Kopikon, Superman, and more with David and Jessie!

David and Jessie of  @LangTimeStudio  come on with an update on their conlangy projects. Check out Kopikon II Preorder Jessie’s book, How to Create a Language Superman (2025)

Episode Transcript

(01:00:00):
And that is our latest project,
the new Superman reboot...

(01:00:23):
Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast aboutconstructed languages
and the people who create them.
I'm George Corley.
And over in sunnyCalifornia, we have David J.
Peterson and Jessie Peterson.
Hello.
Ugh... Hello.

(01:00:44):
Goodness, David.
As usual, David cannot sayhello like a normal person.
I think that's what youcan conclude from this.
Yes.
Oh, I can't see my phone.
Look, I'm holding it.
I can see it.
And also, David has themost stylish microphone.

(01:01:07):
So.
OK, so
you guys have a bunch of things thatyou guys wanted to talk about, actually.
So
where should we start?
I just want to say...
Well, let's let'sgo ahead and not bury the lead here.

(01:01:28):
We are running a second languagecreation conference called Kopikon.
We ran the first one inSeptember of 2023
at Georgetown Universityin Washington, D.C.
And the next one is going to be this
October, October 10th atthe University of Edinburgh.

(01:01:53):
And so we're very excited about that.
And so if you're goingto be in the Edinburgh
area or want to get to theEdinburgh area for October 10th,
we're doing a kind of shortenedprogram because it's more like
I would say a destination thing.
It's going to be like awhole weekend of fun stuff.

(01:02:15):
But we're going to havesome returning speakers.
That would be myself and Jessie andBiblaridion and then some new speakers
from our community, Jake Penny, creatorof the Pankashku conlang for Madame Webb.
And if you saw the film and didn't notice

(01:02:37):
a conlang, it's because theconlang was cut very sadly.
One of those situations where Jake learned
that the conlang was cutwhen they went to see the film.
It's the type of thing thathappens in Hollywood.
It shouldn't, but it does.
And, you know, it's notjust language creators.

(01:02:59):
It happens to actors, too.
I, I wish they wouldinform people about that.
Because like I, I know of one other case,Paul Frommer had had that happen to him.
And it's just like, why?
Why don't you tell people whenyou've cut their material from the film?

(01:03:21):
Yeah, and I'll tell you this.
There was one experience very early on.
The the second ever job offer that came
to the Language Creation Society afterGame of Thrones was a movie called Noah.
I was the president at that timeand I created a new competition for it.

(01:03:41):
A shortened one.
And somebody got the job, Bill Weldon,
and he did the work.
It was good work.
They liked it.
But
I guess that it was for the I don't knowif you ever saw Noah, but there I never
saw it, but there were theseangels, six armed angel things.
I don't know.

(01:04:02):
Anyway, they weresupposed to speak a conlang.
They ended up not speaking a conlang.
And but to the credit of the producer
on that film, who originally thoughtof the idea of having the conlang,
they told us that ahead of time, infact, he contacted me ahead of time.
And I told Bill well before the moviehad come out that all the conlang material

(01:04:27):
had been cut, they decided that they justdidn't want those beings to speak at all.
Which, OK,
- he still got paid.- Creative choice.
He still got paid.
So there was that at least.
But but also it wasn't like he brought his
entire family to the screening ofthe movie to say, hey, check it out.

(01:04:48):
Here is my conlang on the big screen.
And then nothing because that ispretty much what happened to Jake.
And it is the type of thing thathappens in Hollywood for others as well.
I've heard about it for actors, too,
especially on Defiance, a youngactress, 16 years old, very excited.

(01:05:09):
This was going to be her firstever anything on television or film.
And she had a whole party.
Her family were going to watchthe episode when it came out.
And and yeah, nothing.
Her character was cutentirely from the episode.
Yeah, that's that.
Yeah, that's that's that's why Isay they should inform people,

(01:05:32):
because we understandthat things get cut from films
and there's creativedecisions there and editing.
But anyway, let's we don'tneed we need to move.
We need to move on for that.
But Jake will be there.
And I think there are there are thereare places where you can see Pankashku...
Now, oh, yeah, even thoughit didn't make it in the film.

(01:05:52):
Oh, yeah.
Jake has used it in at least one relayand did kind of like a video preview of it.
Really good work.
And then we're also having Keras Saryan,who's who's from the community as well.
He's actually a postdoc atthe University of Edinburgh,
you know, in in linguistics.

(01:06:14):
And so he's there doing languagework all around and is going
to present some of hisconlanging work as well.
Anyway, so that is October10th, University of Edinburgh.
It's going to be like 12-ish to 5-ish.
And then there will be surrounding events.

(01:06:37):
OK, that's--
And it's going to be livestreamed and there's not going to be any
of the technical issues thatsurrounded Kopikon I.
We hope!
David, you can't promise these things.
I'm going to speak it into existence.
Listen, we are going into itwith more plans to take care of it.

(01:06:57):
But we can't promise itwill be free of problems.
I am I am guessing that this like limitedset of speakers is like a part of that.
Like to limit the scope of it sothat it doesn't get too like crazy,
because I know LCC 11 was a little bita little bit ago and I presented there and

(01:07:24):
it was there were toomany people in multiple
rooms and it wenta little bit haywire.
Yeah, if if you're going to do somethinglike that, you need to go more of the
convention method where everybody goesin knowing that there's just going to be a
bunch of stuff and butyou should expect at least

(01:07:46):
attendance somewherein like the 500 to 3000
neighborhood so thateverybody feels like they
had some attendanceat their at their talks.
Yeah, yeah.
But here we have we have Edinburgh 2025.
All this great for people whoare like in Europe and the UK

(01:08:08):
to go to,
you know, nice to bounce itaround different parts of the world
Also good for people from Wisconsin if theyjust want to get out of town for a little bit.
Is it's a little difficultnow, David, I have
a contact at theUniversity of Wisconsin.

