Margaret Ransdell-Green, PhD

Evolved Creature Language 2023-24

This language was created for a fictional group of evolved creatures/animals, who managed to break away from their human captors and begin their own society and language. The language was based on theory from animal communication as well as principles of human-animal cross-species interaction. The sound system was intended to be relatively simple and easy for many people to learn. 

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Ancient Elf-Alien Language – 2022-23

This language was created for an author and creator for a species of elves that are in fact, aliens. They have inhabited the earth in a crater for millions of years. Therefore, it was important that their language reflect the ancient historical timeline of their peopleʼs existence. We also incorporated many special terms relating to the means of survival that was necessary for them to inhabit this massive crater in which they found themselves so long ago. This language was created for a fictional group of evolved creatures/animals, who managed to break away from their human captors and begin their own society and language. The language was based on theory from animal communication as well as principles of human-animal cross-species interaction.

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Language of Satyrs – 2021

This language was created for an author and included sounds inspired by the calls and communications of goats.

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Swahili-Inspired Fantastical Language – 2021

This language was created with a fantasy author. It was intended to be inspired by the sound system and grammar of Swahili, and so the language include many noun classes (what we know as “grammatical genders” in European languages) and is strongly agglutinative (that is, the language strings together many parts of meaning to form longer words).

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Language of Chronic Illness – 2020

This language was created with a multimedia artist from England who intended the language to be especially fitted to express the experiences of chronically ill and disabled people. The language was used in an art exhibition in Amsterdam.

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Mycorrhizal Language – 2020 

This is a non-spoken language invented to represent the real-world communication system that occurs between fungi mycelia and root systems of plants. It is conceptual in nature and not represented through sound, but represented rather by a series of visual symbols that reflect infochemical signals and exchange of resources that occur between mycelia and plants. 

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Sujn – 2020

This language was created for a comic creator. The intention behind the language was to be very minimalistic and easy for people of different linguistic backgrounds to learn. I also created a set of runes for this languages.

“Pikan, mok! Fa dinko goje!”
“Hello, friend! Iʼll see you again soon!”

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Family of Languages: Tisvüt, Venrais, Trutaðe – 2019

For this client, an author, I created a family of interrelated languages, including reconstructed proto-languages to link all “modern” languages, which included

Tisvüt, Venrais, and Trutaðe. These languages were all members of a world setting, each inspired by different real-world natural languages.

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​i. Tisvüt:

“Mürlif kavi?”
“Aan, lilët me.”
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“What did you make?” “Well, it wasnʼt my bed.”

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ii. Venrais:

 “Atre duin? Se trepsus amre.” “Good leather? I donʼt think so.”

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iii. Trutaðe:

“Hein trepsisina hoxise?”

”Do they understand what weʼre saying?”

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Three Naming Languages for A Futuristic Comic – 2019

These languages were created for a comic team for a comic series that takes place in the far future. They were primarily intended to create the names of people, places, and things.

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Silvarian & Milakiiv – 2018

These languages were created for a client who is a fantasy author. They were based on different aesthetic goals that the author had for the different cultures behind these languages. I tailored these languages to be learnable to an interested reader but also linguistically plausible and realistic. Silvarian was intended to be a fluid-sounding language, whose speakers are heavily connected to nature.
 

i. Silvarian:

“Bethil len hümeth lith, hürü gësavien lan telis. Vamä lum mïnælva i kül eku makilié. Ræsé dé lu lïu lan lüm. Le mahnöv mölë kudallé pala. Le matha æ körül i hämä fetrellusir. Ilen lu Eldamarï maluth. Kané uthalan palé, mælath. Le kül dath, iné rëkulva dathir. Pïnua vamä len enith Thalamasül Ællasatha palé.”

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“Night falls before dawn, light sweeps away darkness. Here at the beginning of all things I return. To take up the splayed hand and the fern. To stand as a tree between mountains. To guise as an eye over the bay of life. To tend the people and the Eldamarie. To kneel so that others might stand. As all comes to an end, so now does your search. For here before you stands Thalamasül Ællasatha”

i. Milakii:

“Psuki, karxon, ĕmi gogo, ma kso nuzhe”
“The arms of the trees, the beasts of the wood, all of the root: these are our people”