Have you ever heard that Haëgen-Dazs was an artificially created word? As we have seen in the HBO Production - The Game of Thrones - in the same way brands and even languages are created in the business world. Here I'll let you know a brief story of a language I have created - Allamej.
Rodrigo Solano
rssolano@thinkglobal.com.br
The construction of Allamej began when I was 17 years old. My fascination and contact with languages, cultures and religions inspired me and I began to draw the first rules of what would become one of the most hybrid conlangs when compared to the most known constructed languages in the 2000 decade. However, it is a mere unknown language as is the case of most conlangs.
When laying the first bricks for the construction of something similar to a human language, Allamej was like a child game of mixing and matching words and concepts from many languages, which has broadened its vocabulary later on giving it a peculiar structure tending to escape from ordinary linguistic classification, since it merges Western and Eastern, African and indigenous elements at the same time.
A certain generalization is necessary to treat Allamej as a language, as in order to exist languages usually need to be spoken. Natural languages along with culture, for example, have a symbolic transmission process that takes place from generation to generation, wrapping up whole communities. And it is through this process that our thought is set up, our culture is learned and we understand what is right and wrong - all through the important participation of the language.
The word Allamej is made of three stems: Al from the Germanic roots alles (German) or the English word "all", having the same meaning. Lam, a Semitic stem, based on the Arabic عالم [ʔalam] and Hebrew עולם [ʔolam], meaning "world". Finally, the stem ej from Turkish. In Turkish the names of languages usually end in ce [dʒe] (among other forms according phonetic harmony rule comom in Turkish languages). Together, these three particles stand for the meaning of the word: "Language of the whole world".
But Allamej doesn't have this name because of any intention to be spoken by the entire world. Therefore, it is not a language that is aimed to be an international auxiliary language like Volapük, Esperanto and several others that have arisen later on. Its name reflects its hybridity, its respect for cultural diversity and its desire to blend and include different cultures in the language construction process. The overall characteristic of Allamej is not being tied to any particular ethnic group, but to many cultures and languages spread across all continents. In this case, it is a global language in a structural sense.
Its lexical formation counts on stems based on words from several languages and language subfamilies like: Chinese, Germanic, Greek, Yoruba, Japanese, Bantu languages, Celtic, Slavic, Latin, Semitic, Turkish, Persian, Quechua, Thai and Tupi-Guarani among others.
The language basis consists that each syllable has a meaning. In a process similar to what happens in Chinese, the union of these syllables forms other words. For example, sam, from Semitic root, means "sky" and xuy, from Chinese, means "water." Together they form samxuy, "rain".
In addition, it has a similar, but not exact, system of suffixation, which changes the original meaning of a word as observed in several languages of several families.
In this way, the stem ir, inspired in Latin languages (ir, "to go", in Spanish and Portuguese) whose meaning is "movement" can form several other words like: iri "to go", irét! "go!", irëk "car" or "transport" (something used to go), irëv "destination", írik "going", irën" street "or "way", íretiv "for you to go" and so on, according to the syllable post-added to ir. In this respect, it may look like Turkish, Hungarian, Mongolian or, more distantly, Korean or Japanese. Within this mechanism it is possible to create countless words that can be understood even if they have never been heard or read before. If the compounding stems are known the constructed word meaning may be predictable.
The language lacks the use of prepositions, using instead case terminations to determine the word function in statements. In English, for example, we say "at home". In Allamej, the function of the preposition is made by a suffix. For example, bayt, from Semitic languages, means "home", baytun means "at home". This aspect, although much simpler, is similar to the declensions of Latin, Russian, or Icelandic, on one hand, and with the grammatical case endings of Turkish and Indian languages, on the other.
This process of mixing aspects of various linguistic roots and making them compatible in a regular structure, with its own though mixed style, is the essence of Allamej. In this way, like most constructed languages, it can be considered as an art, the one which David Peterson refers to in his book "The art of language invention". Allamej can be regarded as, above all, an invitation to reflect on global thinking, in order to respect and include differences, since language is what structures our thoughts.
If our linguistic and consequently cultural differences lead to the segregation of humanity, the role of Allamej is to instigate a thought of harmony in those who have contact with it. Allamej would hardly have a partial essence, in both cultural or ethnic aspects, as it is constructed by mixing roots from different sources.
It is fundamentally a human, rather than a regional or ethnic language. Like other hybrid and eclectic artistic creations it must encourage non partial "philosophies", something that should be valid to all humanity.
“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.” Ludwig Wittggenstein - One of the most prominent philosophers of language. (Philosophical Investigations §109) .
... and among the greatest contributions to this "bewitchment" that the various languages convey to us may be a partial view of the world and human reality.
So, if you are thinking of original words, disigns and concepts with deep multicultural meaning for your activities, I will be more than glad to receive your contact.
* Allamej is a member of Language Creation Society