Linguistic identity in times of crisis: The roles of the Ukrainian and Russian languages in the lives of Ukrainian war refugees

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In Ukraine, being a bilingual who speaks both Russian and Ukrainian is such a ‘normal’ thing that many people hesitate to even call themselves bilinguals. As a Ukrainian who speaks both languages, I never really regarded this phenomenon as anything special. But after the Russian invasion in 2022, and also thanks to my linguistics studies, I noticed that the question of linguistic identity in Ukraine – and for Ukrainians in general — is a really complex, fine-grained and surprisingly under-studied area. So for the spring semester of 2025, for my sociolinguistics exam project, I decided to investigate the subconscious ideologies and attitudes that Ukrainians have towards the Ukrainian and Russian languages. When I told some of my Ukrainian friends about … ↪

Language in your hands: The guide to creating your very own language

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uto aveyalaza
for my students

This is what can be read as one of the first things in Jessie Peterson’s (née Sams) book How to Create a Language: The Conlang Guide. You won’t be able to find the origin of the language in italics in any common resource. You can try putting it into Google Translate  and have it detect a language for you, but the translation will most certainly not result in “for my students”. This is because the sentence is not written in any of the languages spoken in the world, but rather one of Peterson’s constructed languages (conlangs).

Conlangs are languages created by people for a variety of reasons, be they aesthetic, for a literary project, … ↪

Shaetlan: a young language with old roots – a Nordic language now officially recognized

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A Danish review of the book can be read here.

Shetland is an archipelago and it belongs administratively to Scotland. Scotland belongs administratively to the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is liberated from the European Union, but it used to be part of the EU. The British do not feel European, at least a small majority, so they brexited. The Scots do not feel English, but they are not allowed to vote for independence. The Shetlanders do not feel Scottish, and there are a fair few who would like to have Home Rule, somewhat like the Faroe Islands have within the Danish Kingdom. There are some 23,000 people in Shetland (yes, IN Shetland, not ON Shetland). They have their … ↪

Now recognized: An old language with Scandinavian roots in the North Sea

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Shaetlan is a Mixed Language spoken in the Shetland archipelago, the northernmost part of the UK. As shown in the blog from 2022, it emerged due to a long drawn contact situation. There was a situation stable of Norn/Scots bilingualism. Norn was a West Scandinavian variety and Scots a West Germanic variety. This bilingualism was additionally in sustained contact with the Dutch/Low Germanic varieties. Those were spoken by those involved in the Hanseatic and Dutch fishing trades. This multilingual ecology led to Shaetlan, a Grammar-Lexicon Mixed Language with a predominantly Scandinavian grammar, but with a mainly Anglian vocabulary.

Shaetlan serves as an example after the fact for Bakker’s type of mixed languages that he calls G-L languages. These tend … ↪

ŋitu:ni napa klapateka! A game to create a new language quickly. Your Christmas present?

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The game Gibberers seems to have become an instantaneous cult game among language nerds, but also among more ordinary people – and for a good reason. The goal of the game is to create a new ‘language’, or perhaps a medium of interethnic communication, so that your group or your created civilization can communicate with some kind of invaders from far away. Could it be aliens? Yes. The guests could also be refugees or imperialists from elsewhere on Earth.

It took us a long time to get hold of a copy when I first heard about it on May 31st this year. At the UK Games Expo 2025 this fall, the 100 copies the seller had brought were all … ↪

Creativity as an approach: the frame(works) of egos in academia & beyond – Some Islands 3 video review

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Míša Hejná has reviewed Some Islands 3, and as she stated in her review of Some Islands 1: “This is not your typical linguistics / language studies journal, and so this is not going to be a typical review.” The same can be said for issue 3, which has resulted in this impressive video review.

You can read Lingoblog’s reviews of the previous issues here: Some Islands 1   Some Islands 2.

Cover illustration: Collage by Míša Hejná, with excerpts from or inspired by Some Islands 3.

 

Míša Hejná is an Associate Professor in the English Language at the Department of English at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is the founder and the current coordinator of the Centre … ↪

Fill in the blank: The ice is melting at the [ ]

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You can read a Danish translation of this article here. 

There is a good chance that the word poles (or should I say pøules?) came immediately to mind. The Danish politician Villy Søvndal’s speech at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 became an instant meme because of the way he spoke English: with a (strong?) Danish accent.

People being judged (typically negatively) as a result of the accent they speak is not an uncommon phenomenon. Quite the opposite, in fact. Similar stories are found elsewhere. In 2016 Angela Rayner (UK Shadow Education Secretary) received abusive emails after an appearance on Channel 4 because she spoke with her native Northern British accent. Check The Accentism Project … ↪