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Invented languages and new worlds

Article · January 2002

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a:
~
:J INVENTED LANGUAGES AND NEW WORLDS
A/~
~IVJ
W frl ~ Joseph 1.0 Bianco, Chief Execuaive, Language Australia

~
Llnguis1l'8 elementS3llnd extra-
: ~ A posteriori languages draw their building blocks from ex- reform
~
move.m~ms ~!!fFnd ar~ not much more success-
linguistic contexts ~ isting languages. Mostly these are natural languages but tul than a pnon an~f 1l(I~!~7r~rt invented languages.
he life of a language inv~s relationships between A priori Inv~bted~Ianguages
T
many a posteriori language projects use already existing but
linguistic elements and~tra-linguistic contexts, originally constructed languages as raw material for their s, V.', " "
The extra-linguistic contexts are the innumerable
linguistic elements, Several invented languages have been One early languag~?,conslruclmti'~ffg>~,
iJ" \;I·.,ft "
was in 1647 by
societies, cultures and sub-cultures of human groups, in- subjected to reform movements just like natura! languages. Francis Lodwick in gngland. C~~f'his proposal
eluding worlds of imagination, ideology and reality. The The design principle behind a postenon projects is a m~,!1"'\.t. mmon Wrilin8F'lodwick imagined that by choosing
linguistic elements are also varied and multiple, involving pragmatic acceptance that a constructed language shou~d not(~": ,I , rJl~ !1~~ #ching what he considered commonly
both written and spoken symbols and grammars. ,expect ~~~.~e~.,~~gu~geusers to abandon their exrsung '.lfercelVllIi~Il~ti'i'rCh words, their meaning would be-
, ' . .,....;;r.:;-;~:~~~~.;~ ~~lMfti~S.'i1~~~O~1 totally n~w ones In \~\Wme clear to readers who did not speak the originallan-
In thisarticleI diSCUSS invented languages, paI!:b:,tQ~(JJo~: "r;mepll!"Sl1 ' u~e~'llythe:language Inventor. A \}" , ' ..
, • .", ',: - .. , .. , ";"" ,__"Co,.' ;.c. ~,., ..,"y"I,'" ""':" ltllage of the word. The practical effect (of this rather irn-
the mouvauons and schemes of languagt1J~'lP!\tjl erefor{;" tt;ricrlO"tilire."~riously 'i!£'\., .
'~~/q!hl;::' ,. , .
era! but also to corn are those lan /;',." "',~.' ' . ' "~-tL.::" .•~, p~'tcalldea) was the addition of scribbles to pnnted En-
'",:;j.:;;>""" .
, . . P e extra-linguistic context, but this does not neces~~. g[j~:'ords. Lodwick imagined that by adding such special
ated for international eo guarantee success eithe l ,..,.,~, ../
""ls;jgn ~selected English words they would be rendered un-
A 4J\
"" 1 r. 1
IALs (International A~~j,l!~ ,.
hi h I f ' '" ' . : ,. '
" ,.
Modifications to eXlstmg'lI111\ltll1 languages whether tiny delJ~able to people who didn t speak any English, so that,
,"''' . , .
w IC actual y uncaons as ~',r' ,\;,r"" , -~. , .
, . ," . '" ".!, and endangered languag'es or' and dominanl ones are say, n\m.Hjlgbsh speaking RUSSians or Greeks could some-
ral and very unmven_ • l'r. p,;lC • .I:.
,,7;;, even more pragmatic about t linguistic context\nd h?,)I'/~I;14Ji~!l.lishby virtue of an intuitive squiggle.
There have bec~}ti(· ... '" ~,~ - . f1 ~1, ~(\ f : "~';\
. , AfIHl.";'tV usually aim to help an existing S~n.:.f,OII~numty a~,~o _~pe~ exemplifies something important found /l.t;lf4¥iic!i's
and mllh~?~J! changed and more challenging SOOlI!! envrronmen ' . ~',~:,,;,i,,,,.;.--...111l " ":'-guage projects: the search for a system
Sc hubert.,'198~
.." third type, the partial modification ~',:a;natural)
\ .." ' '"'i"-~'
'F.>"'"
, , ..~1· ,'''''I; , ' . 1 wo Id
, k id I all
~ ~·'l I~'" . . . :~~~{ '---r.:-P [,/l"'~ ~1 u mar I eas common 0 I

or Iess c~I)?P',,~ includes efforts 10 revive dead or dymlfl1aturitll .r· I. 'l<_ '. ",:, ",',' ".",' '\,_
'. ' ••(Cl, -:\'1'.. ~;, tttall:trliiires:"'h
There'are'au:J~ _~(devising new words, expressions, writi,~sys .-. .1_'''2:~~ -~}~.J!~!r, r~r~:~~~:1:~j~:~p~~t..
or artifi~jM
..
f' .
,
ns so that these languages m a f t a ¥ ' : ':l'bI~·tdelil\,iA; - ,
but even modifications
:iljany invented language projects,
'(p
ther Englishman. Bishop JOM ","
40 basic categories encom-
xisting entities. In both the
peak), fil~il' anguage" ,"
, g~. •. .'! i_
.. ilkins' scheme, each core idea
~

.," " "': : 'I: ,'r',,:- , (the :W~i~~~, ,-<l ": d and recurring ones) was to
rn"r--F---~--(f-:';'::' ;;;''''=lilF''''
"'
~ ~'lloi1 jl~~!} -
.. -+,~.
.."'.ri.j,- ~Sj;o"1~':l,<: ;.-'c '"1 markea~.,.a~I~1¥~we!.orconsonant
' . : " , II ,~:1;'1,~
be (or a diactric of
se
~~
• ~"'~
"E ' , : '••' . } ,,'I'. . "
... ",'']0
, "oM'l,t"" ",,~,.,
.-' ;I't,.,,' ~ ~ ': I~'rl ,l~
-"

. i,;;l> •" ,"'1';'

"V!n'"
.

11;", '-"I
:>
.' ,::i ;~ .. :f"some kind), ~P"W'~~rn:,Wll!;re would do the same. The
, effeqr"'w!lllld-bt
'cIqllectlve '" universal kind of wriling.
, .. .,\,.r J
. ~, :,:•t'~:11 .:~ ~Ough repetilt0t~~,~!iI!~1eprinciples, we would learn
1l ,~'. '/I ", ~,I'I'" ~lo~l'~
c.n ;~ J~ ~ ~~.

" ~.. ~~r;~:~ ,it~·'io):,,:· .

