Olivia Nelson is a 17-year-old high school senior living in Pennsylvania. Her interest in language started at a young age as she began noticing the imprecision of English. As she learned more about the study of language, her education became more specific. She has recently focused in on etymology, language construction, and linguistics, while formally studying Chinese and American Sign Language. Today, she excels at providing unrequested lectures about linguistics to her classmates during their lunch period.
Abstract
In this presentation, The Creation of Meaning, Olivia Nelson reviews the process for creating a language, as well as the foundation of constructed languages. Her research, primarily using The Art of Language Invention by David J. Peterson and other scholarly texts, outlines the basics of creating a language to a lay audience. Within the presentation she explores what brings meaning to language, arguing that a dictionary is an outline for what a word means, and the true definition of the word lies in a culture’s repeated use in a consistent context.
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