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Small Voices

Invented Languages in Richard Adams’ Watership Down

Prepared for: Dr. Amy Rupiper-Taggart and Dr. Miriam Mara

Department of English North Dakota State University

--- December 3rd, 2014

Rachel Grider - Department of English - Capstone - 1

Watership Down is a post apocalyptic novel featuring talking animal characters. Unlike many other classic novels featuring anthropomorphic characters like The Wind in the Willows and Brian Jacques’ numerous novels, the animal characters in Adams’ book are much more animal than human in many senses. Rather than living in quaint little cottages and wearing period clothing, Watership’s rabbits live, emote, and behave like wild animals. The idea and importance of survival is key, and permeates every aspect of Lapine society, including their language, their religion-like mythology, their behaviour, and their thought processes. In fact, it can be difficult to separate what is rabbit and what is human in Adams’ characters at times, as the rabbit-ness of their human traits is so inherently important. Mariah Copeland describes this phenomenon in her paper Crossover Animal Fantasy Series: Crossing Cultural and Species as well as Age Boundaries (287-88), as does James Stone in his aptly named article The ‘Rabbitness’ of Watership Down. METHODOLOGY The goal for this paper is, at its most basic level, to fill a noticeable gap in the linguistic study of invented languages, and to defend the study and analysis of not only Adams’ languages, but all invented languages in an academic setting. An invented language, alternately called a constructed language or conlang, is a language that has been fully constructed by humans and artificial means, usually to fulfil a specific purpose or unify a group. Some conlangs are created to test linguistic theory, like the language Loglan was to test the extent of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Others, like Esperanto, are auxiliary languages that attempt to inspire uniformed global communication. However, the majority of conlangs, like Tolkien’s Middle Earth languages and the ones I am studying, are created to embellish or complete a fictional world in a film or body of literature. I have examined two main texts for these analyses, the 1974 Macmillan Edition of the novel Watership Down and the collection of short stories, Tales from Watership Down, and have thoroughly dissected each of them in the next several sections. For the actual analysis of these invented languages, I used Dr. DS Bigham’s process for analysing conlangs, making use of the following research questions:

● What is the purpose of the conlang? ● Which linguistic subfields have been addressed?

Explain these. ● Are any oddities of the language explained? ● Are there any real languages influencing it?

In what way?(Bigham, slides)


Dr. Bigham’s notes and slides from Klingon 101: Linguistics via Constructed Languages, an intriguing course occasionally on offer at San Diego State University, provided this framework, and pointed to several other conlangs and resources to use as points of comparison. The art of conlanging itself is a unique topic, and an incredibly suitable one for a final project, especially for students like me that wish to enter the field of linguistics after obtaining an undergraduate english degree. Invented languages, particularly their usefulness in an academic setting, not only bridges the gap between theoretical and applied linguistics, but also the sometimes even larger gap between linguistics and literature studies. The Novel: Background Information The story begins with our two primary characters, brothers Hazel and Fiver, grazing in a field outside their home. It is here that Fiver has a vision, a horrific prediction of destruction that heralds both the beginning and the end for life as our heroes know it. With time running short, the brothers make up their minds to recruit as many other rabbits as they can in an attempt to save their society from its impending demise. Sandleford warren, before its destruction, was a very tribal society. It was lead by a chief, called the Threarah - a Lapine name meaning [ Rowan (name) + -rah (article of respect, for chiefs and heroes)], and protected as well as policed by the warriors or guards of the colony, the Owsla (R Adams, 5, 476. The rabbits of the Sandleford warren place a great deal of importance on storytelling, and teach their values and customs through their oral tradition. Lapine mythology shares striking similarities with many tribal cultures, and the author imparts a great deal of these stories to us. Many of these stories feature Frith, God represented as the sun, and El-Ahrairah, a prominent trickster-rabbit figure as a sort of folk hero; these characters and their interactions with others teach important lessons on rabbit behaviour like alertness and give the community as a whole its principles and values. When this warren is destroyed, our protagonists and the rabbits they managed to save are the sole survivors and representatives of this particular colony’s culture. The small group then begins its journey to Watership Down - a real hill in south central England. The other groups of rabbits we meet along the way, though they speak the same language as our heroes, display very different morals and ways of living, and the newly formed Watership warren must fight to survive and protect their way of life. Though not as extreme as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, the world and story that Adams has built in Watership Down could be called a similar epic on a micro scale. While any portion of this text is worthy of an English Capstone paper, I would like to spend my