, ,:;j! ;, lij,J' ,"l '~).~.,.~.'1~ '~'!li 'I' 'ystem quickly anl.lre.:."Jnljeril,
'l(i-~- ,.t":lr ..
"
and encountering a new
£ ,~! '·o'~'f.. !"i· .
',;:1' jW \

projects. However, a per- 0 i '.'~ ,d uage we woul o :identify the core meanings
..(~'~15· ~."~ '>t-.~'J'lb
'I"i.- II F~ I ,~:. ~ ~
' '" 4.i~ "':"~:!>; e," /1' .,,' f';1
'languages go beyond the
.A:-~' t\~, fl~ 'A1~' ''l~. ~~,,' ugh the standard • \t1-~w
, e central logic of the sys-
~ .Jl
inventors andresuhin -A;~: ?~~~I] I If:tll:~, I~I' r.,,,~~~,~: ~~ /~r·~, ~ t,," ~te would ensure that'l:ommufllcation across language and
i . . 1'1
t

-i1!'_~~'
.l'-"- 1,. :::' ~~Y;l j."~ '1t1 ~~ ~\,..
ds of elements .~f)I':L 'i'\~' ~ /'. ", !t'f': ,:~~t' "~>,;".
im'~'~Iems Mal"€~", g=;·1i·~;7
• -" '~"i,.
.jhl~;t" ,r":, ·t-~,~
,""'",,,,,",,,", ~.lI~'
I' - ·"'·_1.. .,'t",'"''
"':i'\~,- '-.~,
'. Ir
, .,,"
• I '[';' , . "g
i~ .~, • ;"';;; ~ ~'~ Hura! differences r~~~,,\lelenbanCed, even across lan-
, , " \"I!l """"'!1guageSthatwedono'S""'~'"
. . ~ r.
,1 hj~ .t""!"Q4~ j
,~o! ~I, ~. .;.; -. ;-< , ...-.(') ".- -It'lll:,,:"';; - . f?l-~, " ,.;Jf,~,11 '~",' - :t- "'1~ ' , : I.• _ , . tl:~ 1~ , H.~' Jr~ ~;rlj
based ' .{,~. ~--, Ji~~'~~~ko. ~~. "J3t,; .:' .•~, p. , .) ~;,V I ~.;l ~,(J o!'
' m ; ' I : ~,",' 'IT ~'t, ...~! '''\,.-1
able aCrOSS ¥~ ., ..1~
'!
.1 !
" , ... ":"': to'
f ,.t.(l,,~~ 'V Much more elabo telL,
dl 'I
!fkedout is Ra, Ro is an eXlen-
and globJi " < i : ' : ( , _ ~,.~~;~l ;~~:ry-- ~ sive, logical and~_/~t~ 9 guage created in the United
mit excepti&li,.lO, ' : , j~ States by an OllillRe\lmn~ ward Fnster, who lived from
',,¥ , ' Ew S 2 1853 to 1931/FQsl~rt~:iJib ession produced a language
priori language
Ira-linguistic contelit& ,
p.~ Iy, (no matter how hril-
ALM ART Icd"s~' 3-15 in which,
• £l "
1jk;,~I: 1'" ~,,~:,i~~P.~,~Jh
h, word categories are evi-
,.Wiud,

'l'. > •
Jiantly conceived they~~): ey fail as IALs or in whatever
REVI EWS 13- 15 -.,-o:.:;,~~., ~~1~,
dent 1TpJij.,
' ' ' ' ~.
'" W\~'iQ.':,
c
al bofoc means red, bo/od

other social, political or

original creation. , ' -""
X(~llectual
')~'~'"
ambition inspired their A WORD 0 N WO fU) S 16 A,:1~ ," "!,f', ,l~,~,'~,:_:.:,:"..'!,"I;~ ~(}:,:,;~: ~ , : t~', !.1.: ;:,:,·, ;~!',
r':-; <' '

,{;~;,':~~11~',,,, REARVIEW MIRROR 16,' ';,';:;\l"'ll;"'i,,'~{.\,:" ",;:,,:'~l, :i ...continued on page 6

