[magician2magici]

well .. this is simple question of mine .. i want to create new languages , but i frankly don't know how , can any one help me with some instructions here plz ?

and why do we take the challenge of doing such big work in our story ?

salam,
m2m

[netghost]

You tell me why you'd take on such an onerous task as developing an entire dictionary.

I'm learning Esperanto (I'm cool :cool:) and it's difficult enough. To write a language of your own you'll need to develop some kind of system of learning the English language first. Think about it - think about how complex it is. Esperanto is a language based in Spanish. It has no irregular verbs (I am, you are, she is, he is), no irregular spellings (Moose, Moose; goose, geese; mouse, mice; through; thorough; drought), no vowel shifts (love, good, live), intentionally to make it easier.

But Tolkien never finished any of his languages. A language is too big for one single person to develop themselves.

And Tolkien studied languages for years and years. All his languages were based in Islandic and Norse and old Germanic.

But if you're keen on creating a language, I'd start with the verbs. That's what you learn in language courses, right? Similar suffixes, similar prefexes, then start labeling things around the house in a similar manner.

It's not easy. Why not just make up words and pretend they're language?

[James Carmack]

Unless you've got some serious linguistic chops, creating a living language (or a convincing facsimile thereof) isn't going to happen. I recommend Ghost's final suggestion of just faking it. Just don't do anything ridiculous like spelling your words backwards or interposing a few letters and pretending you've got another language. And don't think switching your font to Symbol will work either.

I mean, if you really want to give it the old college try, you're welcome to it, but you'd probably be better served writing on your stories themselves. That's just my take on it.

[Mock]

And don't think switching your font to Symbol will work either.

lollies

I don't even bother. I just italicize dialogue to alert the reader that it's in a different language . . . if the situation even calls for such.

But if you need an alternate language for a specific reason, I dunno...

[MrBF1V3]

I actually invented parts of a new language when I was in college, I think I was suffering from final's week deliriums. I had some basic words, I was using stylized hieroglyphics. Though I had some difficulty deciding how to pronounce a circle, a bow, or a transverse line in a way that allowed anyone to decode it into the word/symbol. It gets complicated really fast.

To answer your second question first, I think we see creating another language as a challenge, a grand puzzle to be solved. As writers we've seen made up languages used to great effect, and then think, 'if he could do it, so can I.'--whether it's true or not.

If you're going to come up with your own language, start with the basic stuff first -- communication.

B5

[Parylin]

I enjoy making up languages - so long as I have the time to build them! So far I have 4. I started the first one for a reason - a fantasy story that required a race to have it's own language when the MC was thrown into a strange land. I developped the other 3 for similar reasons but more as a ressource if I ever decide to actually use them. Different cultures have different dialecs - I wanted an "evil" sounding race with lots of hard consonants and a "gentle" race with soft vowels (sort of like how Tolkien likes 'l's and 'th' sounds for his elves).

There are sites out there that can help you (can't remember any offhand) if you are serious. (I think Holly Lisle has a column about language on her site and Create a Language Clinic which you can buy, or Mur Lafferty's site.)

I started with verbs - prefixes and suffixes (as was mentioned above)
Present tense, past tense. Using a real language as a template helps. Then I make a list of basic nouns, prepositions, adjectives, words I think will be common for the people. Usually I have an idea of the sounds I want to use, and most words that are related have roots (think Latin) so "river" and "rain" might sound similar because they are both "moving water".

One last thing, I never create the WHOLE language. It's like worldbuilding; you build what you need and maybe a little more for depth. It would take a LONG time to create a whole dictionary with words you'll never use, and if you're going that far you would need the history of the root words and... etc.

[kmtolan]

Definiately fake it! I'm going through the same pain right now with my editor as I have to deal with separate languages. For the most part, I simply italize and let the reader know the language has changed - however at the start you may need to REALLY hit the reader over the head with the fact that - hey, this isn't English.


“I’m looking at a Me’Aukin woman in her late thirties.” Rick blinked his eyes, but the vision didn’t go away. His hallucination turned, paused, and looked over her shoulder at him.

“Meora Co’Oden,” she whispered. “Tanee, th’repes me’oke, du’tene Weth.” Turning, the image vanished into the wall.

“She just said that her name’s Meora from the Family Tanee of Clan Weth.” He looked at Andrea’s widening eyes. Rick gave an uncertain laugh. “I think I just saw a ghost.”



Like that. (grin) Later on, I simply do the translation so the other language is simply italics around regular dialog - but the reader understands by this time what's really going on.

Of course using italics only goes so far - for long scenes (especially if only one language is being spoken) it's best to simply state which language was being spoken and then go into the scene. I reserve italics usually for cases where we have mixed languages.