time examining the languages that the author has built for his rabbit characters. Language is perhaps the truest form of expression and thought available to us as human beings, and manually invented languages are no different - even if they are spoken by fictional anthropomorphic rabbits. LAPINE: THE LANGUAGE OF RABBITS In the world of Adams’ Watership Down, the rabbits of each colony, though far apart in rabbit distance, can all communicate with each other in a language aptly called Lapine. Despite the name’s clear ties to its Middle French root Lapin, my analysis shows little clear influence from romance languages. Instead, Lapine seems to have a Germano-Celtic flavoring, with the occasional twinge of Arabic-esque influence (R Adams, xiv). Each of those will be elaborated on in later sections, specific to sub discipline. Within the universe and plot of the novel, the purpose of the language is to provide a diverse culture spread across a large distance with a way to communicate with each other. However, the language’s purpose outside the novel is slightly different. To the author, the examiner, and the other members of the text’s intended audience, the purpose of Lapine as a language is to help create a universe that ceases to be imaginary in the mind of the reader - to make the world more real. At an even more basic level, the language serves a very practical purpose. For this, one must look at the makeup of the novel itself. For the sake of the plot and easy understanding, most of the rabbits’ written dialogue is actually written in english to prevent the reader from getting losing the story in a botched translation. However, as is often the case in examining the speech of an unfamiliar language and culture, sometimes an idea or the connotation of a word simply cannot be translated. How does the text deal with these dilemmas? In these situations, Adams has left the Lapine words as they are, and provided a small dictionary with the book so the curious reader can translate the words themselves. This sense of active readership instills Adams’ invented words with a sense of realism, and helps to develop some of the intricacies of Lapine language and culture. This fact alone creates even further ties to Copeland’s and Stone’s idea of the language’s inherent rabbit-ness(287-88). The rest of this language’s analysis will consist of an examination of linguistics’ various sub-fields, including morphology, semantics, grammar and syntax. Because Lapine primarily exists as a written account of a spoken language, the ideas we can draw from its existing fragments about morphemes, meaning and word construction are perhaps the strongest of any hard data to be had from Adams’ two


texts. A thorough examination of the Lapine words present in the story, the explanatory footnotes and introduction in the Macmillan edition, and the additional content of the short story collection has revealed mappable patterns in noun and adjective construction. In both objects and names, the language seems to be an inflected language that follows a descriptors-first system, where the subject of the phrase falls behind its modifiers, except in certain cases with a few special suffixes that denote rank and power. This pattern is laid out in the chart below using names, note the ordering of morphemes and the exceptions to the pattern.

Watership Down - Lapine Name Morphology

Examples of Ascending Morphological Inflection (and exceptions)

Hyzenthlay Hyz + En + Thlay

“fur like shining dew” (shine) (dew) (fur)

Thlayli - + Thlay + Li

“tuft of fur on the head” - (fur) (head)

Hrairoo - + Hrair + -roo

“little thousand” - a lot (lit. thousand) *diminutive

Frithrah - + Frith -rah

“lord [God]” - God (lit. the sun) **respect

El-ahrairah El[il] + Hrair + -rah

“prince of a thousand foes” enemy (pl.) a lot (lit. thousand) **respect

* special suffix functioning as a diminutive - compare to diminutive -ín in Irish * special suffix denoting power or respect - must be earned The cases that defy the pattern are interesting in terms of real world language influence. For diminutive names like Hrairoo and Hlaoroo - the name of another small rabbit from the Watership warren - similarities can be drawn to Irish, Welsh, and other Celtic languages. In the irish language, the suffix -ín [een performs the same function with nouns and names. With -rah, the suffix of power or respect, we can draw parallels between Lapine and the Arabic language, which features not a suffix but the prefix El- that performs the same function. As with its Lapine cognate, this honor and title must


be earned through actions or a rise in rank. Due to Adams’ time spent in the military during World War One, these influences also appear in other sub disciplines, and are the second most prominent real world influence on Adams’ conlang, behind Welsh (M Adams, 2013). Indeed, the amount of Welsh/Celtic influence, particularly in terms of word and phrase construction, is measurable. In certain instances within the text, like chapter page 42, the text will include a rare Lapine phrase, and we can glean some information about grammar and sentence structuring from moments like these. For examples of Celtic influence, I would like to examine a common Lapine greeting. Like other small phrases and exclamations seen in the novel, the Lapine language features a lot of ingrained reverence to their god Frith, the sun personified. This is a phenomenon that can also be noted in English, Irish, and spoken Irish English, with exclamations like ‘Jesus Christ’, ‘good God’, or ‘God Damn it’ being popular examples. We are provided with two very unique examples in our available Lapine vocabulary, ‘Frithrah’ and ‘Frithaes’. The first of these, ‘Frithrah’, which also appears earlier in the morphology section, is an interjection used in times of duress. Directly translated, the phrase renders as ‘Lord Frith’, and serves as the direct Lapine equivalent to our ‘good God’ or ‘my God’ phrases. The other, ‘Frithaes’, is a greeting, and is decidedly Celtic in nature. Though it functions as a general greeting or hello, direct translation of the phrase is noted by the author as ‘God to you’. Not only does this hint at the existence of an underlying conjugation structure within this language, but it also directly mirrors the most common form of greeting in languages like Irish. ‘Dia dhuit’, also serving as a general greeting, is directly translated from Irish to the same construct - ‘God to you’, with the noun being first, followed by an inflected, verb-like word denoting the direction of the extended greeting (to you, to me, to ye, etc.). Outside of Adams’ set Lapine dictionary, more can be learned about rabbit morphology and lexicon in the characters’ attempts to create new words names as they need them. As I have discussed earlier, Lapine as a language is tied heavily to the rabbit-ness of the speakers, and untranslated Lapine exists in this novel to give names to rabbit stuff that we, as English speakers, have no word for. Almost inversely, we can examine the translated english words the rabbits invent for human things that they are experiencing for the first time. In chapter 21, the last remaining Sandleford survivors make it to Watership Down and describe its destruction to our protagonists (Adams, 158-66). During this story, Holly and Bluebell are faced with the task of describing human creations like cigarettes and gas cannisters to rabbits that have never seen them. The names they invent, ‘white sticks’ and ‘brambles’ respectively,


match Adams’ nature-centric theme for his language, and the descriptors-first construction that we tend to see in Lapine. More overarching language patterns can be seen within the focus of grammar, syntax, and construction. While Adams himself does argue on page xiv of Watership’s introduction that the language has no inherent construction and grammar, many of his linguistic inventions strongly indicate otherwise. While the hard, outline rules may not have been written down within the confines of the text, Adams’ consistency with plurals in particular prove that Lapine does have basis in core linguistic theory. For example, consider the chart below.