_L:'m'&~1::'F-'-_ -;~~~~~
rs .
Invented languages
.i.continuedfrom front page
means orange and bofof means yello .... This sequence en-
capsulates Foster's desire to have written or printed words
'teach the learner' by having spelling hint at meanings. Es-
sentially Faster was seeking to devise alphabetic picto-grams,
a little like Chinese characters, with the letters of the Ro-
man alphabet that English uses, so that a picture or image,
or other semantic quality, was suggested in addition to the
lener's existing correspondence with a sound. He described
this process as "self-interpreting", Foster's main aim was
not peace or universal communication, but to produce an
inherently logical new language system, he was more fo-
cused on linguistic elements than extra-linguistic contexts.
The increased logic in the language system would in turn
enhance learning, improve acquisition, and stimulate better
retention of ideas, but only indirectly would it also contrib-
ute to "enlightenment and human progress",
The first Ro publication emerged in 1906but with energetic
research and creativity 16000 Ro-English words were soon
devised. Devoting much of his life to the project, Foster
produced a veritable scaffold of consistency and logic to
alphabetic writing by classifying every word he invented
under leuer categories according to rules that suggested that
word's semantic properties. For example, words beginning
with B are for substances, D initial words suggest place, G
suggests quality and J relationships. Vowel-initial words were
for grammar, SO that A words denote pronouns, E would
denote verb inflections such as tense and mood, I and 0
.prepositions which are opposite to each other in meaning
while U would be for.conjunctions. The system is more com-
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visit us at: www.cambridge.org/elt/inuse
J!llClCAMBRIDGE
If(JP' UNIYU5rTY nl.E:S5'
6 ALM JUUAUGfSEP 2002
ALMARTICLES I
I
!
plicated as it expands from two to three and multi-syllabic lojbangir; at hup·/lwww.lojban.or&f.Lalojbansirz has a
words. Two-part syllables connect a meaningful first con- journal, a newsletter and an annual LogFest to celebrate
sonant with significant vowels. By adding further semanti- progress and developments, The Lojban project aims to work
cally connected consonants, Ro produces three-part syllables with Esperanto (see below) rather than against it, to advance
and multiplies the logic by some order of magnitude. the cause oflntemational Auxiliary Languages. La lojbangir;
also has purely scientific goals. It aims to teach Lojban, which
Ro works its alphabetic wonders at the ends of words as
it describes as "culture-independent", to groups of people
well as their beginnings. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and ad-
so that scientific testing of the intellectual effects of lan-
verbs are indicated by variations to final vowels of words.
guage separated from culture effects can proceed. In this
Via this rule the last vowel A indicates concrete nouns, E
way, influential theories in linguistics (such as the Sapir-
indicates a verb, I an adverb, 0 an adjective and U an ab-
Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, the claim that dif-
stract noun.
ferent languages influence thought differently) can be em-
Foster suggested that Ro was as logical as a street map, pirically tested,
though I guess he meant for those places where street names
The projects of Lodwick and Wilkins, but also Ro and
and house numbers follow a regular order and paltem and
Lojban, and many others, have sought perfection, either by
where nobody has knocked over the street sign and the over-
constructing languages from scratch, or by modifying defi-
grown crab-apple doesn't hide the house number. These corn-
ciencies in existing languages, As Eco (1997) has shown,
merus are not frivolous. In the seeming randomness, and
there has been a 2()(J()-year search for various kinds of lin-
apparent disorder, of variation, natural languages carry a
guistic perfection. Some projects have aimed to overcome
great deal of cultural meaning for their users, Language
limits in expressive power and to produce languages perfect
variation is often for reasons that have little to do with the
(or artistic imagination: others have aimed to produce lan-
mere absence of systems of formal logic,
guages without ambiguity, perfection for science and phi-
Although Foster was aclcnowledged in the US Congress, in losophy; others have aimed to produce languages neutral of
ideology, interests, culture and nationality. and hence ve-
libraries and among philanthropists, probably only a hand-
hicles perfect for world citizenship; while some have aimed
ful of people ever actually communicated in Ro (Harrison,
to produce languages so utterly perfect that they overcome
R. www,lan&maketcom!outpostlro htm) whereas virtually
all limits of understanding and express transcendentalism,
everyone in the world uses illogical, random, incomplete
connection with God and communication with otherness,
and non-intuitive languages every day,
and hence perfection for spirituality.
A more recent committee-created logic language that is also
very impressive is LojbalJ, "the logical language". Lojban Constructed languages, therefore, are meant to be used by
is intended to be spoken as well as written, Its express aims humans in giving life to new worlds, of ideas, of interests,
include removing "a large portion of the ambiguity from of art, of politics and ideology, of parts of the world, of par-
human communication". Work ticular civilisations, of gender, of particular lifestyles, of the
on Lojban has proceeded over imagination. Every imaginable dimension of life is associ-
more than 50 years from its ated with a communication system because these are neces-
beginnings under Dr Jarnes
Cooke Brown in 1955 (origi-
sarily social. Some examples of new communication sys-
tems for ideal worlds are described below,
nally called Loglan) and has
since involved hundreds of
Feminism, outer space, writing and
art
contributors. Lojban support-
Ladan is a language that auempts to reflect women's ex-
ers call it unique, in that, it aims
pressive uniqueness, finding this a deficiency in existing
to be used among people and
natural languages, and, presumably, in other invented lan-
also, eventually, between
guages. Created by Suzeue Haden Elgin in the early 1980s
people and computers, In other
in the United States, Ladan has a radical pronoun system
respects it shares the aims of
and original ways of working such as morphemes that are
many invented language
based On speech acts and 'evidence acts' .
projects that connect innova-
tions in linguistic elements Unlike English, L'adan sentences place the verb first, then
with extra-linguistic social the subject followed by the object. The speech act morpheme
claims, for example logic and is placed at the beginning of sentences and the evidence act
rigor with cultural neutrality; at the end. the fonner indicating what kind of sentence fol-
phonetic spelling and building lows (ego interrogative or imperative) while the 'evidence
t,U'l1H'
~r.r-.a.,"'ll!lll!(.lIh_) millions of words from a fixed act morpheme' shows whether the information in the sen-
ph:M Ilom. ftIn Cb-lON
number of root words (1300) tence is derived from personal experience, a trusted source,
alongside claims to "remove or a hypothetical source. These morphemes provide in gram-
restrictions on creative and matical fonn information that in English speech or writing
clear thought and communica- we have to seek. Although not obligatory for all sentences,
tion" . evidence act morphemes frame chunks of speech or writing
and supply to participants in a conversation infonnation about
Since 1987 Lojban has been
the authority basis of certain expressions. Other features are
supported by The Logical Lan-
more conventionally feminist. An example is gender in
guage Group, or la lofbangir;
nouns. Gender is not normally marked, but when it does
(pronounced lah-tozh-BAHN-
need to be marked, the male category needs specification,
geerz); a not-for-profit com-
