We’ve all seen an old-timey movie, listened to an old broadcast, or even seen a modern movie set in the early 40’s. A staple of all of these is the accent used by the actors and actresses. Nearly every movie you watch from or about this era, you become transfixed by the English that is used. It’s the calling card of the times and when we hear it, we experience flashes of the glitz and glam of old Hollywood or infamous politicians’ speeches. What few people know is this iconic accent has a much more gritty, dark, and downright scary origin story.

​This accent, dubbed the Transatlantic dialect (aka Mid-Atlantic) was completely made up! Yep, it’s a form of a conlang! And more shockingly, those that spoke it were members of what some to consider to be a cult following. However, to understand how this beloved speech pattern came to have its ugly past, you first must understand the person that influenced its creation.

By the time that William Tilly came to teach at Columbia University, the Australian immigrant was already a renowned phonetician (study of sounds used in languages); having taught and founded many of the elite language schools across Europe, Tilly’s research of speech sounds in language were groundbreaking. So much so, that some of his research is still a part of every linguist’s phonetics 101 course. However, while his linguistics skills are bar none, his opinions of language learners are cause for much debate. His feelings were that learners of English needed to rid themselves of any accent markers in order to be “proper” speakers of English. These opinions he later decided to compile into what he deemed World English.

Tilly spoke of World English as the “superior” form of English as it combined the “refinement” of British RP (or Queen’s English) with the upper crust tastes of the American elite. All together this form of English, in Tilly’s words, was the “cleanest” variation of English and should be used by all English speakers. In Europe, his ideas were deemed radical by language experts at the time. However, he began to develop a large following of language specialists and teachers in the States. He was described as extremely charismatic and his lectures felt more like a sermon. His students admired him; they are described in a Billboard article from 1923 as being completely “spellbound.” Tilly used this influence to talk about his World English and the various “atrocities” he had heard with English speech patterns. His students, quoted as “followers” by some, would take these teachings to the next level with the implementation of various language teachings all in his name. These invented curriculum were deemed by them as necessary purification methods of English.

One loyal follower, Marguerite De Witt, who taught at Wellesley College would later go on to create Euphonics; the type of speech that God himself preferred according to her. The president of the William Tilly Association (an official group for purveyors of Tilly’s ideologies), Sophia Pray, spoke about how the use of Tilly’s language ideals would ensure one’s readiness to be properly accepted in society. She was quoted as saying that a foreign accent and/or not using World English were “indelible signs of social inferiority.” Another ideological follower of Tilly, Julia Richman, when promoted to Director of Speech for the New York school districts began implementing some of Tilly’s English teaching principles in schools. She described modern English speech in crisis and the New York accent almost as though it was an illness. Common communications from the New York school district would say things like, “Speech aid given to 30,000 students” and “56,640 students treated.” However, one of the most notable followers of Tilly was Edith Warman Skinner. She was known as one of the most predominant vocal coaches of the era and the go-to person for Hollywood, Carnegie Mellon, and Julliard. She saw a perfect use for Tilly’s ideals in Hollywood as the rise of the luxuries that included transatlantic cruises and aviation travel began to enter the movies. She decided that there was a need for a more “luxurious” form of English, thus the beginnings of the Transatlantic accent. She included Tilly’s ideals in both acting and speech curriculum, which were adopted by nearly all of Broadway and Hollywood at the time. Every major studio in Hollywood had on-going vocal classes to teach actors and actresses the use of the Transatlantic accent.  She would later take this curriculum, the brainchild of her and Tilly’s thoughts, to create the infamous Speak with Distinction, a guide to “proper” speech for actors and actresses; the revised iterations are still a staple teaching in many theater groups, colleges, and classes to this day.

