Purpose:
The assignment is to create your own language, starting with the inventory of contrastive sounds (phonemes),
and some information on how sounds combine to form syllables.
This document should be read alongside:
• the Project Template (which you can rename and save and then use to build your answers). This is what
you will upload to Canvas for the assignment.
• the Project Sample, which shows you what a final project might look like. The samples, though, are of a
real language the professor is researching. Your sample will be of your own invented (constructed) made-
up language, which should not look like English, or any other language you know.
Prerequisites:
In order to type phonetic symbols (not found in the usual ASCII range), you need three things:
1. A phonetics font containing all IPA symbols. There are many free resources. The standard font is
DoulosSIL, available from the link on Canvas and at https://software.sil.org/doulos/. Be sure it gets
installed into the appropriate part of your Control Panel or System Library. It is necessary to quit Word
and restart the program after installing new fonts.
2. A virtual phonetics keyboard will allow you to press combinations of strokes on your physical
keyboard to get an appropriate phonetic symbol. You can then switch back to the standard American
keyboard on a pulldown menu or creating a keyboard shortcut.
For Mac users, please see resources on Canvas (Files > Phonetics > Phonetic Resources for Mac)
For Windows, try this “Unicode Phonetic Keyboard and SIL Fonts” virtual keyboard and font
package, and map, separately at:
https://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/resource/phonetics.php
For Mac, Windows, and others, SIL’s Keyman and phonetic keyboards (try the top two options)
may be found here, also with extensive help and documentation online:
https://keyman.com/keyboards/h/ipa/
3. A map of your virtual phonetic keyboard so that you can understand what strokes are necessary to
input the appropriate symbol. For example, on my IPA keyboard, shift+s (at same time) gives ʃ, shift+d gives ð, shift+option+d gives ɖ, etc.
An easy way (for now) is to insert phonetic symbols is to use the following website to click and paste into your
word processing document: https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/html-ipa-keyboard-v1/keyboard/
Later, however, with more typing, you will want to use a virtual keyboard, not the above web utility.
Directions:
3. Rename that document
CoursePrefixNumberAssignmentLastNameFirstInitialYearSemester:
LING101Proj1LastnameFirstInitial2021Sum.docx
LING101Proj1FallonP2021Sum.docx)
4. Open the new document with your name and begin your work on it. Save as you go.
5. Read the background document. It’s got lots of background and tips to help you along with your language.
6. Download and install DoulosSIL 5.000 or higher at https://software.sil.org/doulos/download/ For Macs, you can click on the font and use Font Book to install. For Windows, use the Control Panel.
7. You would be best served especially in future projects if you download a phonetics (virtual) keyboard, which allows entry of phonetic symbols, e.g. S = ʃ, D = ð, etc. Some keyboards include:
https://keyman.com/ipa/ requires additional download of Keyman from SIL.org
http://wstyler.ucsd.edu/posts/ipa_with_osx.html Great for Mac users. I can help too.
Use a web-based utility such as: https://ipa.typeit.org/full/ and paste into your document And is this https://ilg.usc.es/ipa-chart/keyboard/ linked as Easy Click Phonetic Symbols in the module.
Cut and paste from Prof. word-based document IPAChartFilledIn.docx
8. When you are done and ready to submit your document, convert it to pdf,
9. Upload to Canvas > Assignments > ConLangProj1 LING 101B
LING101Project1Directions v. 202201
1. Go to the Project 1 Module, just below Module 1.2 and before Module 2 Morphology
2. Download