pany, The official repository of
its materials resides with to
...continued opposite
 ALMARTICLES
Invented languages
...continued/ram previouspage
by the addition of the suffix -id. For example, the word for
parent is thul but with the addition of -id it is converted into
thulid, meaning 'male parent' .
Like many contemporaryinventedlanguageprojects,Laden
is premised on the idea of linguistic relativity, meaning that
languages are not neutral vehicles for the transmission of
'out there' objective facts, but that human subjectivity var-
ies, not just across individual differences, but predictably
across groups, and thallanguages code, reflect and are inti-
mately bound up with this variation. Different perceptions
of reality are coded and expressed in languages and, in turn,
help construct interpretationsof experience. In keeping with
this ideology, Elgin's project speculates about what impact
such a language that expresses fundamentally different no-
tions rooted in female experience and perception would have,
or have had, on American culture. Unlike Lojban that imag-
ines it is possible to have language without culture or ideol-
ogy, Laden accepts that these go together and seeks to rep-
resent a neglected perspective.
Laden also exists in an imaginative and literary space of its
own, such as in the 1984 science fiction novel,
Native Tongu~, and its sequels, which have explored the new
worlds appropriate to a Ladan-influenced reality. Because
ofElgin's formal linguistic training, L'adan is found in schol-
arly writing as well (see hupRwww interl0R coml_kmsl
l,aadanlleamjng html).
Many invented languages exist in imaginary space. Unlike
those created languages that attempt to impact on the here-
and-now, a large and growing number of created languages
exist for other-worldly reasons.
Klingon, for example, has its very own institute. Like its
better known French counterpart, the Klingon Language
Institute, founded in 1992, tries to protect the purity of
K1ingon and develop its expressive range. K1ingon makes
big claims for itself, described on the institute's website as
the "galaxy's fastest growing language". From its origins in
the Star Trek movies (where other languages, eg. Tamarian.
are spoken), Klingon is perhaps the preferred language of
space enthusiasts and those motivated towards alien com-
munication. The bumpy headed aliens of Star Trek are not,
in fact, the main users of Klingon but possibly thousands of
otherwise normal earthlings who probably weren't interested
in school French or Japanese but find K1ingon the foreign
languagece. With its own orthography (a script called plqaD)
and a remarkable range of paraphenalia 10support its devel-
opment KJingon provides an array of identity markers for
its users and learners. The "Warriors Tongue" is saturated
with its own distinctive culture, commercial merchandise,
projects and activities, but also supports scholarship through
its journal, HoLQeD,devoted to Klingon linguistics, as well
as dictionaries and pocket guides, conversational books and
audio cassettes (See hllPBWWWkli mgD.
Just as future imagination is inhabited with its own commu-
nication systems, so too is the ancient mythic past. The in-
habirants of Middle Earth, creatures strange and multiple,
glory in a rich communicative repertoire. JRR Tolkein was
a professor ofAnglo-Saxon, an accomplised student of Latin
and Greek, and studied and spoke several other languages.
In devising communication systems and histories for hobbits,
ores, elves and dwarves, Tolkein gave full rein to his many
ALM JUUAUG/SEP 2002
linguistic accomplishments, but reversed real-life experience
in which language functions usually precede language form.
Tolkein first created languages and then invented worlds,
discourses and roles so that his created languages could run
free. Tclkem's work provides history, both. fragmentary and
complete, and a "present" full of diverse names and naming
practices. This language world has sufficient examples of
diglossia, language ecology (shift, maintenance and death),
stable and ruptured bilingualism, culture and language con-
nections, and other features of linguistic variation and soci-
ety-language correlations to satisfy most sociolinguists.
In lost time, the elves divided into two main groups: the
West Elves (Eldar) and the East Elves. Among the Eldar,
three great tribes sailed from Beleriand to Valar and there
evolved a language called Quenya (High Elven or High
Elvish) which some commentators have called Elvish Latin.
Quenya's distinctive writing system is called Tengwar and
has its own history of origination, modification and reform
with each phase stimulated by the emergence of new com-
municative demands. A rival writing form, Certar, gives rise
to digraphia in elvish writing. Certar (also called Cirth) is
found moslly in the scatchings and inscriptions of Sindar
Elves back in Beleriand, and so is archaic. Low Elven was
called Sindarin (or Gray-elven) and was originally the lan-
guage of those who did not sail from Beleriand. Over time
Sindarin separated from Quenya, so that communication
between the West and East Elves became difficult. Some
elves were expelled from their new lands and returned to
Bc:1eriand where they had to re-learn Sindarin, though they
retained Quenya for ceremonial purposes and high occasions,
reversing the High-Low split between the two languages.
As far as "Men" are concerned, Tolkein has another elabo-
rate pattern as well. Most "Men" speak "westron", which
dates back to the "Fathers of Men". Some of the human tribes,
whose ancestral language was "Adunaic", had helped the
elves during the wars and turmoil in the times that precede
the focus of most of the books, the times of legend, memory,
and myth; tumultuous times when they fought The Dark
Lord. They were rewarded with learning, long life and a new
place to settle. In this new place the human tribes learned
Sindarin from the local elves, though some spoke Quenya.
As the humans mixed with other creatures, so too didAdunaic
mingle with other languages eventually becoming the Com-
mon Speech, later called Westron, spoken in much of Middle
Eonh.
In the Lord of the Rings, language changes from archaic to
more modem forms reflecting Tolkem's keen sense of the
evolution of speech over time. The Hobbits did not have a
distinctive language of their own, but used the language of
"Men". Hobbits underwent a major language shift, from
Rohiric (which was used in their ancestral lands of Anduin
and Mirkwood, from where they fled the tumultuous events)
to Westron, which they learned when they arrived in Eriador,
their place of refuge.
There are other languages in the Lordof the Rings: the hard-
to-learn language of the ancient Ents, described as repeti-
tive and (XHJr sounding; the slow-changing language of the
Dwarves, with its secret discourses and private speech; and
the "Black Speech" of the Ores, cobbled together from other
languages, as if to reflect their lack of virtue. Having an
original speech, and being separated from it, suggests trag-
edy; undergoing language shift implies being pragmatic;
having an original speech and retaining il connotes virtue;
but 'cobbling together' speech suggests shiftiness. The Ores
perverted other tongues to their foul ends, with the detest-
~
able Sauron involved in inventing their language. Tolkein
makes Ore-talk highly dialectal, and primitive, precluding
effective and elaborated communication among them, per-
haps intending to associate evil-doing with limited expres-
sive range. Over time, however, the Orcs move to speaking
a basic kind of Westron and the evil Sauron's fall leads to
the abandonment of Black Speech, but on his return it is
revived as the language of his court, and always remains the
language of the inscription on The Ring (Noel 1980).
Far less elaborate than Tolkein's world of languages is JK
Rowling's Hogwarts School, where Harry Potter and his
friends learn wizadry, though here too there are critical so-
cial ideas implied with the uses of bilingualism and func-
tional speech forms. For example, some Hogwarts students