Many linguists, language experts, and language enthusiasts today look at ideals of language purification such as Tilly’s as abhorrent as they seek to create English prescriptivism to a level not often seen. As well, it’s this same level of prescriptivist thinking that is driving our modern-day epidemic of English ‘purism’ that is being forced on many countries including China, Japan, and Korea. English in these countries is rapidly becoming a needed prerequisite for even entry level jobs. However, “proper” English schooling is incredibly expensive and therefore is still mostly available only to the elite.  Another issue is that one of the predominant language teaching principles that is used throughout these countries is a form called direct instruction; a notable favorite of Tilly’s, this method is debated on by language teachers because, if done improperly, it can cause long-term learning trauma to students.

​While traces of the World English ideals are still seen today, the Transatlantic variation faded out in Hollywood towards the end of the 1940’s. Hollywood began to move away from this way of speaking as the need for more ‘relatable’ characters started to rise. So, that classic New Yorker, California vibing, and Bostonian reverberation became the go-to accents in Hollywood. While Hollywood and the American masses have distanced themselves from the Transatlantic accent, this darker side of Tilly’s teaching is slowly being forgotten. His former William Tilly Association was rebranded the William Tilly Phoneticians Association and he is still revered by many studiers of modern phonetics. His backing of the International Phonetic Alphabet is still a staple in not just language study, but it is a quintessential tool in the world of conlangs as many conlangers use it as a starting point of nearly every language they create. This tool has been used to create every significant conlang to-date, including the Transatlantic accent, Elvish, Dothraki, and modern Esperanto. So next time you watch that old-timey movie, listen to an old broadcast, or see a modern interpretation of the era, listen for that accent and remember all it represents.

​Earlier this year I wrote about the need for us to embrace the language changes that are happening and ensure that we, as writers, are cognizant of these changes as we build our worlds. The importance to write stories that are relevant, but relatable to a mass audience should be in the forefront of writers’ mind. This is particularly true when it comes to language representation. As the LGBTQIA+ community continues to become ever more accepted through society, we find ourselves at an interesting crossroads when it comes to language and how we interact with LGBTQIA+ identities. With this, a trend is emerging within the community when it comes to language choice. This trend, I would argue, is the acceptance that English, within its current constraints, hasn’t been able to evolve to represent our community fast enough.

​These past decades have been painted in a hue rainbow. The LGBTQIA+ community demanded acceptance and began to get results for real change. Similar to the results of the study that I did into gay jargon, as the “taboo” became the every day, the conversations that we are having around the spectrums of sexuality and gender have sprouted an influx in terminatology to give definitions to each level of the spectrums. We realize that this is incredibly important so that one can discover and find all the intersections of their identity and more specifically where they can find the rest of the community that best “fits” their intersections. I, myself, use terms like gay, cis poly male, but where and how the commas are worked into this when writing or how these fit into English’s adjectival word order, I still have no fucking idea. I find myself struggling and having difficulty when it comes to the boundaries of my own language. So for those whose identities are far more complex, my heart aches because we get fixated on labels as that’s what we’ve been taught. We use these labels as a way to “fit” people in the boxes we need. This fixation on labels, in an era where you must be cognizant in everything you say, is where we have begun to see in fighting within the LGBTQIA+ community. Further distancing each other away from those that don’t fit into our boxes because those that aren’t in our label couldn’t possibly understand our complex identities. To alleviate this distancing and ‘in-fighting’ there has been a language trend that is emerging to combat this within the community. We can rely on our language for that, to evolve as we need it. However, this trend that has emerged is being seen by some not as an evolution as much as it is a de-evolution and a reconfirmation of a past generations understanding.