All of these nouns, as well as the plural constructions shown, occur naturally within both of the primary texts. From this simple chart using demonstrated examples, a strong rule for the creation of plurals in Lapine could be produced, even by an introductory student. However, one hole in this set of examples does become a point of contention, and an opportunity for exploring the idea of pluralisation more deeply. For the words above, an analyst would develop the following rules.

● If noun ends in consonant, add plural suffix -il ● if noun ends in a vowel, delete final vowel and add plural suffix -il.

How then, do we deal with the singular of [Elil] in this case? Due to the deletive properties we established for the plural morpheme -il, it is currently impossible to tell if the other segment of the word is simply [el], or if it included a vowel like the nouns Yona (hedgehog) or Lendri (badger). Not only are these facts evidence of inherent grammar structure, but the above chart and evidence would be enough to create an assessment or group activity in a real linguistics classroom, as Dr. Suzette Haden Elgin


suggests in her article titled “Waterships all the way Down: Using Science Fiction to Teach Linguistics” (162-63). Welsh and Irish influences were cited in the morphology section, and they can both be argued in this section as well. Aside from the construction of the greetings we have discussed before, patterns in other phrases seem to follow a pattern similar to the particle mechanics of Celtic languages, especially in terms of differentiating between ‘a’ and ‘the’; for example, ‘a badger’ is just lendri and ‘the badger’ would be differentiated by a particle, the particle is absent with ‘a [noun]’ - an occasional phenomenon that many Irish language learners will be familiar with. Contrary, however, to these languages are the few examples of verb conjugation and their relationship to pronouns we see. In Irish and in Welsh, words or suffixes are added to the base form depending on the subject of the sentence (he, we, they, etc) and then that construction is followed by the object pronoun. When we look at Lapine constructions like m’saion - “we meet them”, on the other hand, something else seems to be the case (R Adams, 475). In Irish, the closest phrase would be Feicimid iad - “we see them” or “we encounter them”; unfortunately, Adams provides no indication which inflection addresses the subject and which addresses the object. Both possibilities are illustrated below.

Construction Comparison - “we meet them”

Feicimid iad [verb, subject, object]

Feic- + [i]mid + iad

to see/encounter we them

M’saion [svo?][ovs?]

M’ + sai + on

We? Them? + to meet + We? Them?

In terms of phonetics, Adams leaves us with much less information - one of the drawbacks to examining an exclusively written language. Over all, the language is described to have a sort of “wuffy, fluffy sound” and “The sounds a rabbit might make if they did talk”(R Adams, xiv). In the introduction to the Macmillan edition of the novel, Adams provides a few snippets of information on the creation of his Lapine words, as well as examples and explanations for both. One of these is the word hrududu, the Lapine word for car or motorised vehicle; the word is onomatopoeic, and


sounds like an engine when repeated in quick succession. For other words, Adams cites Arabic influence specifically, like for the name of the seagull character Kehaar - it makes sense, then, that his name looks and sounds incredibly similar to the Arabic word behaar, meaning sea(xiv). Aside from these direct mentions, an analysis of spelling patterns in names, nouns and adjectives can draw a few more parallels between Lapine and Celtic languages. This influence is felt in several consonant pairings, especially those involving the letter h. H serves a very unusual purpose, especially in Irish, but also in Welsh in the sense that it doesn’t function as a letter but more as a diacritic mark, or a mechanical aspect of a word than a part that imparts meaning. Lapine words like hliennes, hraka or hrair seem to demonstrate similar tendencies with these leading h’s, which seem to serve to modify the sound of the next consonant, much like h does in Irish (R Adams, 474-76). It is not unreasonable that these connections exist, as both physical proximity and cultural influence from Celtic civilisations like Ireland and Wales are prevalent in surrounding English territory, where the author has spent his life and the entirety of the novels take place. Thus, Lapine exists in the text as what linguists would call a code or naming language, and can not be considered a fully formed language in its current state - a group of people couldn’t use this language for daily communication with only the two original texts to work with (Bigham, lecture). Instead, the language is primarily meant to name and describe unfamiliar concepts that our language may not have a word for. As noted by Stockwell, this is a common feature of similar constructions in many science fiction novels (2006). While the language isn’t fully fleshed out in its current state, and the original author has made little indication that he intends to expand upon it in the future, the underlying structures and patterns of this language not only prove that it could, in theory, be developed into a fully viable language, but also pave the way for some excellent third party attempts at doing just that. While the primary force behind the largest of these, like Adams himself, isn’t a linguist either, the amount of work done to embellish this language within certain interest groups have been astounding. Bits’n’Bobstones, the efforts of several years’ work by David Buttery and other contributors, is just that - an extensive expansion on the Lapine language using the framework that Adams has provided (Buttery, 1). The people at Bobstones have managed to expand on all aspects of the language, including vocabulary, plurals and possessives, tenses, and even a few complex verb declensions(Buttery, 1-21).