are parse/mouths (speakers of parse!tongue) and can com-
municate with snakes, essential for entering the Chamber of
Secrets, guarded as it is by parseltongue-proficient serpents.
Rowling's deployment of language as an access code ex-
presses the intercultural claims for languages common in
books of the imagination, where closed-off spaces and places
are revealed only to those communicatively initiated for en-
try.
Conventional science has produced aUI. This communica-
tion system consists of 31 'units of meaning' believed likely
to be understood universally. Unlike Bishop Wilkins' uni-
versal claims, the universal here is with a capital U, mean-
ing inter-galactic communication. Someone somewhere
nominated these 31 units of meaning as encompassing the
elemental categories in all communication systems, and
hence they constitute a code of encounter with intelligent
life from outer spece- Included are ide~~ such,as space, mat-
ter, sound, this, time, action, above, together, before; light,
human person, and negation. I recall some years ago that a
NASA space mission etched symbols for what seemed to be
similar units onto a probe they launched towards the far-
thest reaches of outer space with some expectation that 'in-
telligentlife' would be able to determine human good inten-
tions, and technological advancement, by decoding the sym-
bols. I can't locate any mention of aUI on the NASA webstte
but some system of this kind must lie behind the design of
the etcbings.
On a different note altogether is Viko. Viko is an "art lan-
guage" invented by a Filipino Canadian "hobby linguist"
and language creator, Victor Medrano, and is intended to
allow contemplative space to silence. Characterised by
minimalism and "elegant simplicity", this language, like all
languages, carries ideology in its predisposition for such
expressive arts as haiku poetry. Motivated by what Medrano
describes as "serious fun", Viko is an impressive example of
a personal project for language invention, combining a
unique group of language sources (Japanese and several
Polynesian languages, mixed with an admiration of Espe-
ranto), a special aesthetic and a commitment to the idea that
artistic as well as ideological worlds need specialised com-
munication systems (see http://wwgeociljescom vjxcafe!
rik2.h1m).
Modifications to natural languages
There are literally thousands of well developed schemes to
modify natural languages, and perhaps the greatest number
are for modifications to and relntroductions of Latin. Some
aim to undo the shifts from Latin 10 vernacular, others aim
to send Latin back to the monastic scriptora. while still oth-
ers aim to make the mOSI of the internationalisation of Latin
...continuedon pagl' 8
7
r!1 ALM ARTICLES
Invented languages
...continued/mm pag~ 7
words in many languages across the world, and in this way
enhance international comprehension.
SomeLatin reviversseek no less thanthe restorationofLatin,
and run radio and television programs with strong follow-
ings.
Perhaps the most famous of the Latin revivalists is
lntertingua. invented in the early part of the 20'"century by
Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano, aka Latiuo sine
Flexioneor LsE Some call it Europeano! LsF is a very suc-
cessful inventedlanguage.partlybecauseit is notcompletely
an invention, and partly because it has stimulateddozens of
schemes 10 simplify Latin. In effect these schemes are re-
ally modifications to a natural language, even though the
natural language concerned is pretty dead. Therefore LsF is
Latin removed of its case and verb inflections.
Actually there is a modest version (peano's), and a more
ambitious version,ofLsF. The modest Interlingua.or Latino
sine Hexione. was not so much a revival of Latin for speak-
ing, but a proposed written lingua franca for international
scientific communication, in which Latin shorn of its com-
plex declensions was to be used for the preparation of tech-
nical papers in fields where there is extensive Latin-derived
terminology. Several more ambitious versions of Lsf are
based on the following claim: since educated people across
the world already share a large stock of vocabulary items, at
least in basal form, from ~atin and Greek, they can be ex-
pected to makeeducatedguessesabout ~ meaningsof other
Latin (and Greek) derived words. By removing Latin's com-
plex inflections,and changingits syntactic rules, Latincould
be made more like "analytic" languages, that is, languages
that do not inflect verbs and nouns, and could therefore unite
people across the globe who cannot easily communicate at
present.
Romanova is an interesting instance of Latin revivalism that
reflects part of the modest Peano idea. It is a neo-Latin sys-
tem aimed only at speakers of the main Romancelanguages,
Spanish, French, Italian ~nd Portuguese, and to achieving
what its activists say is the realistic goal of enhancing the
mutual intelligibility of these languages by stressing their
common Latin connections. Similarly,the very active Paris-
based VoxLatinastresses the promotionof the Romancelan-
guages, especially French, in a Europe that they argue is
more wedded 10 English every year.
There are many lAL schemes that stress non-European lan-
guages, or small against large languages. Two examples are
Tokana and Unish, Tokana takes its lexical and grammar
influences mainly from numerically small languages:
Basque, Choctaw, Cree. Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hungar-
ian, Irish, Kwakiutl, Lakhota, Lernagasy, Quechua, Taga-
log, Warlpiri, and Welsh, though it does borrow from very
large ones as well: French, German, Hindi and Spanish.
Like Viko,Tokana is a personalachievementfor the "amuse-
ment and f!dijication" of its inventor who explores his "ces-
thetic impulses and theoretical ideas" < ~
moearson narod.rultok 1 html». Tokana is a classic a poste-
riori language, in that, it tries to "look and feel" like a natu-
ral language, by being based on natural languages. Since
natural languages are always borrowing and lending from
each other anywayTokana's word borrowing and lending is
like inventing natural processes. However, 'rokane's gram-
8
mar is constructed "from the ground up" and, therefore, this
is a good example of a fully hybrid project.
Also not dominated by European languages is Unish, which
comes from Sejong University in South Korea. Unlike the
personal feel of Viko and Tokana, Unish is the outome of a
major universityeffort.Unish works with extensiveChinese,
Japanese and Korean inputs but draws from as many as 16
languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, Esperanto, French,
German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin,
Malay. Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. It is a serious lin-
guistic engineering exercise complemented by a rich array
of scholarly papers.
Unish resembles lALs in many ways, including its ratio-
nale, which is a classic of the genre of the InternationalAux-
iliary Languages movement: "As globalization continues
apace, the demand for an international .medium of
ccmmunicationtbas today become even more crucial." As
discussed below, a productive time for invented languages
was the dawn of the 20'" century, when a global world was
starting to seem possible. Today, however, we don't just
imagineglobalisationbut we live with it. And in the present-
day reality of globalisation, English has come to assume
many of the functions of an lAt.
Unish's devisers deal with global English, about which they
say: "Not a few problems arise when one particular
language[like English is adopted as a universal language
since the people in English speaking countries would be
automatically vaulted into a privileged position. Addition-
ally, English is difficult to learn due to itstirregularity of
grammar and pronunciation" (see hltp-j/www.unishorg).
, Today perhaps several million people speak and study.Es-
This is the classicdiscourseof the lALmovement:thatspeak.
ers of anyone natural language gain unfair advantage if that
language is used for internationalcommunication,that natu-
rallanguages are in any case difficult to learn for speakers
