Questions tagged [conlang-creation]
For questions about the process of making a conlang.
86
questions
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Maximizing the distinction between affirmative and negative sentences
What are some strategies for making affirmative and negative sentences as distinct as possible?
The motivation for this question is an annoying pair of words in English: can and can't. They frequently ...
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22 views
Inventing A Plural Form For First And Second Person
I am working on the pronoun system for my conlang.
The table below illustrates what I have ended up with so far.
I am looking for suggestions on how - if even needed - to implement a plural form that ...
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2answers
21 views
Lemmata in a prefixing language
I'm developing a heavily prefixing language, and I'm trying to work out a lemma/citation form for my verbs. However, nearly all forms of the verb have a prefix. For example, the verb "to go" ...
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0answers
11 views
How many different interjections like 'aha,' 'oh' would you make up for a conlang?
I wonder if other people have thoughts and experience on this topic from the conlanging perspective. Have people with lots of translation experience found the distinction between (for example) 'aha' ...
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64 views
List of segment usage based on how many people use it?
The great Phoible 2.0 has exclusive list of segment usages based on "Languages", but since some languages such as Lak are only used by handful of people, it won't make any sense if I employ ...
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2answers
223 views
What are some examples of mathematical conlangs?
What are some examples of mathematical conlangs?
I'm curious as to if there are any full existing conlangs that allow you to do arithmetic or mathematical manipulations from a conlang perspective.
The ...
3
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2answers
149 views
Is there any general rule for constructing a word? Example: “q” or “w” should not end a word, something like this
I am developing 4 conlangs (sparish, old sparish, elvian and barrish (need a new name)) for a story which is used by humans of Spar, Northern Sparian, Elves/Aspian, Barrians of south respectively. I ...
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1answer
84 views
Is is okay that most consonant assimilations result in a phone whose dedicated letter doesn't exist?
Whilst worldbuilding, I decided to make a conlang. A lot of consonant assimilations happen in this language. This language is supposed to be spoken by angels.
My native language is Korean, btw. Korean ...
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3answers
124 views
Strategies for dealing with limited/simple phonologies
What problems arise when creating a language with an extremely simple phonology and what are some good strategies for dealing with them?
I'm calling this type of phonology extremely simple for the ...
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2answers
76 views
Where should I start planning my grammar?
I'm about creating my first conlang grammar, I know a few general characteristics yet I don't truly know where or how I should start to outline it. I only have messy pieces of informations about. From ...
3
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1answer
45 views
Is it attested for noun classifiers to be coopted for directionality?
A noun classifier marks on the verb some information about the form of one of its arguments. For example, Atili has a handful of "stationary" classifiers that produce semantic distinctions:
...
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1answer
74 views
Words for numbers in a language with bijective numeration
Bijective base-k numeration (or k-adic numeration) is a system of writing numerals such that the digits are 1 through k. Thus counting in bijective base-12 (such as my conlang Atili has) works as ...
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4answers
166 views
How can I avoid “relexing” punctuation?
I'm trying to design a conscript for my conlang Atili and would like to create punctuation in order to deliminate sentences and transcribe limited prosody. However, I don't just want to create new ...
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1answer
102 views
What to do when my conlang has a word that means something in one of my languages?
This is a bit subjective problem. As a Hungarian who knows English, I have the high ground when it comes to making up words, as I can mush the English and Hungarian words together with some outliers (...
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4answers
130 views
How can I talk about weather without expletives?
In English, it is necessary to use a syntactic expletive ("it") when talking about weather:
It is sun-ny.
EXPL COP.3S sun-ADJ
Pro-drop languages can easily avoid the explicit expletive by ...
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3answers
630 views
How can I name my days of the week?
In my conworld, months are divided into twelve-day weeks. That seems a bit too long (since I recall that people complained that the ten-day weeks of the French Republican calendar were too long), so I'...
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1answer
270 views
How to make names in a conlang?