(01:08:30):
I might be able to bring itto me if I can talk her into it.
We'll see.
OK, all right.
We've got we've got plenty of peoplewho could talk here, but I won't promise
anybody because I can't evenpromise that I'll bring it here.
But I will think about that.
But so that's really great.

(01:08:53):
And now, as we are recording,registration is still open?
Oh, yeah, registration is still open.
Registration is being handled bykind of like a third party site through the
University of Edinburgh, which is honestlyfine by me because I just did it by myself
last time, this is much less of a headache.

(01:09:15):
Now, I cannot I I cannotguarantee that slots
will be open by thetime this episode is out.
So I'll have the link in there.
You guys can check.
But if not, there will be a live stream.
So everybody gets to watch, right?
There's a special reason why we're holdingKopikon, both where it is and when it is.

(01:09:39):
The the when is becauseJessie got the opportunity
to put together atextbook on conlanging
that is going to bepublished by the University
of Cambridge somewherearound October 10th.
We don't know exactly when.

(01:09:59):
We won't know until Septemberwhen the actual publication date is.
But it's going to be around then.
And so the hope is that we can actuallyhave copies there on sale for Jessie to sign.
That will be very exciting for me.
And and people willbe able to buy the book.

(01:10:20):
And it's kind of a it's a celebration for.
For the launch of Jessie's book,
I informally, you know
like we had a bunch of peopleat Kopikon one, but informally,
Mark Okrand was kind ofthe the keynote. For this one,

(01:10:42):
that is Jessie.
Jessie is going to bethe one that goes last.
That sounds appropriate forlike, you know, a conlanging textbook.
And Jessie, we talkedabout the your textbook
when I interviewedyou last last year, I think.

(01:11:02):
And yeah, it's it's I understandit has been a journey.
And can you tell mea little bit about like.
The the getting up to this point.
And all of that.
Well, a little bit.
You're absolutely right.

(01:11:23):
It's it's been a journey and...
It I mean, writing a textbook,
writing any book that you're going to getpublished is always difficult because of,
you know, the amount of feedback and theconstraints that you may be under because
this is what they're looking for andthis is what you had hoped to do if you,

(01:11:47):
you know, were going to self-publishand just do what you wanted to put in it.
So there's always thatsort of back and forth.
And
then there's also the well, Isubmitted the final draft, which
looking back in my calendar, I actuallysubmitted the final book a year ago.
And then it's been, you know,

(01:12:08):
it had to go through editors, externalreviews, and then editors again.
And then came back to me.
And there's been a lot ofback and forth on, you know,
just everything from theway that files are inserted.
So this what I call the post production
phase is, I swear, almostas long as the writing phase,

(01:12:30):
just just with all the backand forth and everything.
So it is finally now I justapproved the final proofs,
but they called them the final proofs.
And then my editor just emailed me today
and said around July 2nd, Ishould have the final proofs.
I'm like, well, what didwe just spend a week on?

(01:12:52):
So
I think July 2nd is the last official.
We'll send it off after that, I think,
to the printers, if I understandthe process, I think that's
the last official one andit'll go to printers next.
But yeah, it has been and I tell you what,
some things that takethe longest are just no,
this table really has tohave shading in these cells.

(01:13:14):
And then you go back and forth withpeople on how to get the shading right.
And it's kind of important when you're
presenting things like the IPAtables, as they're typically presented.
And it's like, no, those thosecells are shaded for a reason.
I need them to stay that way.
- I mentioned it in the pages--- The impossible sounds right?

(01:13:35):
You absolutely need to gray those outbecause that information is important.
Right?
Yes, yes.
Let's let's ... canwe spend a little time just like
specifically like talkingabout what this is?
So like we've had conlanging books before.
I have behind here.
- David's book.- I see a selection of them.

(01:13:58):
I have somewhere in the house, Ihave the Language Construction Kit.
Those are like guidebooks.
But what you're making...
It's being published byCambridge University Press.
It is an actual textbook.
And you could tell me what whatthat means about the structure of it.

(01:14:19):
But my understanding is that this will be
available for like professorsto order for their classes, right?
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
So I mean, which I mean, technicallyany book that is produced is available
for professors to order forclasses, but this was designed.
Yeah, yeah.
This is designed for usein classrooms, though.
The goal was also to keep it

(01:14:41):
hopefully meaningful for peoplewho just get it on their own.
That they could hopefully workthrough the material as well.
Because it's a textbook,there's exercises in it.
And you'll notice as you read David'sbook, you know, at no point does he stop
and say, "OK, now do this, andhere's this data set.
Let's talk about the answers."
You know, like you justdon't do that for mass market.

(01:15:02):
And you definitely don't do that when inDavid's case, you know, you have an editor
saying, no, you got tocut like 70000 words.
So.
any notion you have of any sortof extra stuff like that, you take out.
And so so, yeah, there's exercises.
There's a lot more walkthrough examplesas well, where it's like, you know,

(01:15:26):
let's set up this hypothetical language,let's say here are the parameters we're
working in, what would you do?And then following that, if you keep going
in the paragraphs, it says, "OK, well,here's one way you could have analyzed it
and done it," just to show like the thoughtprocess behind the language creation.
And so, yeah, so that's really what makesit as well that in the massive amounts

(01:15:47):
of citation that have to gointo an academic textbook that
don't always have to go intomass market in the same way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, George, youyou've written academic
- and so...- Not a textbook, but a dissertation.
But that's that's enough.