“We’re here, we’re Queer!” A chant that is reminiscent of stonewall and the AIDs crisis. However, in major LGBTQIA+ community hubs there is the ever more present use of the term queer as an all encompassing term of representation for all spectrums of gender identity, identity, and sexuality. Regardless of where in the spectrum you fit or where your intersections lie, you are queer and come out to people as queer only. This resurgence of something that some would argue is the opposite of language evolution, I would argue is the communities realization that as we continue to understand more spectrums we need to realize that our language, specifically English, has its boundaries. English, being an analytic language, has requirements of specificity to ensure clarity. At times, what some languages can say in a word or a phrase, requires in depth sentences in English. Now, for my linguist friends, I am not saying that we can’t express the same things between languages, but the classic “there’s not a good word for this” rings ever more true for the needs of the LGBTQIA+ community. We are working towards being able to have single word definitions for incredibly complex identities, but we just aren’t there yet. Furthermore, the problem is that English speakers are constantly arguing over grammatical genders and their effect on biological genders. As linguists, we understand just how much of a slippery slope this is. That the confusion of these is often a pitfall. English has coded into our language that people only get he/she pronouns and that everything else is an it or a thing. This in of itself is beyond queer, when compared to many languages, as this restrictive coding structure for pronouns has caused a linchpin for being able to create and define gender identity and its representations in English.

A great way to visually see this change and get an idea of how much it is impacting English speaking countries is to turn to the language nerds. Corpus indexing is a great record to be able to see language use and its frequency of use. Below is a series of graphs pulled from Google's corpus index that shows data on how this trend is becoming in the forefront of the internet as well (from top to bottom: queer, gay, lesbian, transgender) 

 ​We are at a unique time in our language’s history, a point where we have to look at our language and accept that it may not be ready to “come out.” English is struggling to define all the aspects and spectrums of sexuality and gender. Just as we are beginning to realize and accept each other for being uniquely them, we need to start realizing and accepting that the English language isn’t ready to meet our needs. For now, we need to continue to elaborate and discuss all of the deep levels to gender and sexuality in order to work together to come up with agreed upon meanings. However, what we cannot do is continue to ‘in-fight’ within the community when lexical associations are not identical across all verticals of the LGBTQIA+ community. Acceptance has been at the forefront of our community so inherently if someone looks to the identities that have been established and feels a sense of belonging then wave your flag hunty and be you, but also respect that not everyone in this community has this and until we get there we need to continue to accept each other. Something that really stood out to me that encapsulated all of this was the ending to Eugene Lee Yang’s coming out video. If you haven’t seen it, please Google now! The representation of this sentiment of overly critical in-fighting over definitions, I feel, is really seen in the end where he is trying to be uniquely him in a room of people on both sides arguing. These sides are dressed in black and white. Each side fitting into their perspective boxes and definitions. However, the pain and agony on his face in feeling alone as there is no definition or box for him to fit in shows the importance of continuing to define these spectrums as a means of helping and allowing the entire community to be uniquely them. 

This re-adoption of queer and its all encompassing notion to our community really is a woke af realization from the community and how we need to continue to push for change, but also realize that the changes we have made can only go so far and now our own language stands in the way. This means for creators in all verticals change demands we be completely aware and ensure we are taking proper measures to incorporate language representations as they are today. As writers, we need to do what has always been our forte; be the cutting edge of change. It’s important that we continue to push our boundaries and work to help others see how language shapes our world and the worlds we are creating. For those linguists out there, do what I am doing. Record everything! Keep building corpus after corpus to get snapshots of this beautiful new landscape of language change so that we can continue to document this incredible shift that I think is more important than the infamous vowel shift. English will be forced to get there, but for now, where ever you pull your definitions, whether it be queer or something more specific, we are all forcing this change; so let’s do so together.

​The immense and expansive use of language creation in the Tolkien universe has no comparison. We are all familiar with his most popular “The Lord of the Rings” series and the epic saga that all the characters went through. Whether you discovered this fascinating saga through reading or watching the awe-inspiring film adaptation, there is no getting around the beautiful languages that Tolkien has built for this world. The most intriguing part of all is that Tolkien’s love for language and linguistics was so great that he painstaking ensured that the languages that were built follow precise syntax, phonotactics, and real-world applications of sociolinguistic variations. It is estimated that the Lord of the Rings alone features up to 14 conlangs and handfuls of European languages. Today we look at the variety of real-life inspired language constructs in his books that many do not even realize are there!

