Creating Languages: 5 Points

[MichaelB]

I have revised my little essay, thanks to feedback from Notebook in Handhttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v3.58/t.gif (http://www.notebookinhand.com/forum/../forum) and the members of the Livejournal Conlangs (http://community.livejournal.com/conlangs/) community. Thanks, to everyone who responded. I've tried to take all your points into consideration in the rewrite.

MichaelB’s Guide To
Creating Your Own Language:

Five Things You Ought To Remember
(But Few Do)

One of the staple elements of modern fantasy fiction is for the author to create a new language for their world. After Tolkien introduced Sindarin and Quenya to the world, fantasy authors everywhere have taken to the art of language creation. However, there are several things that many fantasy language makers overlook (with their priority being the story) that a more serious language maker (whose priority is the language) might not.

Here I discuss seven of the more important points that a beginning language-maker might fail to notice. These points, in my opinion, are vital for the creation of a dynamic, effective and authentic-seeming language. To aid my discussion, I will draw on examples of Christopher Paolini’s ‘Ancient Language’ and ‘Dwarven Language’ from the Inheritance Cycle
(Paolini, C 2002 ‘Eragon’; 2005 ‘Eldest’; 2008 ‘Brisingr’; Knopf Publishing, USA) as well as my own works and examples from English.

Dynamic, Not Static

Words should never be treated as static descriptors. By this I mean that words should not be treated as a lifeless collection of letters. In Christopher Paolini’s Ancient Language, for example, the word for fire is ‘brisingr’. It is a static description of the ‘object’ of fire. It is treated exactly as it is, in the examples given in Paolini’s work: a name, a label, for the chemical process of ‘fire’. It is not used metaphorically, not does the word itself connect to any related words (for example, ‘heat’, or perhaps ‘to cook’).

Take, in contrast, the English word ‘time’. ‘Time’, as a word, is a complex metaphor. English speakers talk of taking time, having time, sharing time, wasting time, and even of killing time or having a good time. This metaphor of ‘time’ is a physical one. It changes an immaterial concept into a physical object, one we can imagine holding and sharing and cutting into bits. Clearly, ‘time’ is much more than just a word word, because the concept behind it is expressed so physically through metaphor. Language is filled with these types of metaphors and similes; we refer to something as ‘rock hard’, or ‘stone cold’, ‘bone dry’, or ‘short-tempered’. We say that people have a ‘fiery’ personality, or that they are ‘wooden’, or that they have a ‘warm heart’. Or a 'big’ heart, which again takes an immaterial concept and transforms it into a material concept bound by an imagined size and depth (“the bottom of my heart”).

For another example, my ‘Huku’ language has a word, wolu’usa, which means ‘strong’. However, the word wolu’usa is directly derived from wolu’u, which means ‘rock, earth, stone’. The implication here is that when something is called strong, it is being directly compared (through metaphor) to the properties of a rock. Alternatively, the concept of ‘rock’ is directly and inextricably bound up with the concept of ‘strong’. There are many other examples of this, in English, other natural languages, and many constructed languages.

Even if the concept a word represents does not change, the way those concepts are represented and understood will change across languages and cultures.

Spelling Rules and Rhythmic Consistency
Every naturally-occurring language, no matter where it’s from, has particular rules of spelling and a kind of rhythmic consistency. The way different sounds are combined should be consistent. Think of it like this: French, Italian and Spanish are very similar. They even originated from the same language-group. But they sound nothing alike. Listening to a French person speak and then an Italian person speak, there are definite, very different patterns that emerge. Consonant clusters, vowel treatment and pronunciation and the ratio of vowels and consonants within a word can all change dramatically, even between relatively closely-related languages. German, Dutch and English all came from roughly the same language-group, but there are very distinct differences between them.

Originality

Language creation (or ‘conlanging’, as it is affectionately known) is a game of originality and logic. If you are going to make your own language, why should you simply rename ‘English’ and change a few letters around? The only thing that achieves is to reduce the excitement and satisfaction of creating new words and sentence structure. It’s lazy. And boring.

Borrowing from other languages isn’t a bad thing: Tolkien famously created his Elven languages (Quenya and Sindarin, among others) from the ancient Nordic and Icelandic languages, among others. The big difference between ‘good’ language-making and simply taking a bunch of words and putting them together differently, is that in Tolkien’s case, he took those Norse and Icelandic words and sentence structures and grammar systems, and he made them his own. He changed them and played around with different vowel-consonant ratios, tenses and noun cases, so that by the time Quenya emerged as a separate language, it was so completely different from its source languages that evidence of its origins is very difficult to find (unless you have an intimate knowledge of ancient Nordic language and mythology).

Paolini’s Ancient Language, on the other hand, is an excellent example of what not to do: more than 90% of his lexicon (word list) is made up of Norse words, often taken without alteration, and keeping their original meanings. These words are then applied to an essentially English sentence structure, with only the placement of some verbs changed (but not others). For example, we see the sentence: ‘Atra du evarínya ono varda’, purportedly meaning ‘may the stars watch over you’. This, word-for-word, is ‘may the stars you watch over’. Here, only the order of one vowel has been changed.