(01:16:09):
That's enough.
And so anyway, yeah, there's
those are the kinds of thingsthat set it apart from David's book.
And the goal is that someone who does nothave a background in linguistics could go
into it and be walked through the processand at the end of it have a much stronger
grasp on how languages work, waysthat they can use patterns to create

(01:16:34):
their own language and ofcourse, the assumption from
beginning to end is you'reactually creating a language.
And so, yeah, that'sthat's what sets it apart.
And I would hope that peoplewho find, you know, David's book,
Art of Language Invention, foranyone who didn't know that title

(01:16:55):
and then also Language Construction Kit,those kinds of books, I would hope that
you would find this another valuableresource to to go along and kind of fill
in some gaps, especially if you need moreattention to defining terms and, you know,
situating things in context, becauseI did have more space to do that.
And it's-- as an introductory textbook,there's that intention of, you know,

(01:17:18):
I'm going to introduce you to the terms andreally show you how to how to set them out.
And so, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm going to put this the short way.
If you want to be impressedand entertained, get my book.
If you want to learn how to createa language, get Jessie's book.
Right.

(01:17:39):
And I do want to say, like.
Obviously, there's like there's a levelof there's an introduction to linguistics.
here, but you also have thegoal, but you also have the goal
of teaching conlanging itself. Right.
So like what is it more about?

(01:18:02):
Is it more of teaching linguistics
through conlanging or is itmore teaching conlanging?
You know, that.
that that is a great question anda great way to think about any

(01:18:23):
constructed language guide or textbook
that may be on the market to really thinkabout what are the end goals at the end
of this, was it more about teachingthe science as a field or more
about this art of language creation andfrom my point of view, I think it's more
about my textbook is more about thelanguage creation because what linguistic

(01:18:47):
concepts are introduced are allthere in support of this process to say,
you know, you may never rememberthe terms for these patterns again,
but these patterns existand you can use them.
And here's how you can usethem in your own language.
And there is, ofcourse, a lot of data sets.
But I tried really, really hard to sort

(01:19:09):
of balance the overall scopeof those data sets where
examples are provided in natural languagesor conlangs to show the features being
used and to show that conlangs, justlike natural languages, can be analyzed.
They can be discussed like any otherlanguage patterns that you can discuss.

(01:19:30):
And so
for me, I think anyone at the end of this
would hopefully get an introduction tolinguistics if they had never heard any
of these terms before, theywould hopefully have a better grasp.
But my goal is not for you to then know
how to sit down with a data set fromnatural languages and work it like you
would from an introto linguistics textbook.

(01:19:52):
My goal is for you to have seen some
patterns that you can then takeand use creatively for your own work.
It's really interesting to haveto have that now, because, like,
most like conlanging courses havebeen, OK, I'm going to give them a conlang

(01:20:13):
assignment in order to teachthese things about linguistics.
And then you're comingat it from the other end.
And I think I think as I have
seen the community grow and I've growninto it, like I think I think of conlanging
more in artistic terms than I used to,like a lot of us were just like focused

(01:20:38):
on making something that's naturalisticand typologically plausible and stuff.
Right? Before.
And now I find myself, especially with my
like Tongues and Runes stuff, like thinkingmore about like themes and, you know...
Artistic, you know, expression throughthe language, and I don't know, I mean,

(01:21:01):
obviously, you are going to be teachinga lot of linguistic theory stuff, but I
feel like having atextbook to teach people
conlanging first and thensecondarily linguistics is like another
like step in thedevelopment of the art form.
Right. Yeah.
And it's also... the way I set upthe chapter exercises for each one.

(01:21:28):
And this is where it's like, I think I cansafely say my goal was to teach you how
to create a language rather than reallyfocusing on the intro to linguistic side.
Though, again, I'm going to argue that if
you figure out how to create a language,you've gotten some introduction to
linguistics, like just from the process,you you learn something from it.
But the chapter exercises are set up whereat the end of once you get through the kind

(01:21:53):
of introductory chapters where you'renot quite doing anything yet in terms of
creating things, you're just goingthrough here's terms you're going to hear.
Here's what you need to know about them.
Now that that's set, let's move on.
Once you hit so like chapterthree and beyond, I set up
the beginning exercises for each chapterare in what I call Squirrelish throughout

(01:22:15):
the book, where it's sort ofa guided exercise of here.
I'm going to give you language datathat you don't care about because this is
a language that's not from you.This is I'm giving you parameters.
Do these things with it.
What did you do with it? Discuss it.
Figure out why you liked thatmethod best for this language.
So it's like a way of playing withlanguage data that you're not super

(01:22:36):
invested in, but playing with languagedata where the goal is you're creating
something from it, like you're decidingwhat syllables should be allowed.
If you do that, what stresspattern are you going to use?
And how do you apply stressconsistently across these units?
And so those are the beginning chapter
exercises and then all the rest of thechapter exercises after that are, "OK,

(01:22:59):
let's talk about what you're doing inyour own language," with the goal of
hopefully, if you work through it all,actually documenting the language.
And to that end, one of the resources thatgoes with the textbook is a massive Google
spreadsheet of language featureswhere it allows you to enter the features.
But it also tells you precisely what sectionof the textbook covers the information.

(01:23:21):
So if you don't remember, you can go backto the resource and see how it's described.
Do you want me to and thisagain, this is at your discretion, Jess.
You want me to pull up an example to share?
- An example...- From the book?
Yeah, I'm looking at the chapternine exercises right now.

(01:23:42):
Oh, yeah, go for it.
- Is this from the one that says?- If you're free to share that stuff...
You can do that.
What's that?
If you're free to sharethat stuff, you can do it.
I think because I'm not sharing a PDFwith someone and it's going to clearly,
if it's the one I'm thinkingof, say, proof across the page.

(01:24:03):
Yeah, okay.
Do you do you see it?
Yeah, yeah, we got it.
- All right.- Should be recorded, too.
Yeah, so this is chapter nine.
And I pulled up this first one because I
think this is a really,really wonderful example.
When I taught the summer conlangcourse at Berkeley in 2017,

(01:24:24):
a lot of the actual homework assignments Igave were essentially here are some pieces.
How do you evolve certainelements, number case, whatever?
And there wasn't necessarily aright answer that I was looking for.
I just gave him the tools andsaid, what what do you got?

