The CBB

Hello,

I am a University student in my first Linguistics class. For my final paper I was allowed to pick my topic, and really wanted to look into Conlang. I am specifically looking at how constructing or learning a Conlang can help with future language acquisition. I have looked into the argument that constructing a language makes one better understand language concepts, which then helps when learning a new language, as well as the argument that since conlang affect the same area of the brain as a second language, and since bilinguals can have an easier time learning languages then learning a Conlang and being proficient in it can have the same effect.

As a child I used to create what I thought where languages, but as I see them today, were more like codes than anything close to a Conlang. So my question for those with experience constructing a Conlang is this: do you find it is easier to learn a language you are constructing, than to learn a language you have not constructed? What other benefits could I look into for how Conlang can affect language acquisition? And out of personal curiosity, what benefits do you gain with constructing your own language? Why do you do it? Is it just out of pleasure or is there more?

I hope this is the appropriate place for these questions, and I am looking forward to the answers.

Thank you for your time,

Hello, and welcome to the board!

(FYI, this title looks like you're a troll who's saying that conlangs have no benefits. Obviously you're not, but we have gotten them before, and that may be what people expect upon seeing it.)

To answer your question, I think conlanging is a lot of people's first introduction to linguistics ─ and thus to a lot of the principles behind languages, which makes it a lot easier to learn. And beyond that, it teaches more about languages as one researches.

I'm terrible at learning languages - it doesn't come naturally to me and I lack the dedication*. But I have found that i've ended up (accidentally) 'learning' more aspects of conlangs, more easily (not vocabulary usually (partly because I rarely get around to making much), but grammatical features) than with real languages. This is probably partly because you think about things differently when you're making them, and partly just because it forces you to keep going back over things, rather than just reading a description once and optimistically believing you understand it now.

I'd distinguish three types of potential benefit, though, and three different questions...

a) is it easier to learn a conlang than a natlang ('natural language', a real language)?
b) does learning a conlang make it easier to learn a natlang?
c) does the hobby of conlanging make it easier to learn languages in general?


I think the answers are probably:

a) it varies with the person. For me, probably.

b) potentially? As you say, learning any language for a first time probably makes learning another language easier. I wouldn't recommend learning a conlang for that purpose, though, given that it's otherwise pointless and you could learn a useful language instead. One marginal function might be that semi-learning a conlang, X, might make it easier to learn a natlang, Y, if the features of X were in some way intermediate between the learner's first language and Y. For instance, if you're struggling to learn Japanese, you could in theory try 'learning' (not necessarily to fluency, but becoming familiar with an understanding) a conlang that featured simpler, more regular, or more familiar versions of difficult features of Japanese, and then, when you were comfortable with that, moving on to actual Japanese, which would seem less alien and confusing to you. Whether this would actually be quicker than just learnign Japanese from scratch, I don't know. I suspect not. But it may be less stressful?

c) definitely. At least, depending on your conlanging habits. If you spend all your time perfecting a single language very similar to your own (a new romance language, for instance, for a romance speaker), you might not gain much. But if you experiment with many different types of conlang, then absolutely. It forces you to learn about other languages, and how they work, and to stop seeing them just as deviations from your native language. A posteriori conlanging (deriving fictional languages from real languages) also leads you to confront actual diachronics and etymologies, which could be useful if you're learning a language in the same family (eg making a good romance language requires a lot of thinking about classical latin, vulgar latin, the histories of the romance languages, and this could make some things - grammatically and lexically - in a specific modern romance language make more sense to you). Although again I can't promise that this is actually an efficient use of your time!