​Words are powerful. A simple statement with endless implications. Right now, you are reading these words and you could be a thousand miles away from where I am now, yet I am able to transport meaning to you. I can say something like, “I am a pink elephant using my trunk like a trumpet” and now you have an image in your head. This is incredible when you take a moment to think about how powerful that is.

​Tolkien was a linguaphile who understood this power all too well. He knew the power of language and the power of words specifically. So much so, he decided to take it a step further and have words given actual physical and metaphysical abilities within The Lord of the Rings. The most obvious representations of this comes in the form of spells. These words of power were used by a variety of players in the series. Most notably, Gandalf with his command spell that opened the door at the Mines of Moria and his protection spell used against the Balrog. Also, every time Movie Sauron’s eye appears to the characters his “dark” speech inflicts physical pain on those who are unfortunate enough to catch his gaze.

There is another aspect to the power of language in Tolkien’s books, he adds complex sociolinguistic factors that mirror what we see in real-life language constructs. Noam Chomsky famously said, “A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of community, a whole history that creates what community is.” A striking example is the language representations in the realm of humans. The humans that live in Gondor embrace sociolinguistic variations of “English” that bring in word choices of ruling classes, defeatism, and language that is bitter towards the past glories of a former Gondor led by Kings instead of Stewards. Good examples are from Denethor when he says, “Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must... No tomb for Denethor and Faramir...We shall burn, like the heathen kings before...” Whereas, the characters who are based in Rohan use vocabularies that reflect their deep connection to horses along with their sturdy, nomadic, and battle-ready ideals even when faced with adversity. Even the name Rohan means “Horse County.” King Theoden shows a strong notion of this in his pre-battle cry speech, “Arise, arise, riders of Theoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now!" As well with Theoden's attitude towards not being on the battlefield of Helms deep, “If I could have set a spear in rest, riding before my men up the field...but I serve little purpose here." 

Adding to the complex variations of language Tolkien adds to his world, he includes an even more relevant sociolinguistic factor. A very common, real-life sociolinguistic rule that happens when you have mass amount of variations and different languages in one confined area is not just bilingualism but dualism in meanings. For instance, Saruman’s name itself means “man of skill” in Quenya (one of the many variations of Elvish) so it is no wonder that his position was head of the wizard’s council. Furthermore, his tower Orthanc means “cunning mind” in the Old English of Rohan and “Mount Fang” in Elvish. Also, Mordor in Old English means “murder” and in Elvish means “Black Country.”

An even more deep layer of complexity that many forget is that the entire story of the Lord of the Rings is written from perspective of Tolkien, theoretically, transliterating the accounts of Hobbits, therefore anything that is not known or understood to the Hobbits, either linguistically or historically in Middle Earth, is not recorded in the Lord of the Rings. Mind. Blown. Which means, as Tolkien has pointed out, that there is potential for mistranslations of language to have occurred and this also explains why certain events are omitted while other events are placed in detail. For example, since the Hobbits are creatures of the Earth (literally living inside the Earth), this explains the reasons behind the excruciating detail that is put into the Lord of the Rings when it comes to nature and describing the physical world that surrounds these characters. This also explains why we never know the true fates of Shelob or those that sail to the Gray Havens. Talk about an extremely meta way of writing, but it is no surprise that this level of complexity surrounds Tolkien’s saga as it is estimated that it took him nearly 17 years to complete. It is no wonder why we bookworms, writers, and linguists alike continue to be enthralled by the Tolkien’s wonderous Middle-earth.

Angels and Demons, we humans have been fascinated with the divine from very early on in our history. Equally, we have gravitated towards language and the various forms that is has taken. As conlangs become increasingly popular and the craft continues to grow, it is also important to take a look at the history of conlangs and some of older forms of invented languages. Enochian, a 16-century language that was written by John Dee, came from the Angels themselves. In fact, it is a corpus and alphabet that Dee and many others believed to be the only way to communicate with Angels. 