(01:24:47):
What can you do with this?
Justify your answer.
And that's essentially kind of what yousee with exercise nine point one here.
I know I'm kind of pullingthis on you cold, Jess.
I don't know if youwanted to talk about it.
And I will say, this particular exercisedoes ask you about grammaticalization.
But I do want to say that I split materialthroughout the textbook in a way that

(01:25:14):
what I call the advanced sections,which are marked by icons,
the advanced sections talk about evolvingthe language so that if you're ready for
that, you can go through that if you'renot ready or you're not interested in
evolving your language or your teacherdoesn't make you evolve language.
I should put it that way as well.
You can skip those sectionsentirely and only do the other sections,

(01:25:39):
which is the bulk of the textbook
Oh, that's smart!
andcreate a typologically kind of consistent,
you know, more naturalishkind of shape of language.
But that is not evolved.
And so it it kind of has this dual focus.
But then in the exercises, justto reinforce the don't be afraid
of this evolution idea, justthink about, hey, what are

(01:26:02):
some words that could leadto grammatical inflections?
And if you read through the instructions,
you'll see that it's you'renot coming up with the forms.
This is the squirrelish language.
You're just saying, I don't know,
what might a squirrel use tomark a singular or a plural form?
What word may end up becominggrammaticalized if if we went down that path?

(01:26:24):
And so it really is a let's brainstorm.
Well, that's asan added challenge,
- David, that's for the challenge.- Yeah, I know, I love it.
But yeah, it's so David highlighted the as
an added challenge, make sure noneof them are the ones listed in the chapter.
So, for instance, I mentioned that like
children can be grammaticalized tomake a plural form in many languages.

(01:26:44):
So don't use that becauseit's already been mentioned.
Yeah, I definitely see like that.
This is like.
I don't I don't know, I don't want to say
like like this is like alongthe same lines as y'all's style
of conlanging in LangTime Studio,where as far as I've seen of your streams,

(01:27:10):
you tend to like go back andtry to find a lexical source for any
any affix that you add,which I don't always do.
I do a lot of the time, but sometimesI just like say, OK, whatever.
It was it was a caseaffix all the way back.
But but I see like that style fromyou carrying into the textbook, too.

(01:27:34):
That's interesting.
Yeah, and it does.
And like I said, it carriesthrough in the advanced sections.
Whereas if you skip those sections,what you would be getting is you're going
to create a form if youwant to mark the plural,
great. Like think about if it comes after
a consonant, is it going to lookdifferent than if it comes after a vowel?
Make sure you Mark that information.

(01:27:55):
So it's one of those things where youcan you could definitely use the entirety
of the material in the textbook and notevolve a language because you skipped
those, you know, the thecogs, the advanced sections.
You don't have to do it that way.
And I try I hope I lay out, youknow, strategies for like, hey,
if you're not evolvingthis, just think about,

(01:28:17):
you know, these thingsas you create these forms.
Think about the fact thatyou're going to hear these a lot.
Make sure there there's sounds thatyou're happy with knowing that if it's
a suffix, a lot of words aregoing to end in that. Be ready.
Well, I will say
I've been in contact withCambridge University Press.

(01:28:38):
I don't know if I should likesay this show, but I'm going to.
But I have been in contact andI'm going to try to get a review copy.
So, guys, watch this channelbecause I may review this.
And then there's there's anothertextbook that I may review, too.
So

(01:28:58):
so you'll get a full reviewfrom me, but it's looking good.
It's looking interesting.
Yes. Yeah.
From from what I see now.
By the way, Jess you want me to just
kind of give a peek atthe table of contents?
Well, one thing is, as David had scrolleddown, you see that nine point one and nine

(01:29:20):
point two, those exercises wereboth on Squirrelish again to sort of like
get people thinking, try this out,try out some basic translations.
And then the next exercise after thatstarts the entire focus on your own conlang.
And so, you know, thinking abouthow does your language do this?
And, you know, gives you bullet points or

(01:29:42):
gives you overall things like makesure you consider these things.
And of course, throughout,there are definitely
options to say, well, myconlang doesn't mark this.
And so in that case, then the goalis to say, well, how will that affect
ways I translate and ways I think aboutthis so that I remember that my language
doesn't mark this, becausethat's definitely a valid option
to, you know, for instance, notmark number at all on nouns.

(01:30:05):
That's great.
You just need to rememberthat that was your plan.
Yeah, that's that's that's that'sa good thing to remind people of.
I try to remind people like whenever I'm
covering stuff, whenever we'recovering like stuff here is like,
yeah, we're going to we'll talk about,you know, number case or whatever.

(01:30:26):
And I say, you know, and youcan't always just not, you know,
last last month we had Williamon talk about subordination.
But one of the things that we said is like,
yeah, we have all of these differentstrategies, but you can't just stick a full
sentence into a sentenceand be done with it and it's fine.

(01:30:48):
You know, all of these things, all ofthese it's all of these things are options.
And you have to be aware of youroptions to the extent that you can be aware
and also understand thatyou can just not use any of it.
Right?
Right, right.
Yep.
But you just need to beaware of the consequences.

(01:31:08):
That's all. And sometimes, youknow, the consequences are pretty cool.
You know, like, wow, I never thought of not
doing this and what the resultwould be, but I really like the result.
You know, pays to giveeverything a try at least once.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then, David, yeah, you're free to-- ifyou want to jump up to the table of contents

(01:31:30):
- OK, so there's we'll get a little bit of a--- It's quite lengthy, though.
There's a there's the there's the short.
This is the brief table of contents.
This is just the overview.
One of the things, by the way, I really,
really love about this book isJessie devotes an entire chapter to
translation, which is something that Idon't think a lot of conlangers give a ton

(01:31:56):
of thought to.Certainly I didn't at the beginning.
You know, you'recreating a language, right?
But often what you use it for istranslation and translation is itself
an entire art, an entire artthat's separate from conlanging,
that's separate from learning alanguage and that's separate from writing.