HEDGEROW: ANIMAL LINGUA FRANCA Now that we’ve looked at how rabbit characters talk to each other, we need consider what would happen if a rabbit needed to talk to an animal of another species. Fortunately, Adams’ addresses this within the primary novel, and makes note of how this would work. Throughout the novel, the rabbits must communicate and eventually ally themselves with a mouse and a seagull, the latter more so than the former. In these situations, the rabbits use a language called Hedgerow that functions as a lingua franca of sorts. Adams describes it as a “patois”, literally meaning dialect (181). With the in-text purpose of this language established, one can examine its role in the overall text, as well as its presentation. While we’ve determined that Lapine is only a partial language in its current state, Hedgerow is even more fragmentary. This language exists entirely in theory, with the author rendering it in English for the sake of plot and ease for the reader. Though that makes the language incredibly difficult, if not impossible to analyse in terms of morphology and phonetics, an analyst can look at sentence structuring and grammar rules. The purpose of this theoretical conlang then is to solve a communication problem between two groups within the text, and to make collaboration or understanding between different species possible. Because of the theoretical nature of Hedgerow, very little information can be gleaned from the text about its spelling and word construction. However, he can infer some general information on these aspects of the language in scenes where Lapine speaking rabbits and non-Lapine speakers interact. The seagull, Kehaar, is the best example of this. After the rabbits save the gull’s life, he spends a great deal of time with them during his recovery, and they communicate a lot through Hedgerow (R Adams, 180-96). Kehaar is a unique character in the novel, and is often noted by readers and characters in the novel as difficult to understand. On page 181 of Watership Down, the rabbits describe his speech as ”guttural” and “exotic”; Adams renders Kehaar’s speech in a type of vaguely European flavoured eye-dialect that differs in severity as the character becomes more versed in Hedgerow and rabbit communication, a solid example of how these characters can be subtly portrayed as acquiring new languages over time(Valdman, 44-47). It is even mentioned in the novel that during his stay with the rabbits, Kehaar picks up a bit of halting, broken lapine, but often has to switch back to Hedgerow when conversation becomes complex or multi-leveled (R Adams, 189). When Kehaar agrees to help the Watership rabbits liberate some of the population from the overcrowded, totalitarian colony of Efrafa, his long pieces of dialogue hint that his word choice - whether through


constant contact with the Lapine language, or due to the fact that Hedgerow could be a pidgin or naturally occurring hybrid language of Lapine and another animal language - clearly indicate that his speech is influenced and informed by Lapine. For example on pages 189-190, Kehaar tells the rabbits of his intent to return to the sea after he has helped them. His exact dialogue is as follows:

’Ya, ya, ’elp you for get mudders. But now ees dis, Meester ’Azel. Alvays I

vant Peeg Vater now - alvays, alvays. Ees hearing Peeg Vater, vant to fly to Peeg Vater. Now soon you go for get mudders, I ’elp you, ’ow you like. Den, ven you getting mudders, I leave you dere, fly away, no come back. But I come back anudder time, ya? Come in autumn, in vinter I come live ’ere vid you, ya?’ (189-90)

It is Kehaar’s use of the word mudders, or mothers, here that is of note. For his plan, Kehaar intends to fly over the nearby hills and spot where the small company of Watership rabbits could locate a few female rabbits to join their new civilisation, as nearly all of the Sandleford refugees had been male and without them, their new colony would eventually die out. When Kehaar talks about locating the mothers in Efrafa, he’s referring specifically to female rabbits, or does. It is of note, however, that marli, the Lapine word for female rabbit, also means mother(Adams, 476). In fact, there have currently been more papers in the field of linguistics written on Kehaar and his use of Hedgerow than there have been written on Lapine, and these examinations provide us with a fairly useful framework for the structure and grammar of Hedgerow, as well as a look at the mechanics of language acquisition and the sociolinguistic hierarchy of the Watership Down universe(Valdman, 44-47). Two Linguists in particular, S. Corder and Charles Ferguson, are very well known for examining Kehaar’s speech and his acquisition of the Hedgerow and Lapine languages. Ferguson and Corder worked on their respective projects around the same time, and actually cite each other in their papers. Ferguson used Kehaar and Adams’ theoretical conlang in more of general and abstract sense, citing the character’s speech as an example of the phenomenon that he calls Foreigner Talk (1). This is a tendency towards simplification and language streamlining that non-native speakers exhibit when learning a new language. Ferguson describes several key components of this pattern including duplication of quantitative descriptors to convey intensity, and dramatic vocabulary reduction of pronouns, inflexions, and tenses, and a marked lack of a copula in sentence construction(1-3). At the same time, Corder further applied this idea of Foreigner Talk to the character of Kehaar, and provided the linguistics community with a very detailed analysis of all of his dialogue in the original text. In this paper, entitled The Language of Kehaar, Corder demonstrates the consistency of


this non-Lapine speaker’s adherence to the outline of Ferguson’s Foreigner Talk construction(11-12). Below is a sample from Corder’s work, showing the presence of pronoun reduction in Kehaar’s speech patterns(4). Here, note the absence of ‘it’(a copula component) and the lack of possessive forms.

