blog entry #4

David Peterson will definitely be a very important source for my project. Though I have to be careful and diversify my sources, he's one of the biggest authorities on fictional languages out there, along with Tolkien and others, making him an indispensable and unavoidable source to consult. The Talks at Google sources will most definitely be interesting sources to make use of, I'm also pretty sure I've watched one of them before for fun.

Aside from that, I need to start thinking of a thesis statement, which is harder than I thought it would be. I'm so interested in this particular topic that I seem to only really want to inform others about it, choosing a claim and sticking to the angle needed to argue in its favor will be difficult, since from that point on I'll need a sort of tunnel vision, I'll have to narrow what I mention to what's relevant to my essay only and overlook things even if I think they're interesting.

Talks at Google. "The Art of Language Invention | David Peterson | Talks at Google." Youtube, panel by David J. Peterson, 24 Oct. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z50T-tslrgs.

In this panel, linguist David Peterson talks about his book The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building, and explains some of the key concepts and parts of language creation. He is an extremely experienced "conlang" (constructed languages) maker, having worked with many franchises to help create languages for their own specific fantasy worlds. He recently consulted on Denis Villeneuve's Dune and has worked on countless other well-known series or films.

This source will help me explain the contemporary process of language-making, as most other sources I found were focusing on Tolkien's way of doing it, which dates back and is no longer the primary way used by experts. The Q&A section at the end will also help me identify certain concerns some might have about conlangs, most specifically those who are afraid our society might put them above endangered languages in the sphere of protection and expansion.

Talks at Google. "Create a Language in Just One Hour | David J. Peterson | Talks at Google." YouTube, panel by David J. Peterson, 24 May 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StcSHmBZj2k.

This panel by David Peterson is much more recent, in it he talks less about the culture and reasons for conlangs to be made, and dives deeper into the process itself, touching on every step he and other conlang makers go through to achieve the final products we can see on tv and in movies.

This source will be useful to me as it presents a clear and specific breakdown of the process experts currently have to create conlangs, as well as the Q&A section which will provide me with possible questions a reader might have on the subject, helping me clarify anything if needed.