First, on Tuesday, together with Comparative Literature, Linguistics co-sponsored an engaging talk by two of the world's foremost conlangers: linguists David Peterson and Jessie Peterson. They spoke about the art and science of creating fictional constructed languages and their work spanning shows such as Game of Thrones, Dune, and Shadow and Bone among many others.

 

If you want to learn to make conlangs yourself, sign up for LING 0131 with Linguistics faculty member (and conlanger!) Peter Grishin. The course is offered in Fall 2026!

 

On Thursday, the final Linguistics colloquium talk of the year brought Jessica Coon to campus. While Jessica has written and talked in various venues about her work consulting on the film Arrival, this talk stayed closer to Earth with an examination of the grammar of animacy in Ch'ol, an indigenous language of Southern Mexico.