Compare this to my own Kessa: ‘ies garume hios-aathe hasiiri fara daa’. Word-for-word, this translates as ‘they may stars protectively see you’. See how the grammar structure is distinctly different from English. It’s also relevant to note that the words themselves do not intentionally relate to any existing language. It is inevitable that some words may be repeated across languages, and it is certainly not a bad thing to build a language up from other languages, so long as you have a logical reason for doing so, and you put enough effort into making it an actual, cohesive language, instead of a simple code, letter-replacement or word-replacement system.

If you’re going to make your own language, make it uniquely your own. If you are going to use an existing language as inspiration, deciding what to change and what to keep is very important.

Pronunciation and Diacritics

Pronunciation is an important issue in any constructed language, as is representing that pronunciation accurately and consistently. The difference between dedicated writers and dedicated conlangers is that while writers want to make their words and names easy for the readers to pronounce, a dedicated conlanger would be more concerned with representing the pronunciation accurately.

Diacritical marks are a big problem among many beginner language makers. Because accents and diacritics such as umlauts or diereses (Ä), carets (Â) and different inflections (À, Á, Ā, Ă, Ã, etc.) look ‘exotic’, and because of the popularisation of marked letters in recent society (especially with reference to the use of diereses in the names of music groups from the 1980s and 90s), beginning conlangers are tempted to include these marks to make their language look ‘cool’ and ‘exotic’.

It is important then, to understand the rule of using diacritics: no matter how they are used, they must only be used when they change the pronunciation of a word or letter, even if it is simply to separate vowel sounds such as “ae”, which is pronounced quite differently to “aë”. Diacritical marks that do nothing are wasteful and confusing.

This also applies to apostrophes. Many beginning—and even established—conlangers use apostrophes for the same reason as they use diacritical marks: to make their language look unusual or alien. However, these conlangers usually forget to give any rhyme or reason to their use of apostrophes. They scatter them willy-nilly through their word list. To demonstrate, let’s look at Paolini’s Ancient Language again. According to a pronunciation guide based on the Paolini’s official website, Alagaesia.com, none of the Ancient Language words that contain apostrophes (Gil’ead, mor’ranr, Ra’zac, Ristvak’baen, Shur’tugal, Uru’baen, Zar’roc), are pronounced any differently than the way we would expect them to be pronounced if they didn’t have an apostrophe. These apostrophes have no purpose. They are useless, and serve only to confuse readers.

Apostrophes that do change the pronunciation of a word, however, are perfectly acceptable—and found quite commonly in natural languages around the world. In transliterations of Chinese (t’ai, pa-k’ua, ch’i); transliterations of Hebrew, Arabic and other Middle-Eastern languages (Mikha’el, Qu’ran, sa'eed); in French, as a contraction (l’art or d’art, for example); in English, as a contraction (you’ll, haven’t, should’ve) or to indicate possession (Harry’s); and in many other languages including Hawaiian.

Language and Culture

According to Sapir and Whorf, two of the most eminent linguists of the field, language defines culture, and is defined by it. In order to create a believably authentic language for your world, you must tie it to the social and philosophical mindsets of the people who speak it. As mentioned earlier, the way a people think about the world colours the way they speak or write about it. The best example for this is, of course, George Orwell’s masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. In this story, the created language Newspeak has replaced English, eliminating negative or disloyal words and replacing them with more positive-sounding alternatives, such as ‘ungood’ for 'bad'. The theory is that the language defines thought patterns. If a person cannot put words to a thought, they cannot effectively either think it or express it. Clearly, though, this takes the theory to an unstable extreme: thoughts and emotions that cannot be captured in words have been depicted in artwork, dance and through metaphor for hundreds of years.

Regardless, the basic theory remains at some level, no matter how subtle. Each culture will have different priorities and expectations and social maxims, and these will inevitably be expressed through words. A good example of this is Paolini’s Dwarven Language. Paolini’s Dwarf culture is based closely on two things: rocks and clan loyalty. Therefore (as can be expected) there are many words to express metaphors based on stone or rocks, and words to express different positions of authority within the clan (for example, grimstborith, clan chief; dûrgrimst, clan; and grimstnzhadn, country. Also, knurla, Dwarf or stone; knurlheim, ‘stone heart’, a metaphor (assumedly) for strength). The combination of using the word for ‘stone’ as the same word for ‘Dwarf’ clearly outlines a philosophical or religious viewpoint of the speakers.

Comparing to my Huku language: the fact of a relationship is considered to be more important than the nature of the relationship itself, in many cases, so they say ‘ I relate to you in this fashion’, rather than ‘I relate in this fashion to you’ (‘I you love’, rather than ‘I love you’). Except in the case of family or enemies, the fact that there is a relationship is more important, and this importance is expressed through word order. Similarly, the word-group hasune, hasunesa and hasunena (fire, protectiveness/passion and anger/violence, respectively), expresses the culture’s belief that there are always three sides to a story: the objective truth, and at least two subjective viewpoints. This idea of three interlinked perspectives is a dominant feature of the language.

Another example would be my Velann language: the idea of ownership, in the sense of ‘my sister’, or ‘my family’ is not used; they have separate prefixes for relatives and for possessives (‘my sister’ is expressed as oan amnay, while ‘my sword’ is expressed as oan ang’ngah , where ‘am’ is relative and ‘ang’ is possessive).

