If you like languages, like making with them, and toying around with linguistics, this is the thread for you.
Because I know the community I'm dealing with here at Hollowworld, I'd say it's safe to bet that many of us toyed around with codes when we were younger. Tried to make up languages to go with our stories and worlds we tried to make. Or maybe I'm extra nerdy and I'm the only one. But I've always been a lover of languages, so-
What Is A "Conlang"?
A conlang is a constructed language, meaning that it was created by someone to serve a purpose. Some examples of other conlangs include Klingon, Esperanto, Sindarin, and Dothraki. Some of these conlangs are from books, movies, and television. However, Esperanto is a conlang that is widely spoken. It was created in order to unite many of the European countries under a single language. The others were created for the purpose of completing their fantasy or alien worlds. So as you see, creating a conlang can be as practical or as fanciful as you need it to be.
For those of you who are interested in creating your own conlang, take a look at this wonderfully informative lecture:
Useful Conlang Links
- The Sai Emerys paper he mentions in the video.
- Conlang Wikia which is a database for tons of existing conlangs.
- The Language Construction Kit which is pretty self explanatory on what the link is.
Creating a Language (Copy-Paste from the Conlang Wikia)
Want to create a language? It can take a lot of work to make it presentable, but the results can be amazing. To make your own, decide what sounds you want, create words, and hold it all together with a grammar. (Not necessarily in that order.)
- Decide the phonology (sounds in the language)
- What sounds are meaning changing? English: B/P is (bat and pat) and in korean p and ph is (put/phut) while b and p is the same
- What sounds correspond to the same meaning? Many see the and de as the same and free and threewhen it comes to pronounciation
- Decide on phonotactics; which consonants go togather and which don't? In English you can say "Spanish," but in Spanish the letter S cannot begin a word when followed by a consonant so it becomes "Espanish." Can you have consonants at the end of syllables? Not in Hawai'ian.
- Create words and/or roots
- If you're also creating a conculture, think of what's important to them. There will probably be many words about it.
- How are roots derived? Semitic languages get the word for 'read' from 'blood.'
- Construct a grammar, how is it all put together in a flow? (May be done at the end)
- Is it agglutinating, isolating, fusional or polysynthetic
- If not isolating, what is its morphosyntactic alignment?
- Is it heavily inflected?
- Are verbs conjugated?
- Do the nouns decline?
- Are there different voices? moods? aspects? tenses (can be more than past, present, future)?
- Does it have nouns? adjectives? verbs? adverbs? particles? articles?
- How are things expressed? (English: "I am eating" and "I eat" is the same in spanish and swedish)
Why Are You Posting This Niek?
Because I'm weird and want to know if anyone else has ever tried making a conlang? I tried making a language called Evoni. I made a website for it, but I've lost the account I need to edit the website. And sadly, it's full of errors and contradictions. And a couple times I, for some reason, say noun instead of adverb in a section, so I look utterly ignorant.
Anyway. I won't link to it, but I want to know if anyone else ever played around with it? Clearly there's some work done via Verba (@Michcat ) and Mokyra (@MaelstromPuddle ). Share share!