Corder concludes that this fact was either an educated, sentient choice by the author of the novel, or our own adherence to an even deeper linguistic paradigm(11-12). Either way, the facts stand that both Lapine and Hedgerow, despite their fragmentary and theoretical nature, are both well founded on core linguistic patterns and concepts, and are thus even more viable as invented languages. In addition to Ferguson and Corder’s work, Dr. Albert Valdman also analysed the seagull’s dialogue, but through a sociolinguistic lens. He sites that Kehaar’s struggles to learn Lapine and the rabbits’ tendency to switch to it when talking to him for an extended period of time point to a sociolinguistic hierarchy of language in Watership, where Lapine and rabbit culture are on top (Valdman, 44-47). Considering the book is written to involve the reader in the rabbits’ endeavours, this feature isn’t surprising. A DEFENSE OF LAPINE AND CONLANGING IN THE CLASSROOM The biggest complication that I ran into during this project, in terms of obstacles and hindrances, were the noticeable gaps in scholastic focus on many of these topics. To put it short, these conlangs simply aren’t written about by scholars as much as Tolkien’s languages, or the attempts at a global language like Esperanto. Though several sources exist on literary conlangs in general, like Peter Stockwell’s 2006 sampling of literary conlangs for The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics or Michael Adams’ DO-IT-YOURSELF LANGUAGE, Adams’ languages more often than not receive only a passing mention - a paragraph or two only vaguely describing the functions of both conlangs. Other, smaller papers exist, but are often related to some small aspect of the conlangs or the book. Through my research, I have compiled a list


of reasons noted in academic writing against studying Watership’s conlangs, and have listed them below from most common to least.

● Unlike Tolkien, Richard Adams was not an academically trained Linguist. ● Adams’ conlangs are too fragmentary or unfinished. ● Invented Languages in works of fiction are primarily a world building device,

and not grounded in Linguistic theory As a potential linguistics student, the purposeful lack of interest in this topic both confuses and saddens me. The notion that these languages are below examination because of their fictitious existence and genre is absurd, and proving this is as simple as citing any paper or examination of any of Tolkien’s very well constructed Middle Earth conlangs. There has been room for examination of fictional languages from plenty of other novels, and my research above proves that there are plenty of topics to discuss despite these languages’ fragmentary or theoretical existence. Lapine, in particular, has even shown an amount of real world influence and adoption. In his 1985 paper, Dr. Thomas Murray details just that - the adoption of the Lapine verb silflay, meaning to go above ground and feed, in discussions about rabbits in Middle America, particularly around Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan (374-75). Murray’s data showed only a moderate level of prior knowledge of the origin of the word on use, and study participants also provided data on its usage by non-participating acquaintances (374-75). It is also of note that the same word appears in Stephen King’s Dark Tower novel, The Gunslinger, and also refers to the grazing behaviour of rabbits. To the notion that these conlangs are irrelevant because their creator lacks professional linguistic training, the data I’ve cited and provided above proves this argument to be irrelevant. Even without linguistic training, Ferguson, Corder, and, to some extent, I have proven the existence of several base level patterns and core linguistic principles at work in both Lapine and Hedgerow that show either a conscious, or perhaps unconscious grasp of basic linguistic theory. An absence of a degree does not make these facts ungrounded, and does not make these languages untouchable. In the following sections, I will describe three major applications that Lapine and other conlangs have in the realm of academia, as well as the realm of the modern world and the linguistics classroom specifically. In a modern world, an understanding of conlanging and basic linguistic theory are essential tools in many occupations that one may not expect. While we immediately think of an editor, an academic or researcher, one must also begin to think of the technological and information sectors as well. One individual that knows this all too well, and excels in his his field because of his prowess in the application of conlanging,


is Dr. Federico Gobbo, author of Learning Linguistics by Doing: The Secret Virtues of a Language Constructed in the Classroom. In recent years, Dr. Gobbo has been invited to teach guest courses about the techniques and benefits of conlanging at many universities in Belgium and other European universities. However, like Adams himself, Dr. Gobbo is not a trained linguist, and does not possess a degree in the subject. Gobbo is a computer programmer; it makes sense, when you consider that computer programming languages are all conlangs - languages consciously invented by humans to serve a specific purpose. With this knowledge, the modern applicability of conlanging and linguistics are huge, and are vital skills for professionals inside the discipline and outside. Gobbo’s paper echoes this, and provides an excellent framework for teaching an applied linguistics course through creating a new language with students (2013). In regards to Hedgerow, the academic work that has already been done with this conlang proves its value in studying the mechanics of language acquisition, an applied field that is still incredibly relevant and still, like computer technology, rapidly evolving to better suit the needs of a global base of individuals that are attempting to learn another language. As a student with an interest in Anthropology, another important defense for the use of these languages that’s particularly close to my heart is the idea of conlangs as linguistic artifacts. An artifact, as defined by Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary, is something created by humans usually for a practical purpose, like a tool of some sort. The discipline of Linguistics is considered to be the science of language, and as such, scientists look at hard data and artifacts to learn about different groups, time periods, or ideas and to form and examine hypotheses. Unlike other branches of science, however, linguists don’t have very many types of tangible artifacts that they can really use. In fact, there’s only two - writing, and these conlangs. While natural languages can indeed be looked at and studied, they do not count as artifacts because they were not consciously and intentionally formed and created by humans as conlangs are. Thus, in discounting the validity of conlangs, we are in essence losing half of our available artifacts for study (Bigham, lecture). The ability to look at language as a tool for human use and manipulation can be difficult in some senses, but it’s an ability that opens the door for a wide range of potential studies, innovations, and potential new languages. When one considers the work done with auxiliary languages like Esperanto and the user base it acquired, the use of literary conlangs is really no different, and is just as applicable. The Bits’n’Bobstones Lapine extension is evidence of that(Buttery, 1). To end my defense of these languages, particularly Lapine, I would like to discuss the value of conlanging in a linguistics or writing classroom. The biggest proponent of this


