NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL LINGUISTIC CHRISTMAS

now thats what i call linguistic christmas

It’s Christmas-time again – and what would this time of year be without Christmas music? A lot of us start counting the days ’till Christmas from the moment “Last Christmas” surprises us in a shopping center sometime around November 20th – and let’s just admit it: We can’t get enough of Christmas songs!

Or maybe Christmas music just isn’t your thing. Is it really possible to listen to ”All I Want for Christmas is You” throughout December without losing your mind, you might be thinking. I mean, I’d say it is, but… I get it. You need something new – something different! I’ve dug around on the internet and asked Twitter for help, and now I’m happy to present …

On Conlanging, Action Figures & Te Reo Māori

bionicle

Conlanging is the art of designing your own languages.

Bionicle is a franchise of buildable action figures produced by the Lego company from 2001 to 2010.

Te Reo Māori is a language in the Austronesian language family, and is spoken by approximately 186.000 people in New Zealand.

This is a story at the intersection of those three topics.

Part 1: Action Figures

I was born in 1995, so 2001 was the year I turned six. That places me just at the younger end of the intended demographic for Bionicle, the then-new line of action figures from the toy company Lego. In the years to come, these figures would take up a good deal of my attention, and several of my …