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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Search Continues

For the past eight or nine months I have been on a journey to find a language in which to share with my own future family. At one point I was looking at currently spoken languages, but as time passed I began to want the language to be an intimate way to communicate to my children. I turned my search to "dead languages" such as Classical Latin, Greek, Babylonian, Gaelic, Old English, and Norse languages. Unfortunately, most of these languages are ones that are either so dead that they cannot be revived for modern use or they are not suited for my needs. I talked to one of the professors, also known as a facilitator at my school, who suggested that I create my own language by picking apart the things I like about others languages and using them in a potpourri manner.

This is a possible solution, however at this juncture in my understanding and knowledge of language rather unrealistic. It's quite possible that I could create a pidgin language, that is a language which is very minimalistic and build it up from the framework; that would require other people to learn the language and speak it with each other to create a creole language that would later develop into a more complex and formalized language. Again, none of this means much of anything because I really don't know how feasible all this is, and yet somehow I have hope that perhaps with the right people (and Shimer just may have the right people at my disposal) it may be possible.

Ever since I was little I have always had a fascination with languages, and as a child I would create codes and phrases from random sounds I could make; using them repetitively to reaffirm their meaning. I had little understanding of language, but as my research indicates that could be exactly how languages are created. In Nicaragua, Sign Language was non-existent up until very recently. What started out as simply throwing a bunch of deaf children who had been branded as rejects of the public education system; turned into one of the most peculiar phenomena which has many implications for those who study the development of language. These deaf children came together with only crude gestures used at home, but over time researchers found that the students had developed a complex Sign Language that had been built on those crude gestures.

For now, I must simply research more and more, but another part of me says, "Just make something and go with it." Therefore I plan to discuss with my facilitator how might go about developing a pidgin language.

Hoc est verum,
De Facto

1 comment:

  1. That is a fascinating idea... Cool. Keep us updated with what you find out! :)

    Hope everything is going well for you!

    ReplyDelete