My name is Jessie Peterson, but I go by quothalinguist on social media sites (I am currently most active on Instagram). I hold a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Colorado at Boulder and was a professor of linguistics at Stephen F. Austin State University for 13 years, where I created a conlanging course and taught students how to construct a language from the ground up. I am now a full-time professional conlanger and work with my partner and husband, David J. Peterson. Our work appears in TV shows and films, including Legendary’s Dune: Part Two, Pixar’s Elemental, Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, the Peacock’s Vampire Academy, and Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem. We also host the weekly livestream LangTime Studio on YouTube, where we create new languages from scratch and share the process.
Personal projects
On a more personal note, I have a lot of side projects that have grown from my love of conlanging and teaching. Some more recent personal conlang projects I have been working on include Zhwadi (a language that I refer to as a love song for myself) and Ishglen (an homage to my first attempt at conlanging when I was ten).
At the first-ever Kopikon in September 2023, I debuted my project titled Conlang-Venture, a text that guides readers through some basic beginning steps of conlanging in the style of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book.
And now I’m working on Conlang Year, a series of daily prompts for creating a language in a year. Those daily prompts will appear here on this website!