of languages from different language families, that natural
languages are full of irregularities and inconsistencies, and
that they are not neutral.
Esperanto as the classic IAL
A particularly productive time for IALs were the decades
before and immediately after the end of the 19th century.
The imperialpowersof Europecontrolled muchofthe globe,
maps were increasinglyaccurateand technologicaladvances
rapid. Travel and travel writing was producing a "planetary
consciousness" among Europeans (Pralt 1992) and it was
becoming feasible that some kind of interconnected world
system would emerge. Those who saw a global age coming
tried to prepare for it in various ways, though for the most
part they made only modest and personal arrangements.
Some, however,devised remarkable and ambitious schemes
for all of humanity.
Some practical idealists worked to establish world govern-
ment based on universal principlessuch as cultural equality,
national sovereignty, personal emancipation and religious
freedom. Others thought that technology would decide the
world roleof nationsand tried to help theircountry's chances
by inventing madly. Some invented languages.
Most famous among these was a Polish oculist, Ludwig
Zamenhoff, who turned his daily focus of attention away
from individualeyesight to social vision. In 1879a German
priest,Johan MartinSchleyer,had releasedvolapjc, his world
languageproject.Volap.kmeansWorldLanguage in Volap.k.
Based largely on German and English volapk had an im-
pact on the language projects of the time, and especially the
I
I
most successful and best known of all. Zamenof's Hope.
Zamenof's work on Esperanto started, it seems, when he
was 15 growing up in multilingual but bitterly divided
Bialystock. and in later life he even devised a "neutral" reli-
gion for the world, Homaranismo (Esperanto for "member
of the human race").
1n 1887, the Universal Auxiliary Language for the global
age was released to the world. Zamenhof released the lan-
guage under the name of Dr Esperanto,and perhaps because
it did represent a kind of hope the name stuck, so, unlike the
names of most other languages that call to mind a nation, a
people, or a territory,Esperanto names the dream of a world
united by politically neutral speech, a communication sys-
tem that would not favour any nation, people or ideology.
The century into which these ideals were launched, how-
ever, was not a period receptive to politically neutral and
socially inclusive ideals, but a century of extreme and ex-
clusive ideologies, and both Nazis and Soviets, suspicious
of the movement of Congresses to promulgate Zamenhof's
dream, suppressed Esperanto (and
Hamaranismot and persecuted its speakers. Many Esperan-
lists were actually opposed to Homaranismo pragmatically,
sensing that this made them look like a cult, placing further
obstacles in the way of the acceptance of the language.
People often say that Esperanto has failed, and that its fail-
ure shows that artificial languages lack culture (history,val-
ues, literature) which are needed for the survival and pros-
pering ofa language. In fact,the report card some 115years
after its release is not so negative.
peranto, and from its home in Rotterdam, the World Union
of Esperantists maintains a network of more than 2000 rep-
resentatives in over 90 countries, publishes a lively litera-
ture, runs regular conferences and workshops, and encour-
ages world organisations, such as the UN and the European
Union, to recognise it as the International Auxiliary Lan-
guage. Esperanto motivates a lively discourse community
in all parts of the world. Esperanto is older than many lan-
guages that we happily describe as "natural" today, even
though they were the result of deliberate language planning
in the post-colonial period of the 19505and 1960s, and Es-
peranto has grown naturally to display all the qualities of a
natural language, even giving forth its own kinds of accent
and dialectal variation.
In October 1966the Unionof EsperantoAssociationshanded
theSecretaryGeneralof the UnitedNationsa proposalsigned
bymorethana millionpeople,and 3843organisations,claim-
ing to represent71 millionpeoplefrom all partsof the world,
calling on the UN to "solve the world language problem" by
supporting the InternationalLanguage.Thirty years later, in
1996, it issued the Prague Manifesto, in which the claims,
ideas and thinking of what is now called the
Movement for the hnernational Language Esperanto shows
that it has lost little of its fervour and idealism about the
potential contribution of the language to the world, but now
uses a vocabulary perfectly in tune with contemporary lan-
guage rights movementsthat seek to defend small and threat-
ened languages. The Prague Manifesto bases its advocacy
for the wider use of Esperanto on the following claims:
Democracy: Using existing languages of power is
"fundamentally antidemocratic";
...continued opposite
ALM JUUAUG/SEP 2002
-,
I·
,
ALMARTICLES
Invented languages
...continued/ram previous page
Global education: Unlike "erhnic'tlanguages (such as
English), Esperanto is not "bound" 10cenain cultures and
nations being a "language without borders";
Effective education: Many more learners can reach
fluency in Esperanto than in traditional foreign languages;
Multilingualism: Esperanto is additional 10 existing
languages. rather than replacing existing languages;
Language rights: Esperanto does not exacerbate the
"unequal distribution of power" between languages, but
supports equal language rights;
Language diversity: Esperanto sustains world language
ecology rather than the present rapid extinction of lan-
guages;
Human emancipation: Esperanto is described as "one of
the great functional projects for the emancipation of human-
kind" by allowing universal participation "in the human com-
munity", so that while people remain "securely rooted" in
their local cultural and language identity they are not lim-
ited to this.
Esperanto's accompaniments,
rivals and counterparts
Apart from the persecution of'the movement, Esperanto was
also faced with language challenges when it became the
object of active and controversial reform efforts. Some re-
formers sought to bring about minor simpliflcanons (believ-
ing it to be obscure and clumsy in parts), while others wanted
more radical change.
The greatest impact came from Ido. In its early Congresses,
Bsperantists rejected suggested improvements to the lan-
guage made by a group of people who came to be called the
Idists. A full breakaway movement resulted, in which Dan-
ish linguist Duo Jespersen and French mathematician and
philosopher, Louis Conrurar, were prominent.
The Jespersen and Coururar reform proposals drew on an-
other contemporary invented language, Idiom Neutral, along
with their own suggestions for change. Ido enthusiasts claim
that Zamenhof himself had actually proposed or supported
some of the changes being proposed. The failure of these
proposals led to the development of Ido as a proposed IAL,
which shares many features with Esperanto, but has adopted
a gender neutral personal pronoun and discards the Espe-
ranto requirement that adjectives agree in number and case
with nouns they qualify. ldo also has unvarying adjectives.
Idists, though today there are very few of them, saw them-
selves carrying on from where Zamenhofhad left off, though.
like Esperanto itself, this is only true at the formal level of
language design since, in terms of common usage. fewer
people have heard of Ido than of Esperanto. Nevertheless,
Idisrs have an international organisation. issue publications,
and convene gatherings of different kinds, and continue to
press their language. According to their websfte, Idlsts re-
main supportive of IALs in general, and of Esperanto, but
advance the cause of Ido.
In the early days of inventing IALs, a technical association
was created at a global level to adjudicate the claims ofvari-
ous candidates for world language. Novial, which was cre-
ated by the same DUo Jespersen, was offered as a candidate
for International Auxliary Language in 1928, attracting con-
siderable interest. Jespersen's long involvement in the Inter-
