Kēlen
Sign in to saveAlso known as Keelen, Keilen
Kēlen () is a constructed language created by Sylvia Sotomayor in 1998. The language is designed to be a truly alien language by violating a key linguistic universal — namely that all human languages have verbs. In Kēlen, relationships between noun phrases making up the sentence are expressed by one of four relationals. According to Sotomayor, these relationals perform the functions of verbs but lack any of the semantic content. However, the semantic content found in common verbs, such as those that are semantic primes, can also be found in Kēlen's relationals, which calls into question whethe
Described at
Kélen - Conlang Profile
langmaker.github.io →Language Name Kélen Language Author Sylvia Sotomayor Year Began 1982 Site Kélen Broken Link No Site Language English Language Type fictional language Uniqueness "Learning about universals made me wonder what a language would be like that violated them. So Kélen became my laboratory for exploring the line between a human and a non-human language. There are a few inherent difficulties to this task. For one thing, since we haven't found any intelligent aliens, there are no non-human languages to look at for comparison. So, my strategy was to take a universal (namely, all languages have large open classes of nouns and verbs) and violate it. So, Kélen lost all of its verbs and became a language of nouns and particles." - Sylvia Sotomayor Conculture Noun Phrase aliens Quotation p'ja naer maruw il-alle an tashaon anyth an a soreñ aneñ Explanation rel. +art. "whole" "earth" time- phr. "now" obj. part. "language" "one" obj. part. pl. part. "speech" "one together Translation Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. Dictionary No Etymologies No Grammar Yes Sample Texts Yes Unique Script Yes Primer No Babel Text Yes Submitted By Dean Easton Date Submitted Wednesday, February 11, 2004 Updated By Jeffrey Henning Date Edited Monday, September 06, 2004 Description Of Update Corrected spelling of name. Date To Headline Monday, September 06, 2004
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Wikidata facts
- Image
- Kelen Wikicommons.gif
Show 4 more facts
- described at URL
- langmaker.github.io/db/mdl_kelen.htm
- inception
- 1980-00-00
- Commons category
- Kēlen
- Commons gallery
- Kēlen
via Wikidata · CC0
~12 min read
Article
21 sectionsContents
- Background and history
- Phonology
- Consonants
- Vowels
- Monophthongs
- Diphthongs
- Syllable structure
- Writing systems
- Grammar
- Syntax
- Pronouns
- Nouns
- Animacy
- Number
- Relationals
- La
- Ñi
- Se
- Pa
- References
- External links
Kēlen () is a constructed language created by Sylvia Sotomayor in 1998. The language is designed to be a truly alien language by violating a key linguistic universal — namely that all human languages have verbs. In Kēlen, relationships between noun phrases making up the sentence are expressed by one of four relationals. According to Sotomayor, these relationals perform the functions of verbs but lack any of the semantic content. However, the semantic content found in common verbs, such as those that are semantic primes, can also be found in Kēlen's relationals, which calls into question whether Kēlen is technically verbless. Despite its distinctive grammar, Kēlen is an expressive and intelligible language. Texts written in Kēlen have been translated into other languages by several people other than the creator of the language. In an interview, Sotomayor stated that she aimed for Kēlen to be naturalistic apart from its verblessness, and that to achieve this she employs the principle "change one thing and keep everything else the same".
== Background and history == In its concultural setting, Kēlen is spoken by an alien species called the Kēleñi, for whom the language was created.