(01:32:18):
It's something that, you know, youneed to-- it pays to give some thought to.
And so this is just, I think,a lovely way to end the book
and really kind of puts you in position,like, say, you go through this from
beginning to end to participatein something like a conlang relay.
You know?

(01:32:39):
Well, yeah,
that's that's something I willlook forward to reading because,
you know, I could I could use some more.
Knowledge of translation stuff,
it is, I always say, like.
If you've done your job right, makinga conlang, translation should be hard.

(01:33:02):
Right?
So having a chapter about translation
sounds like a good ideabecause it should be hard.
So you got to tell peoplehow to do it because it is hard.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's it's so difficult, obviously,
having one chapter where it's liketrying to walk through examples and really

(01:33:24):
showing so much just has tobe glossed over and skipped.
And so.
I would urge anyone interested to,
you know, read actualentire books dedicated
to the art of translationbecause it truly is an art.
And so the one chapter just givesan overview of things to think about.

(01:33:48):
Just trying to let students know that not
everything should be a word forword translation, but at the same time,
there are definitely sentences thatare going to look like they were basically
word for word because there arelanguages that express the same
basic idea with the samebasic kind of vocabulary.
And that's OK.
It's just, you know, really thinking aboutareas to inject where it's like, well,

(01:34:11):
we use this preposition in English,but why what does it really mean?
How might another language look at that?
And yeah, that is difficult.
Yeah. Yeah.
Anyway, I'm I'm just super, super excitedabout this because I've read this book.
I've said this before.
I'm going to say it many times.
Jessie is really, really,really, really good at

(01:34:36):
at academic writing in thesense of trying to explain
either an unfamiliar concept orto explain how to do something.
It's it's I wish I could bottle it and Iwish she could just write about anything
that I happen to want to learn becauseit is very straightforward, very intuitive,

(01:34:58):
much more so than TheArt of Language Invention.
Again, I stand by how entertainingThe Art of Language Invention is.
I have I have fun readingthrough bits of that.
But I think that this book ismuch, much, much, much better.
If your goal is to sit down and learnsomething about language creation.

(01:35:19):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, well, we'll see.
I will say, like, I feel thelimitations that you had
when I look at the art of languageinvention, because this book is small.
This book is not big.
Yeah, there's no wayyou're going to fit all of it.
And so you just have likea few case studies in there.

(01:35:42):
It looks like this textbook is going to be
much more thorough andhave a lot more like meat to it,
which I'm looking forward toanalyzing
- Some other things to--- What was your word count,
David, what word countwere you allowed in your book?
Oh, they wanted it to be

(01:36:02):
ideally about under 70,000 words.
And so that was what David was dealing
with in my book isdefinitely in the 150,000.
And so, yeah, you'reyou're getting almost double.
I think even after I trimmed it down,
I feel like it still is in somewhere reallyclose to a hundred fifty thousand.

(01:36:26):
Yeah, well, it's it's it's it's it's tough.
I mean, especially
when you're doing like traditionalpublishers, you've got to go.
That's what the publisher wants.
But then like you could do independent.
And write exactly what you want,but there's a trade off and you've got

(01:36:48):
to do all the marketing yourself,you don't have like an institution
behind you to do allthe editing and polishing.
So like you hire editors and stuff and
that costs money and also mightnot be as thorough as what they do.
So it is it is very, very-- I'mvery interested to see this.

(01:37:13):
But some other things Ikind of want to ask about.
Yeah. So the game that you're developing
languages for on LangTime Studio, Ihave noticed that it has a name now.
Sure does.
Sovála
Yeah. Which is that an Engála word?

(01:37:33):
It is Engála. Engála
Sovála.
But, yeah, that's why that's why you have
an acute accent on the middlesyllable to indicate stress and
also why something that'swritten in sounds like [æ].
Sovála, okay.
That's funny. That's all right.
But if people pronounce it Sov[ɑ]la, Ithink that sounds cool anyway.

(01:37:56):
So that's good.
There has been a lot of movement
on the game, especiallyin the last two months
that started a bit ago.
So
what we call the likeSovála version 2.0
We playtested that afew times, we playtested that at Kopikon

(01:38:21):
and I identified some deficiencies.
So there's always going to be issues
with a game where it's like, oh,you spend a lot of time doing this.
And the question is, I mean,it's not necessarily a bad thing.
The question is, you as the designer,did you want people spending time there?
And in this case, the answer was no.
So we we actually went toEngland to a board game cafe,

(01:38:45):
a very weird board game cafethat was in a in a tunnel that
has professional spray paintersand in there 24/7, very loud.
And I was debuting the magic using classes.
And basically it was like
half the time was just spent people like

(01:39:07):
reading these spells, figuringthem out or like, you know,
the ones who were interested,they were trying to figure
out what are the best spellsand choose them with care.
And they were spending like a half an hourto forty five minutes just choosing spells.
And then the other ones that didn't getit were like, "OK, I'll just take these."
Didn't even read them.

(01:39:28):
Hey, not just didn't get it,
but the ones who had chosen non magicusers and so had no choice to make.
That's true.
Because I, of course,in my my beloved mice
and my tanks, like that'swhat I lean toward.
And so, yeah, there it was.
It was down to like two people at the large
table reading all the magicspells while the rest of us waited.

(01:39:50):
Yeah, so...
Long story short, huge magicoverhaul... overhauled the system.
It led to names that had tochange and then change back.
It was it was a whole thing.
But one of the thingsthat kind of gave me

(01:40:10):
a kick in the butt is that for as aChristmas present, the last Christmas
present, Jessie founda professional printing
company that could actually like,you know, print out some really,
really good test copies of this game.Right.
And so then it was like, well,
I need to get this thing to a placethat I'm happy with before we do this.