As stated earlier, these examples are all on the extreme side, but the theory remains fairly viable (despite controversy). Using this theory in some subtle way to ‘colour’ the phrases and words of your language can give it a feeling of authenticity and link it to a culture and a way of seeing the world, which in turn may neutralize the first problem I mentioned, that of dynamic (not static) words.

Thanks to the posters at the “Notebook in Hand” forum, and The “Conlangs” LiveJournal community.

[Tundra]

Awesome article, Michael. I hope that lots of people comment about what you've said and that it helps people!

[GriffinMaiden]

My inner linguist found this quite fascinating, and I am pleased to know that I have, at least at the basic level, made few mistakes in my language-creation, according to this list, anyway. I say "basic" because I never get very far in language-creation; I tend to lose interest in the main story I'm working on, and so don't see the point in continuing to develop the language (sometimes I enjoy doing that more than actually writing the story :oops:). Therefore I never get so far as considering the whole Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and developing words with multiple meanings and ideas. However, I have always been very sensitive to things like grammar, consistency with spelling and with the juxtaposition of letters so that they look and sound smooth, avoiding abuse of diacritical marks (I always only use them to change the pronunciation of a word, never just because they "look cool"), ease of pronunciation... I think the only thing I never gave too much thought to was the fact that words are dynamic, tend to have multiple meanings/ideas (your fire-as-protection/love/star example is excellent, and definitely makes me think), and really shape culture and are shaped by it. These I will for sure start keeping in mind whenever I start con-langing.

All these years I've been taking and studying foreign tongues...you'd think I'd have learned something. And yet I feel I've learned more by reading your article, Michael, than I have in the past six years that I've spent studying languages. Your essay is most certainly food for thought.

As for Paolini... When Eragon first came out, I thought it was decent - even went to a local book signing and now have Paolini's signature in my Eragon copy - but then I started thinking about how similar the first book is, plot-wise at least, to Star Wars, and that lack of originality bugged me so much, I abandoned the series, haven't read the second book, and am not sure if I'll even consider buying the subsequent ones. And you're right, Paolini's language has a lot of problems, which I think is another thing that bugged me. Yet for some reason this kid is still quite popular... I think it's less to do with any talent and more to do with the fact that he's a young writer and people are amazed by that. :roll:

Anyway, excellent job, and I hope other con-langers here on the site will take your points to heart, as I have done.

[MichaelB]

I'm glad you liked it, GriffinMaiden.

And I have my own theories about Paolini's popularity. Iyt's basically because the story and the writing style is exactly what ever 11-year-old writes, and what every adult remembers having written as an 11-year-old. So we get kind of nostalgic. But that's really beside the point.

[Dwiesel McAllister]

Michael, this is pure brilliance. If you were not so far away from me, I would marry you right this instant! :)

In all seriousness, though, this is exactly the kind of thing I need in my own conlanging. I have a question, though.

My WIP does not take place in a world of my own creation. Ura is an alternate dimension of of the Earth we know. From the beginning of time, there have been holes, or natural gates, in the strings that tie off the dimensions. There were many gates on Earth, and my Ilfyn began tying them off in the 4th century AD and completed the majority in the 19th century. In that time span, there was much cultural exchange between Ura and our world; therefore, I have taken inspiration for a few (not all!!!!) of my stems from Welsh, Gaelic, Norwegian, and even French. My question to you is: is this use of borrowing acceptable in your eyes, considering the background I have given, and also considering that my stems are not carbon copies of the original word, nor are they obvious phonetic re-spellings that do not fit into the style of the Ilfyn language.

[MichaelB]

It's all about suspension of disbelief.

"My WIP does not take place in a world of my own creation. Ura is an alternate dimension of of the Earth we know."

If you change even one thing about the world as it is, it's a world of your own creation. I know you'll never agree with me on this, but it's true.

As for borrowing stems from languages: if you've explained why you've done so and why you needed to do so, and it's culturally (for the cultures within your created alternate universe) and narratologically (internal story logic) appropriate, then go for it.

[Dwiesel McAllister]

Ok, thanks! I'm glad I'm not committing a major conlanging faux-pas. I really think there would have been a fair bit of word exchange between Ilfyn and human cultures, petering off around the Renaissance.

I see your point about Ura, and it makes perfect sense. The point I was trying to make was that Ura is not some random world that I made up; it is an offshoot of our world and still has strong ties to it, hence the few borrowed stems (and the majority of Ilfyn stems are of my own making). In a completely made world, borrowed stems would make no sense at all, because they have no one around to lend them.

[Tundra]

You do know that language now and language at the time of the renaissance was very different, right? :)

[Dwiesel McAllister]

Yes, of course! That's why I use borrowed stems very sparingly, and try to alter them enough to where it's not totally obvious that that's where the word comes from. (It's mainly for my own benefit than the readers', and I don't know how many of them will be familiar with the languages from which I've borrowed.) That being said, I'm also planning to borrow from Latin and possibly Old or Middle English, but not too much. :)

[Tundra]

I do suggest that you keep conversation general up here though, because... it's public, remember! :D But you should go make a thread about it somewhere else. :) I'd be interested.

[Dwiesel McAllister]

K, Tundra, I've made one in the Writing Forum. Ask away!

[Unregistered]

ah, great article. I was linked here from an LJ community.

Being an amateur linguist I also have so much fun creating languages so my writing. :) it's a great hobby. Reading this article was very enjoyable.