Kerry

[marshwriter]

Ask yourself do you really need a whole language in your story. Probably not, so just fake it.
I must say in my stuff I fake it, like the name Lhosomnië (from the Afrikaans "los hom nie"), use old languages like Gothic (yes, I actually studied it at university, a very beautiful language) "asilus!" or Old Norse (yes... that as well. What can I say, it was honours and I had the chance of taking it!) "go vikings!" or make stuff up... although that is quite sparse. I also use italics when needed and I don't want to clutter the story if it is short.
So... I would say go with your gut, but if you don't need to create the vocabulary, grammar, dialects, etc. just fake it.
O, and don't just use a word like "gogo" (Zulu for 'grandmother') for affect - you may just use a curse or something because it looks cool, but what if a reader of that language can understand it? Use it as if you would use any word from another language in english. What I want to say is - don't force it, whatever you do. O, and rather do for dead languages that living... but that's just my opinion...

[Fung Koo]

(If any of this has been mentioned already, oops!)

Every language that exists started off as oral-only communication. The written language got added later. So, letters and letter combinations are simply visual cues to the oral-auditory part of communication. So when inventing language, it's probably wise to start with how it sounds first. Written language is only a map to actual language.

Back in the days of playing D&D in the basement, my friend (not me, I swear!) used to spend hours decoding the Dwarf Runes or Elven Script on the fronts of the rule books... These "languages" are simply letter-for-symbol substitutions on top of English. Not really a language at all.

If you learned what all the symbols meant from the Chinese pictographic written language, you could conceivably use the Chinese "alphabet" and still speak English. The symbol for horse in Chinese is a picture of a horse, not a sonoric equivalent. So written language and spoken language are often two entirely different things.

Because you want the language you come up with to translate into something that your reader can understand, I strongly suggest starting with how the language sounds, then writing it out using the traditional European lettering system. Because the western alphabet is a sound-based system, it lends itself well to writing virtually any sound out.

Eg. "K'tchk" -- you can imagine what this sounds like because the letters themselves are cues to the sounds one makes, with the apostrophe indicating a skip. Simply add a letter and you could have "K'tachk" or "Kitchk" or "Gk'rtchk" etc.

What you probably want to avoid is straight substitutions, where r=t, v=h, ~=a... then the word "that" becomes "rv~r". This is not actually making a language, it's just reordering the sound instructions (as the Dwarf/Elf thing above).

The other thing that happens with straight substitution is oral substitution. You find this all over the place to. "I'm hungry" becomes "Mi dungha" or something. The syntax here stays the same -- two words, same syllables. This can be helpful for a younger audience of reader, and might be what you want. But to make it more complex, you can have whole concepts in single words, as in "I'm hungry" simply becomes "Dungha".

Polyphonic languages build by adding. I'm sure you've heard the "Eskimos have 27 words for snow!!!" thing before. Technically, they have only (I think, could be wrong) maybe 2 or 3 actual root words for snow. The other 24 are simply sonic additions to the root. So in English we say "Snow, Slush, Hail, Sleet, Ice" etc -- the Inuit say "Snugga, snuggab, snuggabth, snuggabthuk, snuggabthunkani'gnuka" etc... (Note: not actually correct!) So in actuality, English has far more words for snow, but Inuit has a possibly infinite number of possible connected terms for snow, with each suffix/prefix adding some new element to the word to make it more specific. It's like conceptual language verses rational language.

So "I'm hungry" could be "Dungha" -- "I'm very hungry" could be "Dunagha" -- "I'm super unbelieveably ridiculously hungry" could be "Dun-dunagha"

So those are just some things to be aware of. In general, it's wise to keep your syntax simple. But overall, the most important thing is sound. Make it sound pretty. After that, it really doesn't matter what you do!

Otherwise, I'd say do what was suggested and put your foreign words in italics to show that they're foreign.

As to the reason why we do it... Just to add mystery and foreignness I think. Makes foreign cultures seem more complete. Except when done poorly, of course...

[MadPiper]

I just skimmed over the posts, so forgive me in a reiterate what has already been stated.

I have worked on languages for my books as well. Normal though, I only go so far as to make sure I make original names, and names of places. But I never have a needed to make the whole language. Its a daunting task, and not to be taken lightly.

This webpage is dedicated to helping someone create their own language.

http://www.zompist.com/kit.html

and why do we take the challenge of doing such big work in our story?

Could be many reasons. You feel the need for completion. Your a perfectionist. Your trying to procrastinate so you wont work on your actual story. Who knows? I do it because I am a very thorough person.

Why do feel the need to do it?