Speculative Grammarian Podcast

Doing Fieldwork on Constructed Languages; by Curtis U. Lehder; From Volume CLIX, Number 1 of Speculative Grammarian, May 2010. — As all linguists know, there are only about 6,000 languages left in the world today, and that number is shrinking rapidly. Constructed (or created or invented or planned) languages, on the other hand, number more than 128 trillion, according to conservative estimates, and more and more flower into existence each and every day. Though up to now, formal linguists (or, at least, respectable formal linguists) have largely ignored the works of language creators, it seems inevitable that at some point in time during the late 21st or early 22nd century, there will remain only one natural language (Lithuanian), while constructed languages will number, quite literally, in the decillions. (Read by David J. Peterson.)