As for the broader question - why make conlangs? - eh. I don't know. I guess I've always been driven to be creative and to make things, but I also lack the manual dexterity or patience to actually make things with my hands. I may like the idea of making a table, for instance, but my memories of woodworking at school are of finding the actual process of rasping and filing and planing just stultifyingly boring. Making an intellectual work of art like a conlang is a way to in theory produce something crafted and your own, in a way that's less boring (and, frankly, less expensive!) than learning a physical craft. [although if you investigate the subject further you'll find that very few of us ever actually produce anything both concrete and substantial - most conlanging is a process of either endlessly 'improving' the same language so that it's never finished, or endlessly moving on to new languages so that none are ever finished....]







*specifically, my brain is good at getting acquainted with things, but not good at properly filing reports about things. If you ask me about many subjects I'll say something along the lines of "I think I read somethign that said something like..." - but I won't know exactly what it said, and I certainly won't remember who wrote it. Likewise, with languages my brain is great at thinking "oh, yes, I totally recognise that word!"... but not great at bothering to remember what it means.

Arayaz wrote: ↑14 Nov 2023 23:39 To answer your question, I think conlanging is a lot of people's first introduction to linguistics ─ and thus to a lot of the principles behind languages, which makes it a lot easier to learn. And beyond that, it teaches more about languages as one researches.

Yes. I taught myself historical linguistics and language typology from textbooks as I worked on my conlangs. I think I have a fairly good knowledge of these fields now - but there are other fields of linguistics, such as theoretical and applied linguistics, of which I know close to nothing, because I never felt those could be useful for my conlanging. (There are conlangers who feel differently; for instance, there is at least one member of the CONLANG mailing list whose conlanging rests on theoretical linguistics in a similar way as mine rests on historical linguistics and language typology.)

M.Routier wrote: ↑14 Nov 2023 22:28So my question for those with experience constructing a Conlang is this: do you find it is easier to learn a language you are constructing, than to learn a language you have not constructed?

And out of personal curiosity, what benefits do you gain with constructing your own language?

Yes, it is easier to learn my own conlang than another language, because I already know all its features and I don't need to rely on other speakers for confirmations.

With my own language, I can say whatever I want, however I want. There is no worries about grammatical complexities or whimsical restrictions. Additionally, it is from a conworld, so I can use it there too.

In addition to the benefits others have already mentioned,
I have found that,
when I expected two or a handful of features could go together in a natlang,
but as far as anyone knows never have gone together in any natlang,
by trying to construct a conlang with that bundle of features,
I could find out why it rarely (or never, in some cases!) happens in natlangs.

Arayaz wrote: ↑14 Nov 2023 23:39 (FYI, this title looks like you're a troll who's saying that conlangs have no benefits. Obviously you're not, but we have gotten them before, and that may be what people expect upon seeing it.)

Noted ... Thank you. I have changed the title to something hopefully less trolly.

Salmoneus wrote: ↑15 Nov 2023 00:00 *specifically, my brain is good at getting acquainted with things, but not good at properly filing reports about things. If you ask me about many subjects I'll say something along the lines of "I think I read somethign that said something like..." - but I won't know exactly what it said, and I certainly won't remember who wrote it. Likewise, with languages my brain is great at thinking "oh, yes, I totally recognise that word!"... but not great at bothering to remember what it means.

I really appreciated your answer, but this part I thank you for the most. I don't think I've ever been able to articulate this sentiment before, but what you describe is extremely relatable.

M.Routier wrote: ↑14 Nov 2023 22:28do you find it is easier to learn a language you are constructing, than to learn a language you have not constructed?

I find it easier to learn my own languages, because their very creation was born out of my mindset. Although there are a few other conlangs that I have both enough interest in and enough comprehension of to learn, such as Jim Hopkins' Itlani.

On the other hand, some natlangs are easier to learn than most of my conlangs, because there are a million things to read in Spanish, German, and Japanese, so I can become accustomed to the common words in the language and get a feel for the grammatical structures. No one but Lambuzhao and I, on the other hand, can really speak in my Kankonian. And for projects that aren't as developed as Kankonian, such as Cetonian or Quispe, I have a much smaller corpus of sentences, and there are also a lot of conlangs with lots of morphological forms to memorize that I haven't gotten used to using and keep having to look up whenever I want to translate into those languages.

