Kato Kuijpers received a BA degree in English language and culture and an MA degree in Linguistics from the University of Groningen. She is currently studying for a second MA degree in Linguistics with a focus on researching constructed languages. Her interests mainly lie in the examination of languages created for the realm of fiction due to her love for reading fantasy novels, which started with reading Tolkien’s work. So far, she has researched Dothraki phonology as well as Na’vi syntax and pragmatics and she is currently working on a project regarding Na’vi phonology. Aside from examining fictional languages, she has also worked with Esperanto and is currently learning more about the process of conlanging itself, hoping to start creating her own conlang soon.
The study of constructed languages (or conlangs), i.e. languages that are consciously created by an individual or a group of people in a short time span, is a relatively new and upcoming field in the area of linguistics. Therefore, the current study aims to make a contribution to this field by examining a specific kind of constructed language, an artistic language, which is a constructed language created as a form of artistic expression. These artistic languages are often made to mimic natural languages, begging the question of whether a comparison can be made between constructed and natural languages. Several studies have argued that artistic languages most closely resemble contact languages, which is why the current study will investigate this more closely.
Specifically, the current study will compare one artistic language, Dothraki, with mixed languages, a subtype of contact languages, as they can be argued to resemble artistic languages most closely on the basis of their conscious creation. Additionally, the current study will focus on a phonological comparison as there is a lack of research in the area of phonetics and phonology in both the field of constructed languages as well as that of mixed languages. Through the identification of phonemic conflict sites, i.e. sites where multiple sounds compete for a place in the language’s phoneme inventory, and the acoustic examination of vowels and consonants, it was expected that Dothraki would resolve these conflict sites in the same way as mixed languages, through processes of assimilation, merging and overlapping categories. Contrary to expectations, a well-defined split in the source of the phonemes of the Dothraki sound system was found, which can be attributed to a radical difference in the development and context between artistic and mixed languages.
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