At this time the idea of angels communicating to humans via their own language was commonplace. It was believed that Angels were sent to communicate with prophets. Dee at the time set out to put this language on record. It was his belief that this angelic speech was used by God to create our world. As well he believed, this was the language first spoken by Adam. However, after Adams fall he lost the ability to use the language. Adam would go on to create a Proto-hebrew language based on his recollections of the celestial speech. This would be the universal language until the time of the Tower of Babel aka the "Confusion of Tongues." At this time, according to Dee, Angels hid their language from humans. Dee began his quest to speak with Angels and received his first vision about the language through a crystal in 1583.

His first vision was successful in giving him information about the elusive speech of the angels. He was able to derive 21 alphabetic letters and 3 days later, in another vision, was able to get a larger corpus of text of the Angel language.  Much later, he would receive full translations of the language from Angels that enabled the speech to be read in English. Below is an image of the written alphabet. 

Aside from the vocabulary, alphabet, and full translations; Dee would go on to develop series of ceremonies/rituals to assist others in not only contacting Angels, but using their speech to perform magic. This "Enochian magic" was quickly taken on by the occult and continues to have users of its ceremonies today. So the real question, is what do linguists and conlangers think about Enochian? 

There have been a few linguists who have investigated the Angelic Language, the majority of which see one fatal flaw not in the language itself, but in its supposed backstory. The etymology of the language, according to Dee, lies in a proto-hebrew language used by Adam. However, investigation into the language show that both the syntax and semantics of Enochian are more symmetrical with English than they are with any Semitic language. At the time of the creation of these text, Dee was also a well known informant for Queen Elizabeth I of England. This analysis coincides with some other academics who believe that Dee's Enochian was actually apart of a much larger cryptic codex that he used to pass information to Queen Elizabeth without anyone being able to decipher it. If you want more information on Enochian, check out this link here. 

​“Lol! Omg, Hey Fam Wyd?” For many, this English sentence is entirely readable and conveys meaning to most people. These slang abbreviations are a commonplace. But where did this all begin? To look at one possible origin for this slang we need to take a trip back in time. To the 80s! 

Oh the 80’s; from the hairdos and scrunchies, to the Mod rockers, we all have something that stands out to us when we think about that time period. One thing that stands out as well is the tech boom that was computing. These devices at first were exclusive to the classic stereotype of someone looking like they stepped right out of a Revenge of the Nerds movie. However, I would argue that these nerd pioneers were the ones that led the way for the text speech we use today. At the time, in order to use computers, you had to be well versed in the coding to accomplish things. Coding languages, just like any have their own syntax and structure, which gave rise to a different kind of slang used primarily online. Its name, Leet or L337.

​While the origins of Leet are argued a bit, many linguists can pinpoint the use of the language to an exclusive, elite set of coders and hackers from the 80s. These “elite”, spelled l337 in Leet speak, would combine English words with numerical patterns and abbreviation to convey meaning in a coded manner. Like any in-group slang this was developed to help convey that you were apart of these “elite” hackers/coders. As the popularity of computers took off and we began to see gaming enter the mix. As many of those who already used Leet were common to be gamers, abbreviations and numerical replacements of English letters were common and more terms began to surface like, “gg” (good game), “n3wb” (inexperienced player), “w007” (woot/yay), and “B4N” (bye for now).

​As the popularity of gaming with computers took off, so did online venues for interactions with people online. These interactions were commonly done on forums, blogs, and chatrooms. The same principals of those first “elite” users also were adopted by basic computer users in these community spaces. Usually, one would not type out full sentences in communicating and the use of abbreviations was prevalent. While the first exact instance of “lol” isn’t known, the first large group of users of the slang can be traced back to a 1980’s forum called Usenet. 