(01:40:34):
And so we're getting there now.
And that's actually what I've been working
on most heavily the past couple ofweeks, because the goal is for Sovála 3.0
to be ready by the time thatwe go to Kopikon in Edinburgh.
So we're going to play that.
And yeah, my hope is-- because Iwanted the magic system to be interesting

(01:40:58):
and cool and for people tospend a little bit of time with it,
figuring it out, seeing what's best, butnot that much time, not that much time.
Yeah.
And so I hope that it'sbeen streamlined a little bit.
It's the type of thing where, in theory,
you love the idea of everybody beingable to make as many choices as possible

(01:41:21):
to perfectly craft exactlywhat it is they want to do.
But there's also a limited window.
And so sometimes you have to just take
choices away or funnelpeople into certain choices.
And I think this does a better job of that.
But yeah, it's going to.
It's going to be done.

(01:41:42):
It's going to be done, I would say,at least a month, at least a month.
And then we'll beable to to get it printed.
And it will be it will be the best version
of it yet, both in terms of gameplay,but also in terms of how it looks.
Very, very excited about that.
Incidentally, for a little backstory onthis and how it came to be named Sovála.

(01:42:06):
Right. There is this there's this stuff.
The ooze, whatever you wish,
that it's it's actually called
it's called somethingdifferent in every language.
In English, one of thetranslations is the blood water.
They call it the blood waterbecause of how it looks in the water.
It's somehow mutated these animals

(01:42:28):
after humans had beenwiped out and the small mammals became
bipedal and other aspects oftheir physiognomy changed.
This is the part that's much lessscience based and much more.
This is just what I want to happen.
And so it's going to happen.

(01:42:50):
The the various animal groups kind of keptto themselves and then it led to fighting.
These were called the First Wars.
Then there was a period of peace after
that when they realized, you knowwhat, what the heck are we doing this for?
Right?
And so there's this period ofpeace that pervades for a while.
And, you know, the blood water wentaway, but then the blood water comes back.

(01:43:17):
and it comes back specifically in a riverarea right next to where the rabbits live.
It emerges in Lake Sovála.
And Sovála is just the name of the lake.
Anyway, it emerges there.

(01:43:38):
And so suddenly it becomes a question,
what the heck do we do about this? Becausewe know what happened the first time.
And essentially the various littleanimal kingdoms all have very,
very different opinions about whatexactly should be done about it.
And so this leads to the second war
of the animals as they're tryingto figure out what to do about it.

(01:44:00):
And the poor rabbits, honestly,
they just they don't wantto do anything with it.
But they're stuck in the middle ofit because it's right where they live.
And so they're just kind of stuck.
And so that is essentially wherethe board game Sovála takes place.
And Sovála actually comesfrom Heart Lake, right?

(01:44:21):
Because it's the shape of the lakeactually looks like a heart from the air.
Yeah. And this is a real lake, by the way,
because this takes place in Ontario,just kind of like north-ish of Toronto.
And so we actually havethe area mapped out.
And so I can't even rememberwhat the I think it's called.
Is it Emily Lake orsomething like that in Toronto?

(01:44:45):
It was something quite lovely.
I remember that.
It was nice anyway.
So, yeah, that's where it is.
And incidentally, there is goingto be I haven't gotten to this yet,
but I'm very excited about it andI think it it could work very well.
There is going to be a cooperative version
of this game that's kind of likemore of a role playing game,

(01:45:07):
more of a hero quest or Gloomhavenstyle game that has kind of like different
levels where you start as someof the one player characters
and go through different scenariosand then at the end of it, you know,
you're successful and thenyou're you guys actually level up.
So you keep the same ones,but they get new abilities.
It's nice.

(01:45:28):
But yeah, at the end of it, essentially,
it kind of falls to you whatto do with the blood water.
And essentially what is going tohappen is that at the end of this game,
it's going to kind of get out ina way that wasn't anticipated.
And it's going to engender a reactionthat was not expected amongst the insects,

(01:45:50):
which are going to getvery large and very angry.
And that, of course, is going to be the end
of the second war as theanimals realize, you know what?
We definitely shouldnot be fighting each other.
Now we're fighting for our lives.
Oh, OK.
Wow.
Yeah, work has beenhappening, work has been happening.

(01:46:14):
OK, I just want to know when I can have
a copy of Sovála to play withMaria, I think she's probably
old enough that shemight be able to to to play it.
Fifi will be will be a bit distracted andDorothy will throw the pieces on the floor.
But Maria might enjoy it.

(01:46:37):
So I will be able to answer that question
for you depending on howsuccessful the test this fall goes.
Yeah.
And it'll be nice because we'll havesome people who've played it before.
So they'll be able togive direct comparisons.
All right.

(01:46:57):
And another thing, too, so.
When we were getting ready for this,you guys were at David, you asked me like
if this would comeout after a certain time
because you wanted tomention a movie project.
Yeah, it's true.

(01:47:18):
So as long as thiscomes out after July 11th.
It should.
OK, it should or it will
it will be after July 11th.
I don't have time to edit it before then.
OK, good.
All right, well, then the reasonthat July 11th is important is
July 11th is when Superman comesout and that is our latest project,

(01:47:45):
the new Superman rebootand things to follow.
But yeah, the first the firstone, though, is is Superman.
It came out July 11th.
I tell you that as if thatdate was in the past.
And it features our new takeon the Kryptonian language.

(01:48:09):
Oh, OK.
Now, long time listeners mayknow that there is another conlanger.
Christine, I hope that I'mgetting her name right.
- Christine Schreyer, who- That's how I say it.
So if you have it wrong, I do, too.