However, I have just one little nitpick: on pronunciation, *spelling* isn't all that important, it's what *sounds* are represented in the word. Some of the group one words aren't really that hard to pronounce, if you just look at it using a non-english base. They look/sound bizarre to us because the don't follow english syllable rules (which is another rule you have to decide and stick to when making a language) But the second group does sound more natural, as more common syllable constraints are used. I hope that made sense >.> 4am... should go to bed now.

[Laylani]

This is really helpful, thanks for posting this. I hope you don't mind that I've printed out to take to my writer's group, this'll defiently be useful.

[MichaelB]

This is really helpful, thanks for posting this. I hope you don't mind that I've printed out to take to my writer's group, this'll defiently be useful.


No worries! Spread the word! :D I'm really flattered. Are there many conlangers in your writing group?

Oh, and why not have a look at my other article, right at the bottom of the page- 'Finding Ideas For Stories' (http://www.notebookinhand.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6761).

[Tundra]

So, MichaelB... what languages created by other people do you think are good examples of conlanging?

[Laylani]

No worries! Spread the word! :D I'm really flattered. Are there many conlangers in your writing group?

Oh, and why not have a look at my other article, right at the bottom of the page- 'Finding Ideas For Stories' (http://www.notebookinhand.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6761).

I know for sure two others right now are trying to create their own languages

[Tundra]

Some thoughts. Since I passed on your article. Thought you might be interested in some of the comments! Some stuff to discuss or think about for the future.



There are some points I disgaree with, or think should be stated better.

Consonant pairs -- English has a lot of them, but there are ones that are pronounceable but that English doesn't use. For example, I've only seen 'mb' at the ends of English words, yet some African languages appear to use it at the beginning. Names like 'Mbeki' look unpronounceable to my eye, yet I have no problem saying things like 'thumb' (though I might just be pronouncing that as 'thum').

As for diacritics, I think a writer and a conlanger have different POVs. A writer wants to make sure his or her names are pronounceable and easy-to-read; a conlanger wants to faithfully represent his or her language in English. If you have millions of different vowel-sounds (so many that you need to trot out diacritics), there is a danger that your readers will just gloss over them as 'weird fantasy names'. I know I've picked different conlang romanization schemes based on when I'm writing a fictional story mentioning words or names in my conlang, versus something written in that conlang.

And I do agree with one of the commenter who points out that drawing from real languages is all right -- if you know what you are doing and can explain why. (For that matter, I can't honestly say my own conlangs weren't influenced by other languages, even if they weren't Words From One Language + Grammar of Another. More like noticing a neat grammatical element in a language then seeing if it works.)







Names like 'Mbeki' look unpronounceable to my eye, yet I have no problem saying things like 'thumb' (though I might just be pronouncing that as 'thum').

No one pronounces thumb with a consonant cluster at the end, generally. I don't think it ever had one; it's from Old English þuma. The b is probably more of that cruft, like the o in come and the ue at the end of tongue, that got into English orthography around the time of spelling standardization for aesthetic reasons often having to do with French. The m in words like Mbeki is generally syllabic, if that helps.





The Dynamic vs. Static section suffers from the example, and from a lack of specifics. How are those words connected? What does he mean by "an intricate web of hidden underlying meanings"?

The section on spelling rules also suffers due to its examples. Example #2 looks fine to me, or at least as consistent as example #1. I think he's trying to say that a language should have consistent phonotactics, but he torpedoes it with an example that doesn't work and then goes off on a tangent apparently about how languages shouldn't mix hard and soft sounds (huh?).

The idea that you shouldn't ever draw on other languages is, frankly, a load of bullshit. It would mean that the entire field of a posteriori conlanging is "doing it wrong". He backtracks in the comments to a position more like "you shouldn't draw on other languages, unless you have an in-universe reason for it", which is a lot more reasonable. But as written in the essay itself, it's nonsense.

The section on pronounceability gets "easy for me to pronounce" and "possible for humans to pronounce" confused. Only a couple of the Paolini examples actually appear to be unpronounceable. The rest at most just have large consonant clusters or imply a vocalic "r". The essayist should check out Georgian sometime.

I can't argue with his point in the section on diacritics. Way too many writers turn to the punctuation shakerhttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v3.50/t.gif (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunctuationShaker) when they want a language to look exotic. But is there a pronunciation guide to Paolini's languages? If not, how does he know that those diacritics aren't doing anything?

The section on grammar seems too vague to be useful.

The section on culture is basically correct, although he seems a little confused about the scale of human history ("hundreds of years"?). The idea that basic word order directly reflects a cultural bias about the nature of relationships, though, is a little hard to swallow.

I hope it does prompt fantasy authors to give their fictional languages a bit more thought. If so, it will have been worth it regardless of its shortcomings.




I can't argue with his point in the section on diacritics. Way too many writers turn to the punctuation shaker when they want a language to look exotic.

I've seen a few who seem to think it's actually necessary; there've been a few postings here in thet past where some conlangers put diacritics on every single vowel and consonant.

[Tundra]

Michael, you said that you'd respond. :)

[MichaelB]

Give me some time, eh? I'm up to my ears in assignments at the moment, I'll have time by the end of next week.

[lethallylovely]

This is just what I needed, and I wasn't even searching for it.
Thanks heaps!

