Questions tagged [conlang-creation]
For questions about the process of making a conlang.
6
votes
1answer
37 views
How do you model language changes with wave theory (areal developments)?
I'd like to hear from anyone who has built a dialect continuum, in which innovations spreading from different centres affect overlapping subsets of the range (see wave theory). How do you model it? ...
3
votes
2answers
46 views
How can I explain the origin of the dual number in my Slavic-influenced East Nordic conlang?
The language I am creating is derived from East Norse and heavily influenced by Slavic. It has a quite complex grammatical structure - for example, it has not only taken over the two additional cases ...
7
votes
3answers
115 views
Are there any “unspeakable” languages?
Sorry, my title is slightly misleading; what I'm after is more like a written language that doesn't have its roots in spoken language, and has no definitive translation into speech, but is none-the-...
5
votes
1answer
36 views
Organizing a lexicon in a logographic writing system
A little background before my question: I am an amateur in mid-development of a logographic writing system, not necessarily a whole language with phonetics. As I develop, I don't so much care about ...
3
votes
3answers
53 views
What are the places where I can attach an indication of tense in relation to a conjugated verb action?
Info
My conlang uses verb conjugations only in the present tense. To indicate other tenses (preterite/past imperfect/subjunctive/future/etc) I use the combined phrase "sona," meaning "in (the) time (...
4
votes
2answers
49 views
21st century International Auxiliary Languages
What are examples of International Auxiliary Languages (IALs) created and promoted in the 21st century?
I am aware that many people think that Esperanto and Interlingua are in some sense "the last ...
4
votes
4answers
143 views
I'm constructing a language with some rather hard-to-produce symbols. Computer or paper?
My constructed language has 26 English letters and 30 special characters (plus four different accent marks.) The characters are slightly abstract. The closest I've gotten to producing them is with ...
4
votes
3answers
125 views
Is there any importance of “dots” while constructing alphabets for a language?
In English, there is a little dot over small letters of i and j. I am not sure what that dot signifies to - pronunciation or sound.
In Gujarati, Hindi and Sanskrit languages, there happens to be dot ...
7
votes
3answers
93 views
Swadesh List for Verb Infinitives?
I was looking through Wikipedia's Swadesh Lists recently and wondered if there was anything like a Swadesh list for verb infinitives, similar to how Spanish verbs work (to be, to want, to eat, to know,...
6
votes
2answers
92 views
Designing a vocabulary for geographical features
I want to draw a map of a fictional world resembling Europe in climate and basic geographic features (so there are rivers and lakes, alpine mountains, mittelgebirge, marsh lands and bogs, some plains ...
4
votes
1answer
77 views
Finding inspriration for letter forms?
I believe I've mentioned before on here how I struggle to come up with forms for letters.
I've tried to solve this by looking at other systems. Despite the diversity in our world, I've found it ...
10
votes
5answers
129 views
How can I make my conlang's borrowings naturalistic?
As something of a follow-on to my question about “naturalizing” conlangs, I’m looking for any information - actual tools would be nice, too, if available - for “borrowing”...
8
votes
3answers
239 views
Is there a middle-written language?
Real languages
I am aware of several types of writing systems.
The first one would be left to right and a prime example is English and also most of other languages, no matter if they use letters or ...
3
votes
0answers
40 views
ConLanging w/ Raspberry Pi? [duplicate]
Is there any coding/program that can be used in raspberry pi for creating a language? Like the ability to create a dictionary with sounds? Or an interactive creative process to start making words and ...
5
votes
2answers
192 views
What are the common features of “Elvish” conlangs?
I want to create a fantasy world with Elves speaking their own language. In order to avoid unwanted associations with works of other authors, the Elves should speak a newly invented language. What ...
5
votes
2answers
130 views
Is a naturalistic language without countable nouns possible?
Is a naturalistic language without count nouns possible, thus having only mass nouns? This would mean having many words for things with water: a sea, an ocean, a bottle of water, a puddle, etc.
What ...
7
votes
2answers
98 views
How to model the change of script over time
I want two languages to share a root but I want them to look unrecognizable written down (with the original language having a written form, so not independently created writing systems). Are there any ...
7
votes
1answer
244 views
How does one determine the date a constructed language was invented?
Some constructed languages list a date, or at least year, of creation. Is there any official or unofficial standard to determine that date for any given conlang? The way I see it, there are several ...
9
votes
2answers
84 views
How would the grammar of a conlang develop as a creole from other languages?