idea, especially in regards to Watership’s applicability, is esteemed linguist and conlanger Dr. Suzette Haden Elgin, author of the Native Tongue series and creator of the language Láadan. To quote her, “the usefulness of Science Fiction for teaching is obvious,” (157). Not only does course work centered around components from popular novels, television programs, and films reach a much wider audience than traditional lecture and theory, working with conlangs or creating them as Gobbo does is a creative activity that promotes problem solving, abstract thinking, and the real world application of basic theory and principles (Elgin, 162-63). The effectiveness of traditional lecture in university classrooms has been debated by pedagogy circles for a long time, and current studies from the discipline support the addition of hands-on and problem solving approaches to subjects of all disciplines. Conlanging provides lecturers and academics with the freedom to create inventive lesson plans and engage students with all types of sensory approaches, be it a visual activity like creating a writing system, auditory for history background lecture or phonetic development of your conlang, or a hands-on approach, which can be applied to any aspect of creating a new language within a classroom. Such class wide activities promote discussion and group collaboration, and are likely to incite student questions or opportunities for situation-specific micro lectures or assignments. Real languages could even be tied into your conlang periodically, as an influence or to give examples of different concepts. In relation to assignments, conlanging as an activity could also be assigned as an individual project in place of an exam or theory essay. A project like this would teach students all of the activities outlined above, with the addition of time management and research methods. Given time to develop a lesson plan, the possibilities are really limitless, as are the projects you would receive as a result. In my academic future, I would really like to develop such a lesson plan, and implement it if I’m granted an opportunity to teach such a course. Conclusory Notes To conclude this project, I’d like to provide a quick summary of my findings as a whole, and cement the value of conlanging and fiction within the linguistics field and classroom. After the analysis of both invented languages from Richard Adams’ novel Watership Down and related short story collection, I have found considerable evidence for underlying grammatical and morphological structures that remain fairly consistent through the fragmentary languages, findings that coincide with similar findings in the work of Charles Ferguson and S. Pit Corder in their work on the character Kehaar and Adams’ portrayal of linguistic streamlining in language


acquisition. For this reason, I believe that the languages Lapine and Hedgerow are both viable, if only partial conlangs, that are worthy of academic study in the field of linguistics. Given their modern applicability in terms of professional careers, academic research, and as a classroom teaching tool. Languages like Lapine and Hedgerow represent a very important bridge between the disciplines of linguistics and literature studies, as well as a bridge between linguistic theory and application. If we, as academics, can make better use of these languages and other types of tools and artifacts that are available to us, we have the potential to do some groundbreaking, innovative work in the field that may, in turn, affect how real world languages are studied, understood, taught, and preserved.


I’d like to Thank Dr. Amy Rupiper-Taggart for all of the help and guidance she offered me throughout this endeavour, and Dr. Miriam Mara for being an extremely helpful

Capstone mentor. Go raibh míle maith agat.

Bibliography Adams, Michael. “Do-It-Yourself Language”. HUMANITIES 34.1 (2013). Web. 12 Oct, 2014.

In this article, Adams provides a crash course on the history of invented languages - their creators, their purposes, and their reason for being. Like Bigham’s course notes outlined below, this article discusses not only literary conlangs, but also the history of auxlangs like Esperanto and outliers like the language of Joyce’s novels. A common thread among all of these, according to the author, is a “dissatisfaction with the current state of linguistic affairs”. The essay provides an interesting take on the reasoning behind conlanging, but provides no bibliography and is a bit reliant on From Elvish to Klingon, his own book.

Michael Adams has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Michigan and is now an associate professor at Indiana University Bloomington. While Adams has written an entire book on this subject (noted above), this article provides a thorough encapsulation of the history segments within it, and includes the part on Lapine. Another article on this list, discussing the sociolinguistic connotations of the languages in this novel, was written by another faculty member of this University.

Adams, Richard. Watership Down. New York: Macmillan, 1974. Print.

This novel is my primary text, thus the bulk of my analysis will focus on its events and the languages present within it. The novel follows a group of anthropomorphised rabbit characters as they journey to find a new homeland. Aside from the narrative itself, the author explores the mythology and social norms of Rabbit Society, as well as the language used exclusively by the species. The book includes many footnotes on this language, as well as a dictionary to translate Lapine dialogue - the corpus available to me for analysis.