[dreamshell]

Little late to the party, but hopefully some people can help me out. Right now I’ve got a little fantasy world I’m toying around with and if I could take a serious swing at one of its languages (if not more), then that would be great.

In reference to the essay;

“Dynamic, Not Static”
Wow. Fantastic point, MichaelB. I know I’ve most definitely made the mistake of creating ‘isolated words’. Ugh. To think I have something in common with Paolini… =P

Know of any websites one might go to to learn some of the ‘basics’ of language-making? It’s difficult to know where to start.

“Spelling Rules & Rhythmic Consistency”
Another good point. But how does one ensure consistency? Simple trial and error?

“Originality”
Aww… but what if I’ve already started making one up with some inspiration from another (real) language? Suppose I could continue on from here on my own? Otherwise, how does one go about making up a language completely on one’s own without some sort of basis? Play around with sounds until you find some you like and then choose words for them to signify?

“Diacritics”
Know of how I might learn the differences between diacritics and their ‘normal’ counterparts? As well, how about pronunciation of all the different types? That’s a tricky one.

Grammar & Sentence Structure”
I would most DEFINITELY need (and like) help in this area. I know nothing of how to make sense of a sentence structure that isn’t English. So… site recommendations?

“Language & Culture”
Well, I’ve definitely got some ideas on how the culture of a fictitious people I’m working on might influence its language. The ways one might express them through the language are a bit difficult to figure out, though. As well, I’m thinking there’s the potential for overdoing it, as well.

On a side note, if I may be so unabashedly oblivious; I get the overall idea of what it means but what, specifically, is “con-langing”? “Constructing language”? Uh… no, that might “lang-conning” or something, then… Anyone?

[MichaelB]

Good news! I'm nearly finished the revision/rewrite!


As for you, Dreamshell:


Know of any websites one might go to to learn some of the ‘basics’ of language-making? It’s difficult to know where to start.

http://www.zompist.com/kit.html (Highly recommended)
http://fantasist.net/frameset.html (Good, but don't rely on this for too much)
[/URL]

“Spelling Rules & Rhythmic Consistency”
Another good point. But how does one ensure consistency? Simple trial and error?

Trial and error, and reading things out loud. Even a beginner language maker should be able to tell that "Klokroksho" and "Elalainasei" aren't rhythmically consistent.

“Originality”
Aww… but what if I’ve already started making one up with some inspiration from another (real) language? Suppose I could continue on from here on my own? Otherwise, how does one go about making up a language completely on one’s own without some sort of basis? Play around with sounds until you find some you like and then choose words for them to signify?

As I've mentioned, I'm in the middle of revising the essay. The new version will point out that using existing languages for inspiration is fine. I was just worked up, when writing the original, about people like Paolini who lift entire dictionaries from other languages and simply put a different name on the front cover. The big point I wanted to make was that if you must use existing languages, take the elements that you must, and make them your own, by changing them and playing with them and balancing different elements, noun declensions, verb cases, tenses, and structures until you reach something you're happy with.

When I was making Hukuwatujerad, my first and most-complete language, I made up words based on similar sounds and rhythms without consciously basing them on existing words, gave these words meanings, and stuck them together. Actually, Huku began as an alternative sentence structure for English before anything else, and evolved over several years of experimenting, reading and researching different existing and theoretical language structures, such as browsing through the now-defunct langmaker.com site, linguistics theory textbooks, and existing languages.

“Diacritics”
Know of how I might learn the differences between diacritics and their ‘normal’ counterparts? As well, how about pronunciation of all the different types? That’s a tricky one.

I can't really explain anything here, but if you try researching the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA"]IPA (http://www.zompist.com), but that's probably going a bit far (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA). Really, though, it's quite rare that you'll need diacritics, and if your language has no relation to existing language-group, the diacritical marks you use don't necessarily need to adherew to, say, European conventions; so long as you provide a pronunciation guide, and use the same sound/change with each use of that symbol or mark. An example from my own work is again from Huku. European conventions state that the apostrophe in "Wolu'u" would be normally pronounced as a glottal stop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop). But because my language has no basis in European language groups, it's used to represent the same sort of sound change as the spanish tilde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilde#Diacritical_use). Because this is quite different from what is expected, I make a point of explaining this in my pronunciation guides.

Grammar & Sentence Structure”
I would most DEFINITELY need (and like) help in this area. I know nothing of how to make sense of a sentence structure that isn’t English. So… site recommendations?

See above, especially Zompist. I would also recommend going to your public library and looking up a few different languages to understand different sentence strucures from different places.

I especially recommend finding a book about Maori grammar. Very fascinating, even if the last time I actually read about it it went completely over my head... Ah, those were the days, lol.

“Language & Culture”
Well, I’ve definitely got some ideas on how the culture of a fictitious people I’m working on might influence its language. The ways one might express them through the language are a bit difficult to figure out, though. As well, I’m thinking there’s the potential for overdoing it, as well.

Yeah, you can definitely overdo the culture/language thing. It's rather a passion of mine, though, so I tend to be a bit heavy-handed with it.

On a side note, if I may be so unabashedly oblivious; I get the overall idea of what it means but what, specifically, is “con-langing”? “Constructing language”? Uh… no, that might “lang-conning” or something, then… Anyone?