What other benefits could I look into for how Conlang can affect language acquisition?

You might want to check out this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paderborn_method

And out of personal curiosity, what benefits do you gain with constructing your own language?

Constructing, translating into, and thinking in my own conlang have made me more aware of all the grammatical concepts and subtleties that are going on in languages. For instance, when you say "Julie painted her nails blue", or "Everyone was born free", you iave a complement adjective, and when I tried to translate sentences like those into Kankonian, I realized I needed a way to handle it. I decided that resoltative object complements in Kankonian take ad (to/for), and depictive object complements take shil (as). I decided you'd also use shil in sentences like "Everyone was born free" or "I came to school naked". And how do you deal with yes/no questions like "You don't like coffee?" (I decided that in Kankonian, so would be the equivalent of answering "correct", while thi would be the equivalent of answering "that's not correct", so if someone asked a Kankonian guy, "You don't like coffee?", and he did like coffee, he would answer with "Thi". And sometimes when we say "must" in English, it's stating that something is imperative ("You must eat your vegetables!") while other times it's just deductive logic ("This towel has the monogram HMJ on it -- it must be Heather's!")

Or what about translating sentences with "would"? The basic Kankonian word for "would", as in, "There would be chaos", is ien. But there are several other meanings, and when I tried to translate them, I could sense that ien wouldn't fit:

• Would you die for your country? (= would be willing to)
• Would you please pass me the salt? (= making a polite request)
• Steve would call his friend back later that day. (= had yet to, was going to)
• Anne and Mark would always hang out at that bar. (= did something habitually)

Why do you do it? Is it just out of pleasure or is there more?

I direct you to:

viewtopic.php?p=184109#p184109

"I will admit that I see myself as a conworlder first, and a conlanger second. You were correct on this point. Kankonian, Hitan, and the other languages of the Lehola Galaxy were created so the peoples of the conworld would have some language to speak, and so their people and places could have phonologically consistent names.

But why am I writing about the Lehola Galaxy and its planets (Kankonia, Shanu, Bodus, Shaleya, Hapoi, Javarti, etc.)? So people can read and marvel about another galaxy that's out there. Perhaps so they can learn something from my website, or ponder over the difference forms of government, politics, religion, and education that exist in different nations there."




As for what Salmoneus said about "endlessly 'improving' the same language so that it's never finished", my Kankonian now has a lexicon of over 83,000 words. It boasts the third-largest lexicon of any known conlang behind xuxuxi and Classical Yiklamu (both computer-generated relexes of WordNet). And even now, I'm still finding surprising gaps in the lexicon, so I can't say it's finished. I started Kankonian 27 years ago, and I've just recently added words for "shock therapy", "shart", "deep state/shadow government", "sfumato", "sex tourism", "overlock", "semi-identical/sesquizygous", "semi-influencer", "semantic primitive", "assault weapon", "selfish gene", "skyphos", and "saw-whet owl", and a way to say "Say it, don't spray it". You should probably invest in cryonics if you aim for your conlang to have the lexicon and grammar to talk about everything 2023 Terrans can talk about -- and then all the scientific advances of the future! (Another thing: my Kankonian grammar runs up to 153 pages as a Corel WordPerfect document, and I'm still finding missing points.)

I've been focusing on a conlang alt history relative of Japanese. It's forced me to use and look up more Japanese than I might otherwise use in my day to day life. (I don't have many people to speak with and I've had a hard time finding more realistic media that I enjoy.) I've also learned the history of various words and verb conjugations, how different dialects are related, etc.

So if you're making a conlang like this it can definitely help with your studies in the target language as well.

for a conlanger, conlanging is an irrepressible necessity, like breathing...
when he doesn't, he feels like he's in apnea...
everything else is just a side effect...