(01:48:29):
I've gottenher name wrong before.
I've I've I've said like Schleyerbefore, and I think that's somebody else.
And but she made it for Man of Steel.
She made a version of Kryptonian.
So you guys have made adifferent version of Kryptonian.

(01:48:49):
Is it does it take anything from that thatversion or is it a completely new thing?
Yeah, this is a completely new thing.
And I'll tell you at the very outset, whenwe were first emailed about this project,
I said, you know, that ChristineSchreyer created a Kryptonian language

(01:49:11):
for the Man of Steel movie.
Are you sure you didn't want to use that?
And the answer was, no,they wanted a new take.
And of course, it always has todo with studios and blah, blah, blah.
But
it kind of honestly, it kind of seems likethat maybe that is either the era we're

(01:49:31):
in or the era we're approaching whereeverything is either a sequel or a reboot.
And if it's a reboot, you know, they wantto put their own stamp on the franchise,
which, you know, who knows?
For for people who are out there saying,
"Man, I really could havedone a better job at Dothraki."
Who knows?
Maybe 10 years from now will beanother Game of Thrones reboot.

(01:49:54):
And they'll be like, you know what?
We want to put our ownspin on this franchise.
So we need a new Dothraki language.
Who knows? You know, there there may be
opportunities in the future and andreally we just have to be at peace
with it, because like as Isee it, there's really four.
Well, now with ours, there'sfour Kryptonian languages

(01:50:17):
starting at the beginning.
There was what was in thecomic books and that, of course,
I mean, anybody who's read anycomic books from the 50s, 60s and so on
and knows anything about conlanging, I mean,you can guess you can guess what that was like
Probably lots of apostrophesand like it's just gibberish.

(01:50:37):
There's nothing to it.
- Right?- Yeah.
And not only that,
it was, you know, "made," quote unquote,by tons of different writers at different
times, each of them adding newwords, changing the meanings of words,
adding, you know, awriting system and so on.

(01:50:58):
It's it's just it's ajumbled mess, you know?
And the only person, youknow, who actually tried to
make sense of thatwas, oh, my God,
help me, help me, help me, Darren?
I am so embarrassed aboutthis, I just had his name.

(01:51:25):
But there's a fellowon the Internet who basically
created everything... or took downeverything about the language.
There we go, Darren Doyle, I'm sosorry, Darren, we've corresponded before

(01:51:46):
and I apologize, I may haveslipped my mind for the moment.
Darren Doyle,
he cataloged everything thatwas in all the comic books.
And essentially, he created aversion of the Kryptonian language.
It was just on the Internet.
Basically, it was a fanlang.He was a really big fan,
and

(01:52:07):
kept as much as he could, innovated a lot,
created a lot of material.
And there was a televisionshow, Supergirl, you know,
and they--
I've seen that one.
Yeah, they did.
I'll say they did some disappointingstuff when it came to conlanging.

(01:52:30):
But like I knew one of the writers therebecause she was a writer on something else.
She once suggested tothem, "Why don't you hire David?
He created a languagefor us for this other thing."
And they're like, "Nah, we'll just messup some stuff on Google Translate.
It'll be fine." That's what they did.
I never
I don't think I got anyepisodes with Kryptonian in it.

(01:52:52):
Martian, it was Martian.
Oh, it was Martian.
Oh, because J'onn J'onzz is in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But at a certain point, theywanted to use Kryptonian.
And I don't know who madethe initial point of contact.
But somehow it came to to Darren.

(01:53:14):
And, you know, I spoke out in his favor.
I said, "Look, this guy's beenworking with Kryptonian for years.
He would love the opportunity to do this."
And so he actually got to do some
Kryptonian translationfor Supergirl, the show.
And so I thought that was wonderful.
Anyway, that was I think thatwas actually after Man of Steel,

(01:53:37):
where, of course, Christine Schreyercreated the Kryptonian language,
which got cut from the first one,right, like it's the the visuals are there.
There's writing, there's writing.
And I think she I think that was acase where she did do the writing.
I mean, she did translation for it.

(01:54:00):
I know she did. Yeah.
Yeah. Like because I know I know you've had
several projects where, like, theydidn't let you do a writing system.
They had art department do it or theywouldn't take the one that you made.
But I think she actually did the glyphs.
There was the one like the bigS is actually a Kryptonian glyph.
So that was like, set, butotherwise she made some other things.

(01:54:24):
She collaborated with the withan artist there in the art department.
So.
it wasn't it wasn't free ofproduction interference.
But, you know,
she at least had input on that.
Unlike, for example,
Marc Okrand had no input whatsoeveron the writing system for Atlantean,

(01:54:46):
which which was a shame because there weredefinitely things he could have told them.
That's right.
That's a thing.
That's a thing that that like the peoplehiring conlangers needed to get is like.
You can have artdepartment involved, right?
They might I mean, a lot of artists might

(01:55:07):
actually like the opportunity to todo like the visual styling and like work
with different writing implementsand see what they can do with that.
But like you need the conlangerinvolved to help design the system.
Because it's going to fall out of thephonology and morphology of the language
in a way, and it has to make sense ratherthan just like having art department do

(01:55:32):
an alphabet cipher, which makesno sense in universe at all.
Yeah, but
but anyway, that's exciting.
So a new Kryptonian,I feel that I feel that
with Superman, that that's that'sthe thing that you're going to get,
because like you said, there's the historyof multiple different versions already.

(01:55:57):
Whereas something like Dothraki,
I mean, it wasn't in the books,but it's pretty well established
from the get go in the in in theshows that this is what Dothraki is.
Klingon was established
decades ago as this is what Klingon is.