Conlanging is the term used for the procees, act or craft of creating languages. A conlanger is someone who conlangs. A conlang is a neologism (new word) derived from two English words: constructed language.

[dreamshell]

Thanks for the feedback, MichaelB. I'll investigate those sites and look into other languages (wanted to do that anyway). And oooh, funny you mention Maori, since I've recently been getting into it. That and some North Germanic languages.

[MichaelB]

I have revised my little essay, thanks to feedback from Notebook in Handhttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v3.58/t.gif (http://www.notebookinhand.com/forum) and the members of the Livejournal Conlangs (http://community.livejournal.com/conlangs/) community. Thanks, to everyone who responded. I've tried to take all your points into consideration in the rewrite.

MichaelB’s Guide To
Creating Your Own Language:

Five Things You Ought To Remember
(But Few Do)

One of the staple elements of modern fantasy fiction is for the author to create a new language for their world. After Tolkien introduced Sindarin and Quenya to the world, fantasy authors everywhere have taken to the art of language creation. However, there are several things that many fantasy language makers overlook (with their priority being the story) that a more serious language maker (whose priority is the language) might not.

Here I discuss seven of the more important points that a beginning language-maker might fail to notice. These points, in my opinion, are vital for the creation of a dynamic, effective and authentic-seeming language. To aid my discussion, I will draw on examples of Christopher Paolini’s ‘Ancient Language’ and ‘Dwarven Language’ from the Inheritance Cycle
(Paolini, C 2002 ‘Eragon’; 2005 ‘Eldest’; 2008 ‘Brisingr’; Knopf Publishing, USA) as well as my own works and examples from English.

Dynamic, Not Static

Words should never be treated as static descriptors. By this I mean that words should not be treated as a lifeless collection of letters. In Christopher Paolini’s Ancient Language, for example, the word for fire is ‘brisingr’. It is a static description of the ‘object’ of fire. It is treated exactly as it is, in the examples given in Paolini’s work: a name, a label, for the chemical process of ‘fire’. It is not used metaphorically, not does the word itself connect to any related words (for example, ‘heat’, or perhaps ‘to cook’).

Take, in contrast, the English word ‘time’. ‘Time’, as a word, is a complex metaphor. English speakers talk of taking time, having time, sharing time, wasting time, and even of killing time or having a good time. This metaphor of ‘time’ is a physical one. It changes an immaterial concept into a physical object, one we can imagine holding and sharing and cutting into bits. Clearly, ‘time’ is much more than just a word word, because the concept behind it is expressed so physically through metaphor. Language is filled with these types of metaphors and similes; we refer to something as ‘rock hard’, or ‘stone cold’, ‘bone dry’, or ‘short-tempered’. We say that people have a ‘fiery’ personality, or that they are ‘wooden’, or that they have a ‘warm heart’. Or a 'big’ heart, which again takes an immaterial concept and transforms it into a material concept bound by an imagined size and depth (“the bottom of my heart”).

For another example, my ‘Huku’ language has a word, wolu’usa, which means ‘strong’. However, the word wolu’usa is directly derived from wolu’u, which means ‘rock, earth, stone’. The implication here is that when something is called strong, it is being directly compared (through metaphor) to the properties of a rock. Alternatively, the concept of ‘rock’ is directly and inextricably bound up with the concept of ‘strong’. There are many other examples of this, in English, other natural languages, and many constructed languages.

Even if the concept a word represents does not change, the way those concepts are represented and understood will change across languages and cultures.

Spelling Rules and Rhythmic Consistency

Every naturally-occurring language, no matter where it’s from, has particular rules of spelling and a kind of rhythmic consistency. The way different sounds are combined should be consistent. Think of it like this: French, Italian and English are very similar. They even originated from the same language, Latin. But they sound nothing alike. Listening to a French person speak and then an English person speak, there are definite, very different patterns that emerge. Consonant clusters, vowel treatment and pronunciation and the ratio of vowels and consonants with in a word can all change dramatically, even between relatively closely-related languages. German, Dutch and Swiss all came from the same language-group, and are still very closely related today.

Originality

Language creation (or ‘conlanging’, as it is affectionately known) is a game of originality and logic. If you are going to make your own language, why should you simply rename ‘English’ and change a few letters around? The only thing that achieves is to reduce the excitement and satisfaction of creating new words and sentence structure. It’s lazy. And boring.

Borrowing from other languages isn’t a bad thing: Tolkien famously created his Elven languages (Quenya and Sindarin, among others) from the ancient Nordic and Icelandic languages, among others. The big difference between ‘good’ language-making and simply taking a bunch of words and putting them together differently, is that in Tolkien’s case, he took those Norse and Icelandic words and sentence structures and grammar systems, and he made them his own. He changed them and played around with different vowel-consonant ratios, tenses and noun cases, so that by the time Quenya emerged as a separate language, it was so completely different from its source languages that evidence of its origins is very difficult to find (unless you have an intimate knowledge of ancient Nordic language and mythology).

Paolini’s Ancient Language, on the other hand, is an excellent example of what not to do: more than 90% of his lexicon (word list) is made up of Norse words, often taken without alteration, and keeping their original meanings. These words are then applied to an essentially English sentence structure, with only the placement of some verbs changed (but not others). For example, we see the sentence: ‘Atra du evarínya ono varda’, purportedly meaning ‘may the stars watch over you’. This, word-for-word, is ‘may the stars you watch over’. Here, only the order of one vowel has been changed.

