Students organize IMPA Tech’s 1st Xenolinguistics Exhibition

12/07/2024

Under the supervision of Language Skills teacher Cilene Rodrigues, the Mathematics of Technology and Innovation students organized the 1st IMPA Tech Xenolinguistics Exhibition. The works were presented on Thursday (11) and were evaluated by professors and researchers from IMPA, PUC-Rio and UFRJ.

The work was developed in the Language Skills subject and is based on hypothetical languages, “alien languages”, which have syntax similar to that of human languages. Professor Cilene explained that the idea of the project is to invert the logic of traditional teaching, offering students the tools to learn. “The xenolinguistics project works like an inverted classroom because it is the student who formulates the project, creates and nurtures a language. From this construction, the students learn how to structure a language and then understand how a grammar works,” he said.

The presentation fair was organized by the undergraduate students, who were divided into committees to structure the event. “We democratically chose the judging panel, the criteria that would make sense to reflect the work and effort put in throughout the semester. It was a very collaborative effort. The decision to give students autonomy is very empowering and enabling for our academic life,” said student Gabriely Rocha.

In addition to Cilene Rodrigues, the judging panel was made up of other linguists from invited institutions and mathematicians from IMPA. Milton Jara, Professor of Calculus at IMPA Tech, doctoral student Ana Cristina Araújo and post-doctoral student Daniel Yukimura represented IMPA. Professors Marcus Maia (UFRJ), Aniela Improta (UFRJ), Maria Eugenia Duarte (UFRJ) and Leonardo Berenger (PUC-Rio) were the guest linguists.

Student Igor Alves found the dynamics innovative and, although it wasn’t easy to do the work, he was happy with the result. “The idea of the project is to explore everything we’ve learned in class about the language and syntax of Portuguese and use the applications to formulate a new language, either from already known bases or invented from scratch. I thought it was great to be assessed by experts in the field and to see that we’re doing a good job,” he said.

The work followed different paths and each group developed a language focused on specific needs, with morphemes and grammatical rules, whether for the communication of communities living in caves, languages based on human emotions, based on mathematics and even computer games such as Minecraft. “I was delighted with the diversity of thought and the scope of the project. When you’re going to make a new language, you have to think about biology, evolution, the speech system, logical reasoning… The groups did very creative work and managed to understand what language is in a dynamic way,” said UFRJ professor Aniela Improta.

For Milton Jara, the xenolinguistics exhibition was evidence that the students are on the right track, using interdisciplinary skills to present results. “In the training of mathematicians, one of the great deficiencies is knowing how to present, communicate and get people interested in the content. What we have seen here today is that the students know exactly what they are doing and presenting. This is fundamental and will be very important in the future, regardless of the area of activity they choose,” said the researcher.

At the end of the show, Cilene, an emotional teacher, addressed the students. “I’m very proud of what I’ve seen here today. You have managed to apply formal thinking and imagination as a means of acquiring knowledge and you have conducted the results with seriousness and respect for the invited public. You are all to be congratulated,” she concluded.

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