​Technology naturally progressed and these multimodal communication methods came into the palm of our hands in the form of cell phones, where naturally, texts followed suit of these online communicating principals. So, I would argue that it’s no wonder the synchrony between text communications and Leet is uncanny. As a linguist, I find myself constantly searching the deep dark spaces of reddit to stay on top of these language trends. For linguists, I think that it is incredibly important that we continue to collect and create corpora to document these language choices as they are, in my opinion, going to be a large driver for language change in the future. Especially because now-a-days online communications spark new language uses at a rate that is incredibly fast and the larger the community that uses these new phrases, words, or memes create less value to these new language uses, and the online world is on to the next one. 

​Language itself is constantly moving. It has no single pusher, but it is driven by the masses. 2018 was the year where we saw not just English speakers, but many language’s speakers rallied with one another to push for changes. A total upheaval, focused on the deconstruction of patriarchal, deeply engendered, and racial word-bias. A change led not only in the United States, but all over the globe. This is the language change that will be the new foundation of how we construct the world around us when communicating.

​The 2019 Golden Globes were some of the most diverse to date, these are the stories that are being lifted and brought to the light. So, for all those that are working towards creating new stories, worlds, and lives, keep this in mind. The audiences everywhere have spoken, and it is time to be aware of where we are all headed. I recently rewatched the movie Valerian, a story that for me was powerful and expansive. A story that when I first read it really made me think, “Now, they’ve got something!” It was a futuristic Sci-Fi that really pushed the boundaries of what would it mean for humans to live with other species. When the movie came out in 2017, I applauded it for how well it captured the need to get out of our human-centric minds when we create stories of far off galaxies. However, something had changed for me as I watched it this time. At the beginning of 2019, the movie had me so jaded at the lack of language progression that it was hard to stomach watching it. The sheer lack of it to see how language influence takes control of how we operate ourselves. It centers around the Pearls an androgenic species who throughout the entirety of the film were placed in a language sphere that was parochial and all too gendered based on their appearance. I was a bit torn, how could a movie that stretched the imagination be so behind in its language. This was a moment for me as a linguist and a creator. As a creator, the need to push my own boundaries when it comes to word choice and make sure that it lives in the language sphere that is present today. Even more so, for those creators that are looking to the futuristic worlds, this burden is that much more intense. If we are to succeed in continuing to tell stories that are relevant and honest, we must gain insight and help from those that are at the epicenter of documenting languages evolution. There will come a time where every major production company will need to have a staffed linguist or linguaphile to ensure that they are embracing the common changes that are happening. For those that don’t, there is bound to be lasting effects on these companies because the masses that are consuming all media are NOT afraid of putting those on blast that isn't current.

There is an important role that we as language lovers must play in this language revolution. We must take a moment to self-reflect on how we are operating our own daily lives, storytelling, and language learning. For the linguists out there, I say this with love. Y’all need to chill out. I find it fascinating that in a realm of highly intelligent language scientists that instead of helping one another there is constantly the need to “one-up” each other. This at its root is patriarchal! We should know as linguists were this type of criticism stems from. The future of English is in prescriptivism and all the charts and all the scientific studies in the world won’t be able to keep up with this change. As those with strong, formal backgrounds in language studies, we need to be the flagship holders to make sure that these changes are represented in all media forms.
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To the conlangers out there, keep inventing! But make darn sure that your inventions are keeping pace with how language is evolving. When we are offered jobs for conlangs, don’t be afraid to challenge the person who is writing the check! The people that are hiring you aren’t the language expert, you are! Do not be afraid to push back a little to challenge the creators if need be.

Moving into 2019 and beyond, to sum it all up, simply said, it is time. It is time to demand more from those that are put in charge of creating the media that we are consuming. It is time that we are cognizant of the language that we are putting into the content that is being created. If this isn’t a task that you are up to that’s okay! There are plenty of people who you can look to in assisting you. And for those that are doing the assisting; the linguists, conlangers and/or language enthusiasts just be aware. Be aware that the content that is largely being embraced is aware of the change that is happening with language.