If Your Own Tongue Fails...

by CLAIRE WILLETT · February 28, 2008

    Crystal Dombrowski [Crystal Dombrowski]

    The pen is mightier than the sword, especially when the ink's homegrown. In 2004, currently attending NYUs Gallatin School for Individualized Study, Crystal Dombrowski decided to create her own language, a mosh of tongues Elven and Romantic. As of yet unnamed-Crystal, a Taoist, says the name will come to her, and will mean "earth", the language boasts a grammar system similar to ours but with attached pronoun; its characters are "flowy...with a lot of circular motions." When she's not penning Tolkien 2.0, Crystal flirts with French, Spanish, and Italian, preferably in hipster coffee havens. Crystal's long-term aspirations include a book, which hopefully will "bridge the gap of misunderstanding between languages." The U wishes her luck --Esperanto didn't quite catch on, but was it sprinkled with elf dust?