27
votes
Accepted
Are there any good programs out there to help when constructing languages?
Polyglot is a piece of software made specifically for the organisation, and management of conlangs as a whole. I haven't used it personally (preferring pen and paper to a large extent), but I've heard ...
- 2,367
11
votes
How do I do interlinear glosses for a conlang?
Should we expect Leipzig Glossing Rules to work for all invented languages?
No, not all of them, but the set of languages for which they will not work is exceedingly restricted. Basically, just ask ...
10
votes
What is the word-grammar transcription thing called?
The thing is called a gloss. There is a widely used standard for such glosses, the Leipzig glossing rules.
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8
votes
Are there any free online conlang creation tools?
There are some syntax "toys" online, eg http://www.zompist.com/gtg.html. This will help you write a (formal) grammar of your language, but you will need a good understanding of Generative Linguistics ...
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8
votes
How do I do interlinear glosses for a conlang?
Since
It's really hard to conceive of a human language whose grammar and syntax are truly outside the bound of what exists in natural language (despite Lojban fanboy statements to the contrary) to ...
- 1,572
8
votes
How to keep track of a language?
One way, while working on paper is to divide things into multiple sheets, making sure to have plenty of extra space at the bottom of dictionary sheets, or alternatively grouping things via e.g. ...
- 2,367
7
votes
How to keep track of a language?
To add to Gufferdk's answer, Mark Rosenfelder in The Language Construction Kit (online version) mentions the use of index cards (as professional dictionary makers used to do in the past) as well as a ...
7
votes
I'm constructing a language with some rather hard-to-produce symbols. Computer or paper?
Well, LaTeX is a great platform for writing anything, and you already seem to use it to some success. So I suggest using LaTeX and creating pdf out of it for distribution.
What helps in the long run ...
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7
votes
I'm constructing a language with some rather hard-to-produce symbols. Computer or paper?
My inclination would be to simply create a font for my language's writing system, and then use that font in whatever application I'm using to build my dictionary or text corpus. You can then use e.g., ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Are there any sites you can use to develop an online course for your own conlang?
Apparently folks can do this with Memrise, as evidenced by the Sajem Tan lessons.
There's been talk that I found on Duolingo forums, but if they're at all serious, they probably won't allow "dabbling"...
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6
votes
Are there any free online conlang creation tools?
There is the Vulgar fantasy language generator, which allows a small language to be generated for free, but requires a subscription for more substantial languages or advanced controls.
- 1,142
6
votes
Accepted
I'm constructing a language with some rather hard-to-produce symbols. Computer or paper?
I would recommend using a transliteration into ASCII or something similar which can be more universally used if the correct font is not available. For example, Esperanto uses some uncommon diacritics (...
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5
votes
I'm constructing a language with some rather hard-to-produce symbols. Computer or paper?
You may want to look into getting Fontlab or Fontographer. You can design your fonts in Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator and import them into the font software. From there, create ligatures that can do ...
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5
votes
Are there any free resources for learning conlang creation?
This isn't properly a conlang resource, but it's a language learning resource which is pretty useful, at least if your conlang is set in the modern world and not a fantasy one: Gabriel Wyner's 625 ...
- 151
4
votes
How to keep track of a language?
With pen and paper: Use index cards
You need two sets of index cards, one ordered alphabetically in the conlang, the other ordered alphabetically in your native language.
You can use index cards of ...
- 11.3k
4
votes
How to keep track of a language?
One of the easiest ways is a simple document in your favorite word processor:
hawarççomtar, [hawarçç- +omtar] n.C. dancer
hawarrôs, [*wel-] n.N. the will, desire; attachment
hawartomar, [wartam < *...
- 3,245
4
votes
Are there any free online conlang creation tools?
We all had little experience to go on when we first started making languages!
I'd actually recommend that you NOT make use of a conlang recipe resource. What you end up doing is little more than ...
- 3,245
4
votes
Accepted
Can IPA consonant diacritics apply to all consonants, or do some diacritics apply to certain consonants?
Many combinations of consonant and diacritic are nonsensical, but I'm not aware of any exhaustive list of these combinations.
For example, it makes no sense to velarize a velar consonant; kˠ is just ...
- 4,426
3
votes
Accepted
Is there an open-source set of topics and vocabulary for making a language tutorial?
The Fundamento de Esperanto was published in 1905, so as far as I know it's in the public domain everywhere. It's one of the foundational documents of Esperanto, containing a short grammar description,...
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3
votes
Are there any free resources for learning conlang creation?
The conlang-guiding spreadsheets @Ylahris made, Der Spracherfinder, seeks to take a new person through stages and resources recommended by some of the other guides. It carries your work on one stage ...
- 1,296
3
votes
Are there any free resources for learning conlang creation?
I acknowledge that my response is late, but I'd like to provide a link to an updated version of my Der Spracherfinder that @Vir mentioned. Should you choose to use it, I hope it proves useful. I was ...
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2
votes
Does The Syntax Construction Kit cover any new material that isn't in the other conlanging books I've read?
I will attempt to answer this question, despite not having read the book, so please take my advice with caution.
Looking at the website of the book, zompist.com/syntax.html, you can see an outline of ...
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2
votes
What tools exist for creating syntactically correct generated text in new languages?
I do not know of any tools that are specifically designed for producing syntactically valid text, but my own word generator Logopoeist could be made to work for that purpose, and it wouldn't be ...
2
votes
What tools exist for creating syntactically correct generated text in new languages?
It is difficult for a machine to passively understand a language (it takes tons of time with machine learning, and that's for Google). Actively, that's even more difficult, as many machine responses ...
- 1,743
2
votes
Are there any sites you can use to develop an online course for your own conlang?
Elon.io lets you make your own lessons and courses. It spaces your repetition of each word/phrase based on how often you have been getting it right. It provides computer pronunciation options based on ...
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1
vote
What tools are there to make this alien language?
You have a few options:
They actually speak Portuguese, which although being similar to Spanish, is sufficiently different and incompatible to make them mutually unintelligible.
The alien dimension ...
1
vote
Is there an open-source set of topics and vocabulary for making a language tutorial?
One place to start is the Universal Language Dictionary. ULD Version 2.7 is listed on the Frath Wiki. ULD Version 3 is available in Google Sheet form.
The Universal Language Dictionary is a list of ...
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1
vote
What setting for the dropoff rate in a language generator will produce a natural English phoneme distribution?
If you're wed to the idea of using Vulgar to make English nonsense words, the best idea would likely be to manually set the dropoff rate using "equiprobable" and custom weights, as it's unlikely that ...
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