Adams’ invented language and mythology are original content, making his work the only real primary data on the Lapine Language. Adams is a writer, not a Linguist. Despite this, Adams does follow many language conventions in creating his conlang. Considering the basis of my analysis, this is my largest resource in terms of content bulk.

Adams, Richard. Tales From Watership Down. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. Print.

Tales from Watership Down is a companion collection of short stories from the same universe as the original novel. Along with the stories, this book also contains additional notes from the author on Lapine mythology and language, which both play key parts in my project. I intend to use this source as additional notes and guidelines for examining Adams’ invented languages.

Because these are also composed by the original author, they can be considered primary sources on his original content. My use of this source is much more sparse than the original novel; my main focus here is the additional notes on Lapine grammar and pronunciation.

Bigham, D. S. (2006). “Klingon 101: Linguistics via Constructed Languages [PDF slides and

lecture]” Retrieved from http://dsbigham.net/teaching_materials/klingon101-slides.pdf

Occasionally, San Diego State University offers a linguistics course on invented languages. Students in this course learn about several different types of invented languages, or conlangs, and how they function in their in their ownmedium. The course includes literary conlangs like Watership’s Lapine, as well as auxiliary languages like Esperanto and languages built by Linguists to test Linguistic theory. These slides and Lecture notes provide a good overview on the subject, as well as a solid method for analysing a conlang, which I use as framework for the analytic part of my project. Elgin’s conlangs also make an appearance in this source.

Bigham has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin, and teaches courses on the subject at San Diego State University. This powerpoint is from one of those courses. He also posts a fair amount of similar content to his Youtube channel, some of which could be added at a later date.


Buttery, David L. "Frithaes! An Introduction to Colloquial Lapine". Bits'n'Bob-stones, 25 Mar.

2004. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.

Bits’n’Bob-stones is the current home of this two year, extensive fan expansion on Adams’ Lapine Language. The language here has been fleshed out far beyond the book, made to include various courses in tenses, numbers, possessives, and superlatives. Along with the twenty unit body of coursework, the site also features expanded English to Lapine Dictionaries, several essays by curator David Buttery on the inner-workings of the language, and a variety of casual fan content for the novel as a whole.

Frithaes is, at its core, fan-made content. I’ve yet to have been able to find anything about Mr. David Buttery in terms of qualifications. While he does include several additional essays on the subject of Lapine, the absence of credentials and noted peer review processes ultimately causes me to shy away from this content in terms of academic validity. While it can’t be considered canonical when examining the language in this setting, Buttery’s website provides excellent proof of what can be done with this language, even though it wasn’t fully completed by the author, who isn’t a linguist either. While this source won’t earn more than a passing mention, it is definitely deserving of that.

Copeland, Marion. "Crossover Animal Fantasy Series: Crossing Cultural And Species As Well

As Age Boundaries." Society & Animals 11.3 (2003): 287-298. Academic Search

Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

Copeland defends the study of animal tales in this essay, and provides an overview for the history of many of these stories - including Watership Down, cited as the first crossover animal fantasy, including humans only peripherally. This article describes the level of anthropomorphism of the characters, and how their language relates strictly to their ‘rabbitness’ and rabbit behavior. The rabbits’ storytelling tradition is also discussed, and related to the tradition of telling animal stories in human culture - stories


that were historically meant more for adults than children, and taught lessons to tribes.

Copeland has a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is now teaching courses at the non-profit Human Society University, which offers courses in animal studies, human leadership, and animal advocacy. I intend to cite this article in defense of the study of the book, as most of her focus resides there, although the bit she does spend talking about language is worthy of use too, though surface level.

Corder, S. “The Language of Kehaar.” RELC Journal 8.1 (1977): 1-12. Communication &

Mass Media Complete. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

Kehaar, a bird character from Adams’ novel that experiences linguistic difficulty in communicating with the rabbits in their own language, is the focus of this article. Kehaar’s speaking style is distinctive within the primary text, and his heavily dialected sections provide insight into how we, as fellow observers of an unfamiliar language like Lapine, might linguistically pidginize it to communicate. Corder is thorough in his analysis, first providing a complete analysis of Kehaar’s syntactic patterns, phonology, and word ordering conventions before relating them to Ferguson’s parameters for ‘foreigner talk’ as defined in his so named essay. These are applied with great detail, and the author provides a new explanation for the phenomenon in conclusion.

Corder was a professor in the department of Applied Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, while employed by the British Council. Corder later went on to teach at Oxford University and become the first chair of the British Association for Applied Linguistics. This, among many of his other papers, have been influential in the field of Applied Linguistics, particularly those regarding second language acquisition.

Elgin, Suzette Haden. "Waterships All the Way Down: Using Science Fiction to Teach

Linguistics." Language Alive in the Classroom (1999): 157. Print.


This article - a chapter in a book called Language Alive in the Classroom - is an incredible find in terms of applicability and validity for my paper. The book is an applied linguistics text detailing teaching methods, real world applications, and strategies to appeal to a broader student demographic for established and aspiring lecturers in the field. In Elgin’s chapter, she cites the value in using science fiction works like Watership to appeal to young adult learners. Elgin describes several syntax and lexicon concepts that can be gleaned from the text, and provides classroom activity examples for each.

