Language creation (quora)

Q

When was the last new language created?
https://www.quora.com/When-was-the-last-new-language-created/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Nathan Defa

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Thu

amateur linguist

Do you mean new language actually spoken as native language?

Probably modern Hebrew, by revival of Biblical Hebrew.

Or do you mean language creation as creation of constructed languages?

The last very mediatised ones would be those of David J. Peterson, for Game of Thrones, like Dothraki and High Valyrian, but less mediatised ones have been created since. Since Tolkien’s “secret vice” of language creation became widely known, creating languages has become a cottage industry, though only few examples are very well known.

I tried my hand at sth like a state of Greek still closer to Latin than Mycenaean Greek (where, as you may know qu hasn’t yet become p or t), but the notebook was stolen, perhaps by psychiatry, perhaps by secret services, perhaps by freemasons, perhaps by someone who wanted the paper - it was no longer there, when I came back to the library where I had forgotten it.

Jim Grossmann

Thu

What does “mediatize” mean?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Original Author

19h ago

It means “give public attention through media”.

It may be a Frenchicism from “médiatiser”.

Other

answers, same question

I

Answer requested by

Nathan Defa

Den Hollander

Works in Linguistics & Machine learning

Answered Thu

Languages (except a few artifical languages which are not really living languages) are not “created” they evolve progressively from existing languages…..

American english comes from modern British english istself coming from Elisabethan english which in turn came from middle english whih was derived from old english which came from old north-west germanic which came from proto-germanic - which came from……..ad (almost) infinitum.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Thu

You are forgetting a thing. Middle English coming, without creation, from Old English is partly true as to the spoken language, but totally untrue as to the written language. Ormmulum and Chaucer tried two new spelling systems for English other than Anglo-Saxon alias Old English, and Chaucer’s is the one that basically survives. So, English was in fact created by the contemporaries of Geoffrey Chaucer.

Den Hollander

Thu

We’ll have to agree to disagree then - For me designing a spelling/writing system is not creating a language, just giving it tools for written expression. The korean language was spoken well before chinese characters started to be used to write it, a later migration using the syllabic “hangul” system did not alter the phonology, grammar, syntax or lexicon of the language…. so to me does not count as “creating a language” - You could say the same about turkish dropping the arabic alphabet for a latin based one, for the numerous spelling reforms - and of course for the (usually latin) writing systems designed for a myriad of languages which initially did not have a written form.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Thu

You are missing that SHIFTING spelling system from one to other is changing the available references.

Once spelling changed from Latin to Old French spelling for the spoken language in France, the genitive was no longer available as an optional “high style” form.

Once spelling changed from Anglo-Saxon chronicle to Chaucer, no one had to guess what case it would be in the case declining language.

In the latter case there was a gap between, but there is a continuity over time in any language that has its writing available, and there are therefore different continuities over time when the writing is changed.

“ You could say the same about turkish dropping the arabic alphabet for a latin based one,”

Surely modern Turkish has many fewer loans from Arabic even as options available?

Precisely as post 1970 Greek has no use for being extra posh with a dative form.

II

Answer requested by

Nathan Defa

Ian MacKinnell

Studied some Medieval History at university, which I enjoyed.

Answered Thu

When was the last new language created?

Judging by the rate at which new conlangs — constructed languages — are created, probably in the last week, if not the last day or even hour. Conlangs are a dime a dozen — I was creating my first one at the age of six. Tolkien created many languages, and then wrote The Lord of the Rings and similar works to give the languages a culture and speakers and historical milieu. Hobbyists are out there creating new languages all the time. It is like asking, “when was the last new novel written?” — just wait, there’ll be another new one out in a moment.

Natural languages are not created, they develop naturally out of pre-existing languages. Even an artificial language like modern Hebrew was developed out of biblical Hebrew, with influences from other Semitic languages. Was modern Hebrew “created”, or was it “revived”? A bit of both, I suppose.

Hobby languages are being created all the time. The latest new language is a very temporary state: any “latest new language” will be supplanted in that role in no time. The answer is volatile ( not to be confused with Volapük).