Speaking in Slanguages: An analysis of linguistic creativity
Chen Yun Hu
Language is intertwined with culture and defines our ways of thinking; it is not just a tool for communication but a speculative design that shapes our thinking patterns and offers us new perspectives. Through exploring the metaphors, conlangs, and artistic conlangs, we can see how language is malleable and can be reshaped to reveal hidden facades of knowledge. By changing our relationship with language, we can unlock new dimensions of understanding ourselves and the world around us. By embracing the idea of languages as speculative designs, we can challenge familiar paradigms and expand our horizons of language usage. It is a path to knowing more about ourselves and our designs, and it offers us opportunities to explore the unknown and uncover the complexities of human communication.
Shaping Languages
Languages serve as the communication tools of us they are imperfect sometimes. But they are malleable. We create new words constantly to portray the world that we live in. They are living systems that evolve with us. Therefore, I start my journey to understand the essence of “languages” with the entry point of understanding ourselves. I start to play with clay. Clay has the characteristic of being malleable, and human civilizations were built on clay. I try different methods and use clay as a tool to form them into a commutable system. While I was exploring the development of my clay languages, I realized that the form of a cube manifests my idea of languages.
Clay Language
The 3D clay cube can show different aspects of a word instead of being flat. A single word can have different and even contradictory explanations based on how we use the word. For example, humans can be “violent and the most dangerous animal on the earth,” but humans are also “kind, creative, and loving”
AR filter
This is the AR experience of this language. You can scan the QR code and find the clay cube on your screen using your phone. (Need Adobe Aero app to support the experience)
Speculative Dictionary
So after that, I decide to finalize the experience of this language in a speculative way. I’ve learned that the essence of a language is that we coin certain things into words and make it has a certain meaning. And we find the similarity to extending the lexicon in this paradigm. So I use a clay cube as the media to hold the messages, and I use the method of machine learning to create a program, which serves as the dictionary to tell us what it means.
