Design a Language!Design a Language!Design a Language!Design a Language!

Language

• Languages develop all the time. • Even the Oxford English Dictionary

adds new words each year! • Can you think of any recent ones? • In 2011 these words were added:

auto-complete, green-fuel, cyberbullying, bromance!

How do you create a language? • Esperanto is a language created in the 1880s.• It is designed to be a WORLD LANGUAGE:

neutral and easy to learn by everyone.• Up to 2 million people can speak it. • It borrows its grammar, vocabulary, sounds

and script from different languages around the world.

• Can you spot any influences in these words? Saluton! (Hello) Mia noma estas… (My name

is) Dankon! (Thank you)• Do you know the top 3 most widely spoken

languages? Chinese English Spanish

Cornish Language• Cornish was one of six Celtic languages and was

spoken in Cornwall and West Devon over a thousand years ago.

• By the late 17th century only people west of Truro could speak Cornish – and most of these also spoke English.

• By the late early 19th century it had died out as a community language.

• In the early 20th century a man called Henry Jenner attempted to revive the language.

• Since then the language has been recreated and many people now speak Cornish.

How do you revive a language?

• You can use similar languages and look at how they have developed, as well as borrowing words from them.

• Can you think of any languages similar to Cornish?

• Welsh, Breton, Gaelic, Manx• Cornish REVIVALISTS used these

languages to create the vibrant Cornish language that is spoken today.

All languages are made from other languages!

• Around 80% of ‘English’ words derive from other languages! Can you guess which language the following words come from?

Sky = Norse (Scandinavian)

Castle= Norman (French)

Cannibal= SpanishBalcony= ItalianShampoo= HindiKetchup

= ChineseVoodoo

= African languages

Rucksack= German

Coffee= Arabic

Robot= CzechHooligan

= Irish (Gaelic)Flannel

= Welsh?

Language development

• When words from another language are borrowed they are often adapted and changed.

• You can see how this has happened with these English words:

• “downloaden” is German for…?• “futbol” is Spanish for…?

Your Challenge

• Create a new word to use in English:

• It can be based on a word from another language

OR

• It can be based on English words; for example, “foothouse” could mean shoe!

• YOUR WORD MUST NOT BE RUDE!

Spread the word!• As a class, use your replacement words

for the next month.• How many people can you get to use

your word?• The longer a language lives and the

wider it spreads, the more diverse, flexible and dynamic it becomes.

• Good luck! Buena suerte! Chons da!