Twelve weeks, eleven compulsory screenings, and one invented language built a subsystem at a time: sounds, then grammar, then writing, then meaning. In week twelve you read a text aloud in a language that did not exist in February.
That is a sentence being spoken, drawn the way week 2 teaches you to read it. The course's own writing system is on the lectures page, and week 8 says what each shape sounds like.
What you will do
You will build a language. Not a vocabulary list and a font — a language with a phoneme inventory you can pronounce, rules about which sounds may sit next to which, a morphology, a word order, a lexicon that generates itself from its own roots, a writing system, and a society whose speakers leave certain things unsaid because everyone already knows them.
It is built one subsystem a week, in order, and the order is not negotiable: week six is impossible without week two. Every week has a film attached and the screening is compulsory, because each one is the way into the week's problem — Frommer's ejectives are how you learn what a working actor can be asked to pronounce, and Arrival is screened twice because the film that teaches you phonology in February is the one worth disagreeing with about meaning in April.
In week twelve you read twelve lines aloud, at speaking pace, in a language that did not exist in February. Then somebody who has never seen it is handed one sentence and asked to read it back.
The twelve weeks
- Week 1design briefThe Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
- Week 2phonologyArrival (2016)
- Week 3morphologyStar Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
- Week 4syntaxGame of Thrones, season 1 (2011)
- Week 5phonotacticsAvatar (2009)
- Week 6lexiconDune (2021)
- Week 7sociolinguisticsBlade Runner (1982)
- Week 8orthographyThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
- Week 9semanticsArrival (2016)
- Week 10acquisitionThe 13th Warrior (1999)
- Week 11pragmaticsStar Trek: The Next Generation — "Darmok" (1991)
- Week 12the critno screening — you present
Eleven films, all compulsory. Each week builds on what came before, so the decisions you make early in the course will shape the language you develop later.
Who it is for
Final-year students who want a semester of building rather than a semester of reading about it. No prior linguistics is needed. You are taught the IPA — the International Phonetic Alphabet, one symbol for one sound — in week two, and the interlinear gloss in week four, which is all the course asks you to know.
What the course does expect is that you watch eleven films, turn up on Thursdays, and speak your language aloud in front of the group. Reading your text out in week twelve is the largest piece of assessment in the course, so it is worth knowing that before you enrol.
Where to go next
Lectures
What is covered each week and how each film connects to the topic.
Workshops
The weekly schedule and what happens in each teaching session.
Assessment
What is assessed, how much it is worth, and when it is due.
Screenings
The films for each week and how they connect to the course.
People
Who teaches the course and how to reach them.
Policies
Course requirements, support, and important guidelines.