national Auxiliary Languages movement, his active role in
advocating Esperanto reform through {do, his invention of
ALM JUUAUG/SEP2002
Novial. and his formal linguistics training makes him one of
the major characters in the history of artificial languages.'
Novial (meaning IIew-IAL) draws its vocabulary largely from
Romance and Germanic languages, and much of its gram-
mar from English. After Jespersen's death in 1943, there
was little organisational structure behind Novial and so it
has largely disappeared, but today a small Intemet-facili-
rated group of enthusiasts keeps working on, and with,
Jesperseu's creation.
Nations, languages and ideals
Volapuk ,Novial, Esperanto, Idc, Interlingua, Lojban,
Unish, A Common Writing, Idiom Neutral.
When we see these languages listed, it brings home a point
we are otherwise not used 10 noticing. Most languages carry
the name of a nation. Artificial languages mostly carry the
name of an ideal. Nation-naming of languages has its own
and complex history. Irish language activists call the lan-
guage whose fortunes they advance Irish, those who either
oppose them, or who are not attuned to the debate, call it
Gaelic. In Australia some call English,
Australian English. I have heard people say that migrants
should speak Australian, and, despite their usually venom-
ous intention, from one kind of socio-linguistics. and from
the theorisation of linguistics put forward by LePage and
Tabouret-Keller (1985), who see language as "acts ofiden-
tity", there certainly is Australian, or many 'Australians',
spoken among Australians. Scots, not Scottish English, is
an independent language ofBritain, largely without the huge
French and Latin influence of the Nonnan conquest that
changed English in England from 1066. A constrenr struggle
for Scots language advocates is for Scots to be recognised
as a language. Actually, there are many kinds of Scots, just
like there are several kinds of Scottish English, and these
merge. but Scots is a language of both antiquity and elabo-
ration, in literature and in speech.
The names of many languages are also claims. Claims about
peoplehood and about distinctiveness. The political history
of language naming has a strong connection with the poli-
tics of state-making. What linguists might technically de-
fine as a "dialect continuum". such as Hindi-Urdu, are, ex-
tra-linguistically, entities with dramatically important social.
political, historical and religious reasons for being different
languages. Like all languages, Hindi and Urdu are often
continuous, and very large 'acts of identity'. Despite being
very similar to Hindi, Urdu is written in the Perso-Arabic
script. Hindi being written in Sanskrit characters
(Devanagari). Urdu borrows from Arabic and Persian, while
Hindi makes an effort to preserve words of older Indian ori-
gin. Urdu is Pakistan'sco-officiallanguage, Hindi is India's.
Then add Panjabi, whose scripts and vocabulary are differ-
entiated by religion, so that Hindus and Sikhs write Panjabi
using Gurmukhi, while some Hindus write Panjabi in
Devanagari. Muslims, on the other hand, write Panjabi us-
ing Perso-Arabic script.
It is evident from this brief description of a complex reality
that linguistic elements take on differentiated meanings in
extra-linguistic contexts. Script alone in this case invokes
national allegiances, religious affiliations and different his-
tories. These extra-linguistic contexts powerfully differenti-
ate which combination of linguistic elements is used, even
in what linguists might describe as similar or identical Ian-
guages. Similarly, in the former Yugoslavia, rival language
planning projects are making Bosnian, Croanen and Serbian
diverge further from each other, invoking nation, creed, ter-
ritory, and contested history.
--
rs
-
Times of major political change usually bring forth language
reform movements, and so the war of independence in
America was a time rich with new language schemes. Im-
mediately after independence in 1776, many tried to mark
the United States as different from monarchical Britain, some
called for a uniquely American language that would make
use of the large German and Dutch presence. Modifying
existing naturallanguages to produce a 'politically correct'
Germanic English, an espoused national hybrid, inventors
set to work writing grammars, readers and vocabulary lists
that biased English towards its German origins. Although
they failed, in 1923 and again in 1968, in Congress and in
the Illinois State House, attempts were made to declare
"American"the official language, in the latter case success-
fully.
Value-free values
Two main criteria, technical and normative, motivate IAL
projects. The technical criteria involve manipulating lin-
guistic elements to produce regular and logical patterns, in
which meanings are more or less 'self-evident', resulting in
languages that are 'easy to learn'.
The normative criteria refer mainly to 'neutrality'. Neutral-
ity is usually of two kinds: political neutrality (understood
as not favouring the interests of particular countries), and
various kinds of ideological neutrality (concerning issues
such as gender-framed worldviews, religious orienranons,
and other values and perspectives).
The technical criteria have proved more or less achievable.
A large number of logical, patterned, regular and intuitive
languages have been invented. More will be. The fact that
there have been many solutions to tht! technical challenge,
and that many of th~se are both elegant and efflclent, sug-
gests that even technical criteria are based on values, and
that these values are multiple and varied. It seems that mul-
tiple, legitimate and stable differences of perspective exist,
even about matters of technique.
The normative criteria have proved far more problematic.
During the heyday oflALs, the end of the 1~ and early 2()'k
centuries in Europe, an Association of Scientific Academies
was founded to adjudicate on competing claims for an tAL,
and to determine, scientifically, "the best one". This mod-
ernist cultural confidence in techniques to solve substantive
problems of competing interests, much criticised by post-
modem scepticism, imagines that it is linguistic and not ex-
tra-linguistic factors that determine the fortunes of an in-
vented language being accepted and used as an auxiliary
language.
But the international domination of English cannot be ex-
plained by any recourse to technicallinguistic criteria. It is
extra-linguistic contexts, and not any ease of learning or in-
herent rationality, that explains why it is tnsuumenrauy use-
ful ro know English in Tashkent, Oslo. Nairobi or Nagoya.
English predominates because of an "historical contingency
arising from the mercantile and colonial expansion of the
British Empire which was followed by American economic
and technological hegemony" (Eco 1997: 331).
Never before has political globalisation been followed by
economic globallsation in which the dominant force of both.
though a different polity, spoke the same language.
l/
.ccontinued on page~
~9
 ALM ARTICLES
EAP on Thai/Burma border
,..continuedfrom previous page
westerners on the border, improved their confidence which
in turn encouraged more risk taking with the language.
At the end of the program a test was given to both the PHC
EAP students, and a group of PHC students. The test was
based on the heallh care principles of which both groups
were familiar, and was in English. The results of this test
replicated the problems evident with the EAP group at the
start of their program: misinterpretation of questions and
relatively unstructured writing which lacked logical progres-
sion. Most non-EAP did not finish the test and two answered
some questions in Burmese. The highest score was 50% and
lowest 6% in comparison to the EAP group - 86% and
54%. Whilst this test had limitations and was not conducted
to form a watertight comparison of the effects, it certainly
presented interesting data.
There is no doubt that the program developed the students'
academic and reading skills and assisted them in their
