Book contents
- Inventing Languages
- Inventing Languages
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and Glossing Conventions
- IPA Alphabet
- 1 What Are Constructed Languages?
- 2 World Building
- 3 Designing Vowel Inventories
- 4 Designing Consonant Inventories
- 5 From Sounds to Syllables
- 6 Stress and Tone
- 7 The Lexicon
- 8 The Morphology of Nouns
- 9 The Morphology of Verbs
- 10 Word Order
- 11 Statements, Questions and Commands
- 12 Negation and Evidentials
- 13 Complex Sentences
- 14 Writing Systems
- 15 Semantics and Pragmatics
- 16 Variation in Space and Time
- 17 Language Channels and Modalities
- 18 Wrapping Up and Moving Forward
- Appendix A Natlangs Mentioned
- Appendix B Conlangs Mentioned
- References
- Index
17 - Language Channels and Modalities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 November 2025
Book contents
- Inventing Languages
- Inventing Languages
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and Glossing Conventions
- IPA Alphabet
- 1 What Are Constructed Languages?
- 2 World Building
- 3 Designing Vowel Inventories
- 4 Designing Consonant Inventories
- 5 From Sounds to Syllables
- 6 Stress and Tone
- 7 The Lexicon
- 8 The Morphology of Nouns
- 9 The Morphology of Verbs
- 10 Word Order
- 11 Statements, Questions and Commands
- 12 Negation and Evidentials
- 13 Complex Sentences
- 14 Writing Systems
- 15 Semantics and Pragmatics
- 16 Variation in Space and Time
- 17 Language Channels and Modalities
- 18 Wrapping Up and Moving Forward
- Appendix A Natlangs Mentioned
- Appendix B Conlangs Mentioned
- References
- Index
Summary
While spoken languages rely on the oral-aural language modality, there are languages that are based on manual-visual and tactile modalities; these are discussed in this chapter. This chapter also addresses communication channels, from modal speech found in all spoken languages, to whistled, hum, musical and yell speech. In addition, this chapter introduces communication in non-human species, including plants, animals and aliens. It also provides conlanging practice, a set of guided questions to facilitate the incorporation of communication channels and language modalities in a conlang, and presents some information of communication channels in the Salt language.
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- Inventing LanguagesA Practical Introduction, pp. 318 - 331Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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