So, draconic in the setting is used to name places, people, and communication in general. I skipped through most of the phonotactics as I'm using the Hungarian template. So as I filled out entries in ...
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1answer
91 views
What is reduplication used for in natural languages?
According to WALS Feature 27A, 278/368 languages surveyed have productive full and partial reduplication. Chapter 27 gives the following example of partial reduplication in Pangasinan:
báley "town" -&...
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2answers
226 views
Should I include morphology in my proto language?
Most, if not all natural languages have some form of morphology, such as noun case or poly-personal agreement. However, these features are usually evolved from prepositions and auxiliary verbs, and ...
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2answers
91 views
How typologically unusual is using postpositions in an otherwise head-initial language?
My conlang is predominately head-initial (SVO, n-adj, mostly suffixing), but has postpositions because I'd though that the noun was the head of an adpositional phrase. Wikipedia, however, says that ...
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1answer
105 views
Is it reasonable for numerals to behave like verbs?
I am aware that adjectives can pattern like verbs in some natural languages. Is it reasonable for numerals to do the same? Thus
Some balls four.
There are four balls.
Fouring the balls were orange.
...
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2answers
69 views
Is num-det-n-adj-rel a reasonable order for a noun phrase?
In English, noun phrases are det-num-adj-n-rel (e.g. "The five orange balls that John saw"). In Spanish, noun phrases are (mostly) det-num-n-adj-rel (e.g. "Las cinco pelotas naranjas las que Juan vió,"...
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1answer
71 views
Official resource on simlish language
I know that Simlish language is not fully created. It is just a list of words and sentences.
Where can I find the full list (official source)?
P.S I wanna create this language as fully created ...
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1answer
88 views
Finnish as if it were English
I am fascinated by Finnish and sound changes. I had an idea for a funny version of Finnish where it has these properties:
Orthographic [k] changes to [q].
[Q] is pronounced /ð/ (voiced TH) before e ...
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3answers
104 views
How can I add irregularities to a morphological paradigm?
So, I'm trying to make something with a naturalistic feel, even though the current phonetic system distinguishes about 38 phonemes... Let's say I'll tackle this later.
I have issues with grammar... I ...
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1answer
56 views
Should languages spoken by two similar races have the same protolanguage, or can they be not related by protolanguage? [closed]
Should languages spoken by two similar races have the same protolanguage, or can they be not related by protolanguage? I guess they should be similar for example in phonetics or in some other ...
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7answers
579 views
How many words should I create in a conlang?
Question 1: How many words are minimal for a naturalistic conlang? (1000, 1500, 3000 or even more)
Question 2: How many words do the conlangers usually create?
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3answers
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State-based analogue to distributive case
I am developing conlang that has grammatical cases system for nominals that for each spatial case there is state-based case.
In Finnic languages grammatical cases that denote states occur, examples ...
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0answers
62 views
What list of words do you use when creating a language? [duplicate]
What word list do you use when creating a language? Is there a conlang word list?
P.S I know that this question is kinda subjective, but I think that it will be quite useful for conlangers.
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5answers
216 views
Good Real World Languages to Base Proto-Lang Vocabulary
I'm working on a conlang that requires a LOT of work, particularly in the sound changes from proto-lang to the current version.
Instead of creating a whole set of words from nothing, I am ...
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1answer
98 views
How do I naturalistically merge two languages without a clear Substrate and Superstrate?
For my latest worldbuilding project I'm trying to create a naturalistic language for a fictional empire I've been creating. This empire was born at the end of the Bronze Age when various kingdoms and ...
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Are there any free online conlang creation tools?
I was wondering if anyone knows of any conlang creation websites that are free to use.
I know this sounds silly but I have little experience to go on as for creating a custom language.
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Where should I start? Want to create a fictional conlang with old English, old Irish, and ancient nordic elements with unique written elements [duplicate]
So I had an idea for a PC game that harkens somewhat to my ancestors... Imagine a fictional world blessed with angels, dragons, elves and fey and lots more, where technology is present but very rare ...
