one will ever be able to learn it or speak it fluently. But more importantly, if you want to make your constructed language realistic it is important to shy away from creating phonetic abstractions. Even though many languages have odd and varied syntactical rules, they almost always have an ironclad set of consistent phonetic sounds. Certain languages doesn't use specific sounds and highly use others, so while it's important to establish which sounds your language will and wont use (a great way to determine this is using the International Phonetic Alphabet) you must then maintain consistency with those sounds. 

               These are just two good examples, in my opinion, of universal linguistic rules and quirks that can really help establish realism in a constructed language. And I can assure you will be incorporated into my own. Which I am excited to say we will start to work on with my next post. 

As we move forward with this blog together in the weeks to come, I figured it would be beneficial to take the time in this first blog post to not only discuss my first topic, but also to use that topic to help lay out my plans for the future of this blog. As you may know from reading my introductory post I am fascinated with constructed languages. That is any language not grown naturally but created deliberately by an individual or group. So, for my blog I plan to focus on linguistics overall, with an emphasis on constructed language when the material permits, and for our post today that is the case.  
I recently read a fascinating, albeit short, article on constructed language and its practical use in our world. While, of course, I particularly love constructed languages when they pertain to fantasy and sci-fi literature, in this case I will be sticking to non fictitious instances of constructed language. The article talked about the concept of constructed languages that were designed specifically to be logical and easily applied, one in particular. This was in the context of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that one's language changes how one perceives and thinks about reality. So that if a completely practical and logical language where devised anyone who spoke it would therefore see the word in a much more logical way and therefore act in an appropriately logical manner. While the study latter found this to not necessarily be the case with the future dismissal of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, It brought to my mind the peculiar concept of constructed language as a tool for bettering the human race. Allow me to elaborate.   

(Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, the two co-creators of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)

Many dignified, scholars, linguist, sociologist, and other scientific professionals believe that a one world language would be greatly beneficial to global society. While it is very unlikely that we as a human race will be speaking one language in the next few hundred years, it is definitely an idea to ponder. But what if instead of letting a one world language develop naturally through the inevitable blending of all languages, what if we devised a constructed language for the human race. If we were to do this we would want to devise a language that is in all manners of speaking, perfect. Linguist could design a language that has the most logical structure and grammar to make it easier to learn and to communicate. This language would obviously have to be phased in over a few generations but if a theoretically perfect language was applied and adopted as a global method of communication it could revolutionize the human race, and possibly move us toward our next step of evolution. 

Such a theoretically perfect and logical language could also be applied to our electronics and computer system, allowing for our computers to use our language as code, creating a literal one world language. Imagine every microchip, telephone, supercomputer, man, woman, and child on the entire planet all speaking the same language. It would be a monuments feet in human evolution. However, it is very unlikely any such "perfectly logical language" could be devised, and even more unlikely that it could ever be implemented as a worldwide language. However it is a fascinating theory to think about.