An influential figure in the world of literary neographies, both in an academic and a creative writing setting, Elgin has written several books, articles, and novels related to the subject. Many of her academic papers and a couple of her own invented languages have been cited in my other sources. In addition to writing, she also writes a monthly linguistics newsletter.

Ferguson, Charles A. “Absence of copula and the notion of simplicity: A study of normal

speech, baby talk, foreigner talk and pidgins.” Pidginization and Creolization of

Languages. 141-50. London: Cambridge University, 1971. Print.

This paper is highly technical and presents a specific concept within the world of second language acquisition, focusing on primary observations of language simplification and copula loss in the speech of foreign born students learning English. Ferguson also details how we, as native speakers, respond to this and adjust our language unconsciously for ease of communication. While this work is specifically real world, applied linguistics, Ferguson’s model is applied to the speech of the foreigner Kehaar in Corder’s work and subsequently Valdman’s.

Ferguson, who unfortunately passed away in 1998, taught linguistics at Stanford University, and received his PhD through University of Pennsylvania. Ferguson is remembered for the work he did on dysglossia and applied linguistics, and for helping to create the parameters for the TOEFL exam. His paper is likely the most peripheral to my topic, but I need it to help understand the other two, more relevant sources I mentioned above.


Gobbo, Federico. "Learning Linguistics by Doing: The Secret Virtues of a Language

Constructed in the Classroom." Journal of Universal Language 14.2 (2013). Web. 20

Oct. 2014.

This is a study in applied linguistics with its focus in classroom activity. Like Elgin’s Watership based activities, Gobbo takes this idea a step further and suggest creating a language in the classroom to help students become cognisant of grammar, morphology, and other linguistic subfields. Gobbo asserts that conlanging is not only a good way of reaching a wider audience by engaging student creativity, but is also an opportunity to let students apply concepts to realise patterns and rules in their own language.

Recently awarded a special appointment to teach courses on Esperanto and Interlinguistics at University of Amsterdam, Federico Gobbo holds degrees in computer science and communications. Though he does not currently possess a degree in the field of linguistics, his academic pursuit of the subject despite of this has earned him several fellowships and teaching positions in courses on conlanging.

Murray, T. E. ‘Lapine Lingo in American English: Silflay’. American Speech 60.4 (1985):

372-75. Print.

This brief article discusses isolated incidences of Adams’ Lapine words being used in American English, focusing on the regional distribution of the verb silflay, which means to feed above ground. The article, though a bit older than many of my other sources, is relevant both in terms of validating the linguistic study of the novel and in illustrating the function of the conlang.

Thomas E. Murray has a PhD in Linguistics, and previously taught at Kansas State University. He did a lot of primary research around the Midwest, where this Watership connection was one of several pieces he did for the journal American Speech. Murray is no longer active in an academic setting, due to personal problems.


Stockwell, P. ‘Invented Languages in Literature’. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics.

2006. Print.

This article discusses various invented languages found in works of fiction, including Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. Construction, function, neologisms, and social contexts are all discussed. Notably, this article concludes with a very useful section defending the study of these conlangs in an academic setting - a sentiment that needs to be echoed in my own project. I intend to cite this source in that respect.

While this article makes little mention of Watership Down and Lapine specifically, Stockwell provides a surprisingly thorough, overarching sampling of the use of conlangs in popular fiction. Stockwell himself has a PhD in Linguistics and serves as a professor in the subject at the University of Nottingham, where he focuses on literary linguistics.

Stone, James S. “The Rabbitness of Watership Down”. English Quarterly 13.1 (1980): 37-46.

Print.

Stone’s article is cited by Copeland and Baldwin, and it surprised me that it isn’t cited by some of these linguistic articles. Stone discusses the language present in the novel - both Adams’ writing and the Lapine language - and how it represents the ’rabbitness’ of the characters. Stone also goes into how this novel can be used for teaching about language and connotation, a different angle than the one I’ve been taking with it in terms of education.

English Quarterly is a Canadian peer reviewed periodical that publishes content on literature analysis, both adult and children’s fiction. While I couldn’t find anything about the author’s specific credentials, the fact that the paper is part of a peer reviewed journal means that the information is viable. I will continue to look for any academic trace of this man.

Valdman, Albert. "Sociolinguistic Aspects Of Foreigner Talk." International Journal Of The

Sociology Of Language 1981.28 (1981): 41-52. Communication & Mass Media


Complete. Web. 16 Oct. 2014

A section of this article sites Watership and its foreigner character Kehaar as an example, as well as Corder’s essay on the same as a source. These articles about the speech of Kehaar are vital in understanding the construction of Hedgerow, the other invented language present in Adams’ story. Hedgerow exists only in concept, and seems to be a pidgin or simplification of Lapine used to communicate with other species of animals. While Corder and Ferguson’s papers focused on the mechanics of these communications with this character, Valdman focuses on the sociological connotations of these exchanges. According to him, the simplification of language and the stereotypes present in the dialected depictions of speech point to a linguistic hierarchy within the novel’s universe.

Albert Valdman’s academic specialties lie within the world of French Linguistics, including degrees in the subject from Cornell University. He teaches at Indiana University Bloomington, in the department of French and Italian. His interests in second language acquisition are present in this particular paper, and the connections he had made to marginalisation of romance languages in this novel are noted.


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