IN-PERSON COURSE | 6-7 MARCH 2027 | INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL HO CHI MINH CITY 
Sep 17 / Carder Starr

Don't Leave Your Languages at the Door

The OCME Spotlight Series features guest blog posts that highlight the experiences, insights and practices of educators working with multilingual learners.

With Linguicity, multilingualism becomes an asset in play.

Allowing multiple languages led to something unique: another language is not a handicap or an intrusion. It actually provides a competitive advantage. 

Why I Care About Languages

I am not a linguist, a language teacher, or a person who grew up multilingual. Being raised in the mid-20th century in a then-rural area of Rhode Island in the United States, my family was typical of the area and times — that is, monolingual English. I fulfilled the secondary school foreign language requirement with Spanish and Latin. And that was it for many years.

It wasn’t until later in life that I became much more interested in and passionate about learning about other cultures and their languages. Languages appear to me to be windows into cultures. Presently, I am refreshing my limited Spanish as well as beginning to learn French and Irish. Like many people starting to learn additional languages, the reasons may be personal: my mother was half French-Canadian and half Irish and my wife was 100% Irish.

I feel that knowing about cultures can bring people closer rather than reinforcing division —and the world seems to need more understanding and much less division. Speaking in, or even attempting to speak in, another’s language shows interest and respect.

Why I Created Linguicity

As this awakening in me was developing and because I like puzzles, word games, and yes, I like quizzes also, I joined the craze of Words With Friends. In one game, I saw that I had the letters to play a Spanish word but couldn’t because the game was monolingual. I instantly thought, “Why should I leave Spanish at the door and why are we playing in only English?”

The entrepreneur in me screamed, “If the game that I want doesn’t exist, then I should make it!” Why not create a word game that allows players to utilize their spectrum of languages rather than isolating languages? Why limit the knowledge that a respective player can utilize? Why not allow people to bring the languages they have with them? And hence, Linguicity was conceived.

Linguicity is a two-player word game in which players can choose their languages for each game. There are currently eight languages to choose from — English, French, Spanish, Irish, Italian, Scottish Gaelic, German, and Portuguese — with more to come. Players can strategically switch the Language of Play during the same game. (The Language of Play is the required language for that player’s turn.)

With Linguicity multilingualism becomes an asset in play. One does not have to leave their languages at the door — bring them in! Allowing multiple languages led to something unique: another language is not a handicap or an intrusion. It actually provides a competitive advantage. The languages that a player knows become part of the strategy. A player can change the Language of Play strategically and potentially move toward a language in which they believe they are stronger than their opponent. This turns their multilingual ability into an asset — something to be used.

Linguicity not only gives a player an opportunity to remember words in additional languages but also the ability to switch from one language to another.

Recently, in a conversation with a multilingual woman, I was fascinated to discover that my idea was not entirely new. She was raised in a household speaking Spanish, German, and English. Her family solved the same problem while playing Scrabble by creating “house rules” to allow all three languages to be played in each game.

Multilingual Pedagogies (Translanguaging)

What I Came to Understand

Over time, I began to see something beyond competition. Linguicity was originally born out of my desire to play a Spanish word. Now I have come to appreciate that Linguicity is giving players the opportunity to use other languages and a reason to activate them.

Linguicity World grew out of that same thinking. It's a solo game built around traveling through different countries while engaging with their languages, with additional rewards for using the language of the country being visited.

In Linguicity, knowing and switching languages can become a strategic asset. In Linguicity World, using the language associated with the country in which you're travelling is rewarded.

So both games embody the same underlying philosophy in different ways: give people a reason to use the language.

Formal instruction in languages is extremely important. Linguicity is not intended to replace formal instruction; it complements it. However, many students lose their exposure to languages when the structured reasons for using them disappear. Linguicity provides a low-pressure opportunity to keep engaging with a language — through play, family, and social interaction.

Very importantly, languages can connect someone with family history, grandparents, community and culture. People can also have very different relationships with heritage languages — speaking them fluently, understanding but not speaking, having lost much of them, or deciding later in life to reconnect. Linguicity helps people to be “language-engaged.”

I also have a keen interest in the cognitive side of keeping my brain and mind active — learning, retrieving, thinking, and challenging myself matter to me. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, I have a strong belief that a more educated population may bring the world closer together rather than further dividing.

I came back to my initial goal when I thought of and created Linguicity. That premise was to provide an opportunity for students and people of all ages to utilize their language knowledge and to stay engaged with newly learned languages, languages learned in the past, and heritage languages. Your languages aren't separate possessions that have to be put away depending upon the setting. They are resources you carry with you—and Linguicity gives you a reason to bring them into play.
BLOG AUTHOR

Carder Starr

Carder Starr lives in Rhode Island, USA. He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and his graduate degree from the University of Rhode Island.
He believes languages stay alive when people continue using them—not simply studying them.

That belief inspired him to create Linguicity®, a patented two-player multilingual word game and Linguicity World, a single-player counterpart. Both are designed to encourage lifelong language engagement through play, curiosity, and cultural exploration.
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