Assume that the backstory of a conlang is that it developed from a set of other languages. In other words, speakers of these (different) languages were living in the same area and were communicating ...
6
votes
2answers
196 views
How can I become a professional conlang designer?
There is some market for constructed languages in film, television, computer games and literature. Some conlangs designs were commissioned to linguists who did the real word.
Is there a possibility ...
7
votes
2answers
232 views
Are there any constructed languages designed for legal agreements / country constitutions?
A few weeks back i've watched a talk of Stephen Wolfram. I think was this video. Plus this article is also relevant.
The idea discussed was: how to build a language for formalizing every day ...
13
votes
3answers
259 views
How to “Naturalize” a Conlang?
Many conlangs that I have encountered have an “artificial” feel to them–all conjugations and declensions are perfectly regular, stress rules for speaking are rigorously adhered to, ...
11
votes
8answers
351 views
What's a good starting place to work on vocab?
Obviously, generating a lexicon is very time-consuming, and there's so much that needs to be done, I often find myself suffering with analysis paralysis, because I just can't decide where to begin.
...
14
votes
6answers
321 views
How to keep track of a language?
At the moment I have my fictional language written down in a notebook, but as the vocabulary increases its becoming harder and harder to find words.
I am adding new words all the time, so writing them ...
4
votes
2answers
91 views
Soudwegian: A Swedish-German process similar to what happened to English and French?
The idea is that the Swedes retain a small bit of what is nowadays German territory that they conquered in the 17th century. This is now independent territory, Soudway, with a language of its own ...
33
votes
12answers
3k views
From known languages, what are the expected features of a Generation Ship Language?
Pandorum is a generation ship movie. Generation ships are a fairly big sub-genre of sci-fi where people live for many generations in a ship while travelling to a distant star.
The movie Pandorum did ...
9
votes
3answers
110 views
Are there any rules of thumb for number of “steps” between two points in a language's natural development?
Let's suppose that you want to create Conlang B. You want this conlang to be derived from Conlang A. Let's also suppose that you have some arbitrary period of time in between A and B. Are there any ...
12
votes
4answers
154 views
How could my to be constructed language reflect a culture of carefulness?
For a role-playing setting, I want to construct an elven language. The society of these elves strongly values being careful, thinking things through, taking one’s time and preventing mistakes. This is ...
10
votes
2answers
147 views
What are language concepts that could be considered to be based on human anatomy?
I'm in the early stages of creating an alien language for a personal writing project. I'm trying to avoid the aliens' language having properties that human languages do that are somehow linked to our ...
6
votes
1answer
77 views
Methods to avoid similarity in lexicons [closed]
When creating words I have often run into the problem that too many words sound similar even when I have allowed many different phonemes. Are there methods to avoid too much similarity between words, ...
12
votes
4answers
253 views
What are the benefits of inventing irregular verbs in one’s conlang?
Many natlangs have irregular verbs that do not follow the same patterns as the majority of verbs, often as a product of old verb patterns that are no longer used. Some of the benefits of not having ...
19
votes
2answers
378 views
Are there any good programs out there to help when constructing languages?
Are there any tools out there to keep track of which works you have already defined, managing your lexicon easily, and storing conjugations and the like?
Barring that, what are some good strategies ...
7
votes
0answers
154 views
What types of words should one start with when creating a language from scratch? [closed]
Is it more appropriate to start by creating nouns, verbs, general sentence structure words ie "the, a, or", or from somewhere else, when creating a language from scratch? Would it be more proper to ...
5
votes
3answers
131 views
What is the key to realistic inventories [closed]
Shy of simply recreating or stitching together natural languages' phonological inventories, what is the solution for making a naturalistic conlangs' inventory naturalistic?
25
votes
3answers
345 views
How common is it for the creator of a conlang to be fluent in that conlang?
This was one of my example questions but I now am actually interested in the answer. I am an amateur conlanger; I have one pretty complete language and a couple in the process. But I can't construct ...
-2
votes
2answers
106 views
I want to create a family of languages. Should I do one first or should I concentrate on all of them? [closed]
I want to create a whole family of related languages like a natural language family, like Semitic, Italic and Germanic languages. In what ways can this be done? What are the requirements, drawbacks ...
27
votes
4answers
300 views
How can syntactic ambiguity with pronouns be avoided?
Due to the way pronouns work in place of any particular noun (subject or object) in the sentence, this often leads to ambiguous grammatical constructions.
Take this phrase in English for example:
...
