Dritok

Dritok is a constructed language (conlang) created by Don Boozer in 2007.^[1] Boozer is currently Secretary and Librarian of the Language Creation Society.

Dritok is in the artistic language genre of conlangs, specifically a fictional language. It is spoken by the Drushek - a race of beings residing in the fictional continent of Kryslan. The Drushek are large-eared, long-tailed sapients with no vocal cords, who value solitude and quiet. ^[2] Other languages of Kryslan include Umod and Elasin.^[3]

Phonemes and non-verbal communication

All the phonemes in Dritok are unvoiced.^[3] The language is a gallimaufry of hisses, clicks and fricatives. ^[3] The loudest phoneme in the language is a porcine snort,^[4] referred to as a double-dot wide O at The Speculative Grammarian.^[5] The word "Dritok" is other sapient species' approximation of the sounds in the Drushek's endonym.^[6]

There is also an element of non-verbal communication to the Dritok language with various Syntactic functions conveyed through the use of gesture.^[2]

Real-world history

Boozer first entered the world of conlanging as a child, when he read Dr. Seuss' On Beyond Zebra and traced the Seussian alphabetical extensions in this author's constructed script (conscript). He became enamored of creating languages after reading J. R. R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and being introduced to such languages as Quenya and Sindarin.^[6]

In high school, Boozer created his own conscripts. While in high school, he created the constructed world (conworld) of Kryslan for an illustrated book as part of an art class project.

This conworld went on the backburner when Boozer focused on starting a family. Then, a few years before the date of the Elvish, Esperanto and Beyond exhibit at Cleveland Public Library, Boozer took it up again.^[6]

Boozer came up with this sciurine language by speculating what sapients without vocal cords would sound like, and decided they would sound like chipmunks^[6] then explored whether one could make a language composed entirely of unvoiced sounds.^[4]

Reception

When Boozer presented this language at a Language Creation Conference, he was regaled by such questions from the audience as: "How do [the Drushek] yell?", "Do they make art?", "Can they use whistling?", "Can they throw objects to get someone's attention?" and "Do they have thick skin?"^[2]

Arika Okrent described the audience's reaction to Dritok as the samples sending "waves of glee through the audience -- they sounded so strange, so inhuman, but there was a detectable structure or system that gave Dritok a sense of 'languageness'."^[2]

References

1. ^ http://inthelandofinventedlanguages.com/index.php?page=languages&id=498
2. ^ ^{a b c d} In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Okrent, Arika. (C) 2010. p. 289
3. ^ ^{a b c} http://podcast.conlang.org/2009/02/dritok-the-sound-of-no-voice-speaking/
4. ^ ^{a b} Okrent, p. 288.
5. ^ [1] Speculative Grammarian
6. ^ ^{a b c d} http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2008/06/don_boozer.html

External links

• http://kryslan.pbworks.com -- Kryslan Wiki
• "Are We Alone" podcast 30 March 2009 - interview with Donald Boozer