Compare this to my own Kessa: ‘ies garume hios-aathe hasiiri fara daa’. Word-for-word, this translates as ‘they may stars protectively see you’. See how the grammar structure is distinctly different from English. It’s also relevant to note that the words themselves do not intentionally relate to any existing language. It is inevitable that some words may be repeated across languages, and it is certainly not a bad thing to build a language up from other languages, so long as you have a logical reason for doing so, and you put enough effort into making it an actual, cohesive language, instead of a simple code, letter-replacement or word-replacement system.

If you’re going to make your own language, make it uniquely your own. If you are going to use an existing language as inspiration, deciding what to change and what to keep is very important.

Pronunciation and Diacritics

Pronunciation is an important issue in any constructed language, as is representing that pronunciation accurately and consistently. The difference between dedicated writers and dedicated conlangers is that while writers want to make their words and names easy for the readers to pronounce, a dedicated conlanger would be more concerned with representing the pronunciation accurately.

Diacritical marks are a big problem among many beginner language makers. Because accents and diacritics such as umlauts or diereses (Ä), carets (Â) and different inflections (À, Á, Ā, Ă, Ã, etc.) look ‘exotic’, and because of the popularisation of marked letters in recent society (especially with reference to the use of diereses in the names of music groups from the 1980s and 90s), beginning conlangers are tempted to include these marks to make their language look ‘cool’ and ‘exotic’.

It is important then, to understand the rule of using diacritics: no matter how they are used, they must only be used when they change the pronunciation of a word or letter, even if it is simply to separate vowel sounds such as “ae”, which is pronounced quite differently to “aë”. Diacritical marks that do nothing are wasteful and confusing.

This also applies to apostrophes. Many beginning—and even established—conlangers use apostrophes for the same reason as they use diacritical marks: to make their language look unusual or alien. However, these conlangers usually forget to give any rhyme or reason to their use of apostrophes. They scatter them willy-nilly through their word list. To demonstrate, let’s look at Paolini’s Ancient Language again. According to a pronunciation guide based on the Paolini’s official website, Alagaesia.com, none of the Ancient Language words that contain apostrophes (Gil’ead, mor’ranr, Ra’zac, Ristvak’baen, Shur’tugal, Uru’baen, Zar’roc), are pronounced any differently than the way we would expect them to be pronounced if they didn’t have an apostrophe. These apostrophes have no purpose. They are useless, and serve only to confuse readers.

Apostrophes that do change the pronunciation of a word, however, are perfectly acceptable—and found quite commonly in natural languages around the world. In transliterations of Chinese (t’ai, pa-k’ua, ch’i); transliterations of Hebrew, Arabic and other Middle-Eastern languages (Mikha’el, Qu’ran, sa'eed); in French, as a contraction (l’art or d’art, for example); in English, as a contraction (you’ll, haven’t, should’ve) or to indicate possession (Harry’s); and in many other languages including Hawaiian.

Language and Culture

According to Sapir and Whorf, two of the most eminent linguists of the field, language defines culture, and is defined by it. In order to create a believably authentic language for your world, you must tie it to the social and philosophical mindsets of the people who speak it. As mentioned earlier, the way a people think about the world colours the way they speak or write about it. The best example for this is, of course, George Orwell’s masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. In this story, the created language Newspeak has replaced English, eliminating negative or disloyal words and replacing them with more positive-sounding alternatives, such as ‘ungood’ for 'bad'. The theory is that the language defines thought patterns. If a person cannot put words to a thought, they cannot effectively either think it or express it. Clearly, though, this takes the theory to an unstable extreme: thoughts and emotions that cannot be captured in words have been depicted in artwork, dance and through metaphor for hundreds of years.

Regardless, the basic theory remains at some level, no matter how subtle. Each culture will have different priorities and expectations and social maxims, and these will inevitably be expressed through words. A good example of this is Paolini’s Dwarven Language. Paolini’s Dwarf culture is based closely on two things: rocks and clan loyalty. Therefore (as can be expected) there are many words to express metaphors based on stone or rocks, and words to express different positions of authority within the clan (for example, grimstborith, clan chief; dûrgrimst, clan; and grimstnzhadn, country. Also, knurla, Dwarf or stone; knurlheim, ‘stone heart’, a metaphor (assumedly) for strength). The combination of using the word for ‘stone’ as the same word for ‘Dwarf’ clearly outlines a philosophical or religious viewpoint of the speakers.

Comparing to my Huku language: the fact of a relationship is considered to be more important than the nature of the relationship itself, in many cases, so they say ‘ I relate to you in this fashion’, rather than ‘I relate in this fashion to you’ (‘I you love’, rather than ‘I love you’). Except in the case of family or enemies, the fact that there is a relationship is more important, and this importance is expressed through word order. Similarly, the word-group hasune, hasunesa and hasunena (fire, protectiveness/passion and anger/violence, respectively), expresses the culture’s belief that there are always three sides to a story: the objective truth, and at least two subjective viewpoints. This idea of three interlinked perspectives is a dominant feature of the language.