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3answers
553 views
Are there any Conlangs using Chinese characters?
The Chinese character system is one that is universal to many Chinese dialects. Two people can pronounce the same character in two different ways, but when writing to each other it is intelligible.
...
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1answer
123 views
Which sounds could a lipless humanoid produce?
In my world, I have a race of humanoids who speak a language called Gé̃kt, which is derived from various Eastern Iranian languages such as Khotanese, Ossetian, Yaghnobi and Bactrian with a dash of ...
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206 views
How does one write an easily decipherable language?
I'm writing a book about humans finding alien writing off-planet, which is why I want to know how—without referencing known human languages like the Rosetta Stone does—it may be deciphered.
Does it ...
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1answer
132 views
How to naturally evolve verbs into adverbs or dependent clauses?
Currently I have a very simple proto-language which I'm trying to evolve. For example:
slishi hu ho shofli shofli pfufi tushi
repair person tool fish.V fish.V succeed cause
Person ...
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2answers
127 views
Constructing a language based on existing languages from different families
I wonder how is it possible to construct a language based on the existing languages. There are Indo-European, Altaic, Semitic, and a small portion of Dravidian and Caucasic languages in my country, ...
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1answer
137 views
Has anyone analysed the invented languages in the Earthsea books?
Ursula K Le Guin's Earthsea stories contain vocabulary and utterances from three invented languages. The first step to fleshing these out into fully developed conlangs would be to list all the ...
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1answer
62 views
what kinds of vocal sounds echo less?
Please bear with me as I elaborate.
I'm looking to create a language for humanoids that live in a set of cave systems and tunnels. While their language may have been 'born' on the surface, they have ...
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6answers
349 views
How to describe a purely symbolic writing system?
Before I jump headlong into constructing a language, I'd like to do some research and see what others have done before me and learn from their experiences/mistakes. The keywords I'm currently using ...
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2answers
115 views
Can Root Words Be Derived From Other Root Words
If I said "I" was "Zha" would it be plausible to say "you" is "Zho" and from there naturally begin forming grammatical gender, or would that be too early in the language to add complexities? Also, ...
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437 views
How many unique sounds does the average conlang have?
At the moment I have 90 unique vowel/diphthong sounds that use tonal and length distinction in my conlang. In addition I've chosen 14 consonants, making my total of unique sounds 104.
I don't ...
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1answer
141 views
Would these features be naturalistic in this scenario?
Background
I am planning a naturalistic Goidelic language which shall have quite an influence from Old Norse – probably at least 1/4 or 1/3 of the vocabulary to be of North Germanic origin, as well ...
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2answers
182 views
Language with nominal TAM and no verbs: Ergative or tripartite?
I'm working on a language with nominal tense–aspect–mood (TAM), i.e. inflecting nouns instead of verbs. So, a sentence like "the woman sees the man", could be roughly translated to something like "the ...
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How to develop a detailed, realistic a posteriori conlang?
Background
To begin, I’ve been conlanging ‘properly’ for around two to two and a half years now and have been into it for far, far longer. However, I have yet to create a conlang that is truly in-...
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3answers
321 views
What verbs should be irregular in a naturalistic conlang?
I've read that the most commonly used verbs in a language are almost always irregular, and for the most part the irregular forms of verbs can be traced to an archaic form being preserved in the ...
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7answers
229 views
How could a conlang enforce subjective idealism in a constructed world
Subjective idealism is the monistic metaphysical doctrine that only minds and mental contents exist. It entails and is generally identified or associated with immaterialism, the doctrine that material ...
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3answers
263 views
Do constructed languages need to have their own letters, words, & sounds?
In order for me to ask a higher quality question, I need to know, do constructed languages need to have their own letters, words, & sounds?
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147 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? ...