completion of the PHC course. Nine of the fourteen EAP
students completed the Certificate III program by July 2002,
in comparison LO seven out of the remaining 35 PHC stu-
dents. But the program had othcr positive effects, not only
in terms of surface grammar ability and language structure,
but also in terms of self-confidence and ability to use the
language communicatively and interactively. Considering
lack of previous education and literacy levels, workloads,
and environmental restraints, the progress was remarkable.
Invented languages
...continuedfrom page 9
English, values and a globalising
world
Despite both predictions and hopes of language inventors,
the language that today resembles an IAL is not an artificial
language, but a natural one, nor a language neutral of cul-
ture, ethnicity, nationalism and worldview, but one saturated
with all of these. The actuallAL is nor at all a simple, ratio-
nal, regular, easy-to-learn, phonetic language whose verbs
and nouns follow unvarying rules.
Perhaps there is a fundamentaJ problem with the notion of
neutrality. Perhaps even languages like Lojban, despite im-
pressive efforts to be "culturally neutraf', can only minimise
some kinds of cultural patteming. Perhaps neutralilj' itself
is a value. Perhaps formal order, unvarying regularity, intui-
tive character and many of the other ideals language inven-
tors have espoused are themselves also values and sustain
their own ideology, that of rationality, formal order, sim-
plicity, regularity and intuitive character.
English is almost none of the things the idealists imagined a
world language would have to be, and the global world is
very few of the things that they thought were inevitable. The
global age isn't a world of nations alone, but a world of
multiculturalism, economic globalisation and declining sov-
ereignty, in which many contradictory patterns eo-occur
(Giddens 1999), and in which new kinds of cultural identity
emerge and disappear regularly. Even our views of culture
have been radically challenged by the experience of post-
modernity so that we cannot seriously defend notions of
culture as fixed, unvarying, permanent and essential to idea-
ALM JUUAUG/SEP 2002
View publication stats
It is felt that the single largest contributor to the progress of
the students was motivation, motivation to help the Burmese
ethnic minorities. I believe that had the EAP program lim-
ited the language to safe topics and western ideologies, the
language learning curve would not have been as dramatic.
The use of real situations, genuine texts and tasks specific to
the students' lives gave clear currency and focus for their
use of English language. This new knowledge provided a
path along which they could see the means to contribute to
an improved health situation of their people.
Conclusion
The appropriacy of delivering western style education in
developing, politically turbulent and deprived societies, such
as East Timor, Africa and Burma, raises many questions.
However it is felt that by addressing the need for direct ap-
plicability and purpose for taking on the target language,
seemingly insurmountable barriers can be crossed. By build-
ing on both the situations existing outside the classroom in
the learners' world, and the wealth of their thoughts and
knowledge, learners can be motivated to achieve success in
English language learning. By focusing on their purpose for
learning, language becomes a vehicle to present their
worldview to an international community.
Notes
I. The names Myanmar and Burma are both politically
charged; Burma is universally used by opposition groups.
Burmese is the national language, a nationality term, and
also refers 10 the main ethnic group, the Burmans; "Burma
national" is sometimes used for a nationality term.
tity, but must concede that culture is an ensemble of prac-
tices that are variable and multiple.
Prehaps all languages, artificial and natural alike, are cul-
tural once they come to be used by humans. Rather than
aspire to rationality in languages perhaps it makes more sense
to aim for multiplicity of perspectives. No language, not
English nor Esperanto, in and of itself, certainly not struc-
turally and probably in no other way, precludes its deploy-
ment for purposes different from any biases it may have or-
ganically located within its structure. This understanding
does not mean that languages are not biased, or rather, that
they are not culturally grounded and reflect particular histo-
ries. Nor does this deny that languages can constrain and
channel thought by pre-disposing speakers to some, and not
other, meanings and interpretations. Rather it accepts that
the users of a language are not necessarilyconsumed or ex-
hausted by, or limited to, its biases and patterns.
This, in turn, does not mean we should not be alert to the
biases, the cultural predispositions and patterns that lan-
guages have and that they make available to their users. BUI
languages are neither prison houses of the mind, nor are they
transparent tools without interests, histories and tendencies.
After all, the critical feature of language is not ultimately its
structure but its use, that is, the practices that societies make
available for language, such as conversation, argument, de-
bate, and discussion, tirades, ranting, lecturing, hectoring,
persuasion and so on. These practices are often dialogical
and iterative and make available possibilities and meanings
well beyond any structural merits, or limits, in a language.
A large number of artificial language projects espouse ideo-
logical neutrality so as not to favour the interests, meanings,
worldview, or experiences of dominant groups. However,
what the language inventors produced were not languages
r!j
2. The Karen form the largest ethnic minority and Karen
state runs along the Thailand border
3. Burmese, being the language of the enemy, can be an
Object of emotion in Karen schools:
They have negative attitudes towards the Burmans, they
have negative attitudes towards the Burmese language.
When I was a teacher, some students asked me, Is there a
school that doesn't teach the Burmese language? Many
students didn't want to learn Bunnese; because their idea
is against the Bunnan people.
(Sgaw Karen, from the eastern hills)
Many people who grew up in revolutionary areas or in
Thai border camps cannot speak Burmese, the national
language of their home country. At school in camps or in
other areas children now study Burmese as a second or
foreign language.
(Ex-head of the Karen Education Department, interviewed
by Sproat 5 August 2001)
References
Appleby, RJ (2002) English language and East Timer:
globalisation and local identity. An edited version of a
paper presented at Sth Conference on Language and
Development, Phnom Penh 5-7 Sept 2001. Australian
Language Mat/us, Oct. Nov, Dec 2001.
Sproat, R (2001) A distance education program in an area
of ethnic insurgency. Paper given at 5th Conference on
Language and Development, Phnom Penh 5-7 Sept 2001.
Wei K. and van der Sluis, R. (1992) Conuxt Analysis
Assignmentfor Diploma. in Second Language Teaching,
University ofWaikato, NZ.
lacking ideology, but languages saturated with contesting
ideologies. The artificial languages movement is testament
to the power of idealism combined with pragmatic, even fa-
natical, interest in grammar and lexicon. It has produced an
immense gain in consciousness about language and thought,
and reminds us that some groups benefit when their lan-
guage is favoured. There is no end of concrete evidence of
this. Some of the invented languages have become natural
languages, part of the human linguistic repertoire, from
which we can learn many lessons. One of these lessons, as
the ongoing debates about the politics of English in the world
remind us, is that there is inequality, and advantage, in the
world's present language arrangements.
References
Bausani, A. (1974) Le lingue inventate, Linguaggi
artificiali. linguaggi segreti. linguaggi universali. Roma:
Ubaldini.
Eeo, U. (1997) The search for the perfect language.
London: Fontana,
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