(01:56:18):
And the quality of the Klingonin all of the shows is not great.
But there's enough of a community
behind it and enough like knowledge of itthat I don't think they would hire anybody
to redo Klingon. If anything, like if ifyou if you talk about like Klingon and Na'vi,

(01:56:39):
it's like Marc Okrand and Paul Frommerare going to pass the torch to other people
who've been studying it rather thanhave somebody hired to redo it.
Right?
Yeah, yeah, you're probably right.
I guess it remains to be seen.
Yeah, bu-
It remains to beseen like kind of like what happens

(01:57:00):
with the whole, you know,Song of Ice and Fire franchise.
One thing I wouldlike to see happen is if the current MCU
fades out of favor and then they reboot itand restart it when they get to Wakanda,
somebody needs to have the forethought toactually go and make a conlang for Wakanda,

(01:57:25):
because like I have said, it wasreally good that the actors involved
saw that and saw like, "Whyare we speaking English?
Let's let's just let's pick anAfrican language we know."
And they went with Xhosa.
That's good.
I still think it would havebeen better to have someone

(01:57:48):
who has knowledge of African languages,you could have something from an African
family because like there's going to bethings in like like Xhosa is going to have
English loan words thatWakanda would not have because
they've been isolated forthousands of years. Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
You know, maybe like

(01:58:09):
- put that idea out there.- It's also like a thousand miles away.
Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't, also, Xhosa was chosenfor like convenience because they happen to speak it.
And then they, they took awriting system from the other side of
the continent to, to use. And it's like,

(01:58:33):
okay, I mean, it kind of fits with otherworld building that they were doing with
like grabbing things fromvarious African cultures, but
but maybe it wouldhave had more cohesion if
somebody like actually thoughtto make something beforehand.
Yeah.
Nice thing is that here wegot to create the language.

(01:58:55):
We created the writing system.
Um, it's going to show up in,um, minor in terms of screen
time, a minor way in thefilm, but a very important way.
So, um, so that'll be nice.
And then, um, and then, yeah,we did, uh, well, I think for right

(01:59:16):
now, let me say is we did a lotof work in a related future project.
Okay.
Uh, okay.
Hopefully you have notsaid too much there, but, uh,
there's, there's, uh, somethings to, uh, look forward to.
Uh, I am now more interested in seeing, uh,man, and, uh, is it just called Superman?

(01:59:40):
Yeah, it's just called Superman.
Yeah.
So I'm more interestedin seeing that movie now.
Cause I mean, I've seenpreviews, it looks good,
but it's like, okay, it's anotherSuperman movie, but
now, it's another moviethat I can tell my daughters,
Hey, I know the people whomade it, made the language.

(02:00:04):
And I have said that several times andlike, almost always it has been you guys.
[laughing]
I think, I think my daughter is, isfinally starting to get it a little bit.
Um, you know, that we, thatwe work on stuff, um, like she can

(02:00:26):
identify stuff and, uh, I, I stilldon't think that she really knows.
At all, like whatlanguage creation is about.
Um, but that's fine.
We got plenty of other things to do.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it, it, it takes a while.
Uh, Maria has, uh, offand on, like had me try --

(02:00:49):
I, I've had, like, tried to help her andlike make a language, but you know,
she's nine, so it's not, you know,there's, there's what I can convey to her.
That she'll understand, but like, youknow, yeah, I've, I've shown them...
They love Elemental, so I've shown themthe stuff that's online of, of Ts'its'ash.

(02:01:13):
Right?
Um, which is very, very nice choicesto evoke the sound of fire in that
with, um, adjectives and, andsyllabic fricatives, but--
Oh, thank you.
It was hard.

(02:01:36):
It was hard?
Especially initially there, you know, uh,the initial ideas were literally to take,
um, recordings of fire and kind of manipulatethem in such a way to try to produce a language.
That sounds like a Logan Kearsley project.
{Laughing}

(02:02:01):
Oh my goodness!
Uh, people, peoplewho, who, who know the podcast will
know that who, who, who, who havewatched, uh, Tongues and Runes stuff too.
Um, but, uh, anyway, I thinkthat's, well, that's all interesting stuff.

(02:02:22):
We've, we've done a wide range of,uh, of things, but I think, um, well, as
we're, this should come out duringlike the theatrical run of the Superman.
So that's, that's something to check out.
Also, there'll be a link to the Kopikonregistration. Go and check that out.
And, um,

(02:02:43):
And you know what, I'll also getyou a link for pre-orders of Jessie's book.
Yeah, yeah, I, yeah, I can, I can, Ican put that in there, uh, from, from
Cambridge University Press, just like thedirect link, and it's a textbook.
So it's kind of expensive,but you know, that it's

(02:03:07):
probably going to be areally cool thing to have.
And if you are a professor who isaiming to teach a conlang class or has,
has taught a conlang classand might do it in the future,
you know, you might want to, you know, contact them foryour, like, uh, I guess professors can get review copies

(02:03:30):
so that they can decide whether they'regoing to require it for the class and stuff.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah.
Um, but individualscan buy those books too.
Uh, I'm sure that the con, the, thelending library is going to get a copy too.
So, uh, that, that will be, yeah,the LCS lending, lending library.

(02:03:52):
But anyway, um, thankyou guys for being on and,
uh, lots of excitingstuff to cover on that.
Well, we will seeyou, uh, we'll see you on the stream
at Kopikon or for people goingthere, we'll see you guys in person.

(02:04:19):
And also, you know, everyweek on LangTime Studio,
you can tell people that.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
Thursdays at 2:00 PM LangTime Studio.
We're still going at it.
Still doing the fox language right now.
2:00 PM Pacific time.
2:00 PM Pacific time.
The only time that exists in David's head.

(02:04:44):
There was a, there was a show called 90210.
I don't recall a showabout any of your zip codes.
You know what, David?
You don't even live in 90210.
Like, what are you talking about?
All right.
But anyway, uh, thank youguys for being on once again.

(02:05:07):
And thank all of you out therefor watching and happy conlanging.
Thank you for listening to Conlangery.
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(02:05:32):
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