Another example would be my Velann language: the idea of ownership, in the sense of ‘my sister’, or ‘my family’ is not used; they have separate prefixes for relatives and for possessives (‘my sister’ is expressed as oan amnay, while ‘my sword’ is expressed as oan ang’ngah , where ‘am’ is relative and ‘ang’ is possessive).

As stated earlier, these examples are all on the extreme side, but the theory remains fairly viable (despite controversy). Using this theory in some subtle way to ‘colour’ the phrases and words of your language can give it a feeling of authenticity and link it to a culture and a way of seeing the world, which in turn may neutralize the first problem I mentioned, that of dynamic (not static) words.

Thanks to the posters at the “Notebook in Hand” forum, and The “Conlangs” LiveJournal community.

[aanimo]

one little nitpick:

"French, Italian and English are very similar. They even originated from the same language, Latin. But they sound nothing alike."

English is actually a Germanic language, and is not a descendent of Latin. Due to the immense influence of Norman French on the development of Modern English, it does have many similarities with modern Romance languages, but its origins are Germanic.

EDIT: Also, I'm a big fan of Pablo Flores' work on conlanging (http://web.archive.org/web/20060214233734/pueblacity.com/ego-pdf/ng/lng/how/how__all.html) It goes a little more in-depth on phonotactics that zompist's guide.

[MichaelB]

Bah. This is more for beginner and layperson conlangers, not eddycated professionals and veterans. And to the layperson, English is classed as a Romance language.
Seriously. You do one of those talkshow-streetwak type things, and ask average people on the street, "What language does English come from", and more than half of them will say either "Latin" or "Doughnuts".

[aanimo]

Yes, but why propagate something that is, in fact, false? I'm assuming by writing this article you are trying to educate people as to conlanging. . . a bit part of conlanging is knowledge of natural languages, whether you plan on writing a naturalistic language or not. English's history is one of the most complex and is fascinating to study, especially if one is interested in creating one's own language -- and it is definitely not a Romance language. Saying that it is is simply false. And when you are trying to make a point about language development, and you hinge that on the fact that English, Italian, and French sound different even though they are both from latin, your argument is based on a false premise. There's no point to that. It doesn't help people conlang, and it just propagates a myth that is untrue. Just because people think something that is false doesn't mean that someone who knows the truth should tell them they are correct. . .that's pointless.

It is a nitpick, I'll admit. And yes, this article isn't for people who already know that, obviously. But it would help your point if you based your argument on actual facts, not things that "everyone knows" but are false. Seeing as how there are plenty of examples of languages coming from the same ancestor but sounding completely different, there is no need to teach people an incorrect fact.

Overall, though, I really like your article. In fact, I'd recommend it to people as a resource to use when thinking about how to create a language. . .but I'd rather not recommend a resource that uses false language myths. Honestly, it hurts your credibility as an authority on the subject of conlanging. . .

[MichaelB]

Point taken; I'll fix that bit.

[MichaelB]

Dammit, I can't edit the post. I'll just post the corrected paragraph here:

And edit my LJ-based version.


Every naturally-occurring language, no matter where it’s from, has particular rules of spelling and a kind of rhythmic consistency. The way different sounds are combined should be consistent. Think of it like this: French, Italian and Spanish are very similar. They even originated from the same language-group. But they sound nothing alike. Listening to a French person speak and then an Italian person speak, there are definite, very different patterns that emerge. Consonant clusters, vowel treatment and pronunciation and the ratio of vowels and consonants within a word can all change dramatically, even between relatively closely-related languages. German, Dutch and English all came from roughly the same language-group, but there are very distinct differences between them.

[Geredis]

I'm currently in the process of coming up with my own language for a thing I'm working on, and I must say, I love this article so much!

I found a similar one on the NaNoWriMo forums under their Fantasy heading, but found it so much more confusing, concentrating more on the mechanics of the language than the parts that I think are more important for any literary work.

Kudos to you!

[MichaelB]

Thanks, Geredis.

This originally started as a rant against Paolini's work, which is why I used him as an example. :P As it developed, I began to remember than when I was just starting out, there were heaps of essays about the technical mechanics of language, but nothing about how they really work in context, and from the point of view of a writer. I'm glad you liked my essay, and if you want help or opinions about your language, feel free to post it up on NiH!

Oh, and why dn't you make a thread in the Introductions section, and tell us a bit about yourself?

[Geredis]

What would be the appropriate section of the website to post a thread about my language?

I'm thinking of dumping it in the Writing section, though perhaps Q&A would work as well. If you wish, I'll also come up with a short article to append to this explaining my rationale and wishes and such for this as of yet unnamed yet relatively fleshed out language.

[MichaelB]

I would post it in the "Other Things" board.

Also, a little explanatory article would be brilliant!

[Geredis]

Excellent!

[Tundra]

Conlanger creators, you're welcome to post on this thread as a guest!

[Einna]

Oh my God, I actually love you! Thank you! *hugs*

[MichaelB]

Why thank you! I just wish there was a way to delete all the comments that were made about the old version, because they're no longer relevant. Especially my reply to aanimo, which is not only personally shameful but professionally embarrassing. *hides face*

I'm glad you liked the revised version, though; it's much better than the original.

[Einna]

Indeed it is, as if often the case :-)

It's okay, I went back earlier today and re-read some of my old comments and threads...let's just say "personally shameful and professionally embarrassing" just don't cut it!