#can you tell i want to make a conlang

[aromantisk-fagforening]

one of the reasons I am interested in making a conlang is to escape from sayings like "oh my god", 'oh my lord", "jesus", and even stuff like "damn" and "geez" that have at times ended up being part of my vocabulary even as an atheist. (I think also "faen" may be christian? like meaning "fanden" or "the devil" but idk)

I want more expressions of surprise and emphasis.

Another is a wish to seperate stuff like romantic love and love for food and interests. Maybe even making several words for those concepts.

Though I'm sure getting that would take time, for example requiring I read philosophers takes on the concepts and more.

I also want more genderless language.

And also I just like language. language is cool. I love the idea of making this fundamental element of culture for myself, my own personal culture if that makes sense to anyone else.

[voidimp]

alright. long shot. any followers(/anyone seeing this post ig) speak irish

i want to learn but it would definitely be helpful to uh. have someone to practice with lmao. i have been listening to a little podcast at work just to get a feel for it & pick up what i can (which is not much bc i have to focus on what im typing & also cant read the written notes that go along with it) but theres not very many eps & also its in the ulster dialect & i think id prefer a different one

i know a while back i reblogged some longass post specifically about resources for learning irish so i gotta go find that & dig through it... maybe tomorrow lmao. but iirc it did have A Lot & idk whats in what dialect & im not really set on one anyway at this point but if anyone has a suggestion or preference or whatever that would help narrow down my options at least lmao. like im from the us i have no immediate plans to visit ireland im too broke for that shit so its really just a matter of Whatever I Feel Like i guess??? idk. i havent really had much time to look into anything due to the ten million other things going on all the goddamn time but i would Like To

anyway. its very late i need to go to sleep but yeag feel free to like message me or send me an ask or whatever

[j-esbian]

frustrating how so many craft books have a section about "how to sell what you've made"

like on one hand i get it because the person writing the book has obviously made their craft a full-time job. and they might have some tips and tricks that might be useful, and there are people out there who might be trying to start a small business out of it

but on the other hand it's just exhausting and feels like another voice saying "what's the point of having a hobby if you're not going to monetize it"

[nomairuins]

also i admire dws refusal ever to engage with language barriers

[gairosea]

This is one of my ocs! Shes the main character but uhm.... i haven't decided her name yet....

I might make a proper ref sheet later. later.

[dedalvs]

god DAMN your conlang is impressive,,, so much STUFF /vvpos wondering! as someone working on their own conlang, you have any tips for beginners? :0c

Thanks for softballing this one in just in time for the holidays!

If you or someone you need to buy a gift for wants to learn how to create a language I wrote a book almost ten years ago called The Art of Language Invention. It assumes no knowledge of language creation or linguistics and tries to take you most of the way to being able to create your own language. There are two editions: the old black cover edition with four chapters, and the new blue cover edition with five. You want the blue cover.

If you're interested in codes and ciphers or know someone who is (someone who's a bit younger), you can check out Create Your Own Secret Language. I'd love it if people bought this book, since I haven't yet earned out the advance...

Either would make a handsome holiday gift. If you get both, you can stack The Art of Language Invention on top of Create Your Own Secret Language. You can wrap each individually and then tie the whole thing with ribbon. Unless you're quite adept at ribbon tying, though, I'd recommend affixing a small bit of tape to the underside of The Art of Language Invention after you've wrapped each. Now, if you feel you need a third thing to put on top of the two books, might I recommend a ring box inside of which you can place a single button? They'll ask you why a button, and then you can tell them to open the other two and they'll understand. When they do they'll be so surprised and delighted to see my books that they'll temporarily forget about the button. This is your chance! Seize the button and pocket it. Chances are they'll forget about it entirely. But should they, in their reverie, happen to remember the button, and then ask you about it, simply ask, quite innocently, "What button?" And, of course, when they go to retrieve it, it will be gone! And as they search for it, poof! You drop your smoke bomb and make good your escape!

But if you were looking for some short advice, I'd say come up with a solid reason to create a language in the first place, and never lose sight of why you're creating that language.

Thanks for the ask!

[japhugmafia]

To be fair watching conlang youtubers like Agma Schwa or Bibliadrion and Wikipedia pages for conlanging is like learning to write fiction by watching youtube advice and reading plot summaries; again, it's not really snobby, but there's a very low ceiling that you can achieve with these resources at hand.

The conlang community is always unserious with how it treats conlanging—it's just that people treat the artform as a joke. It's just mostly filled with surface-level phonology/phonetics stuff and trivial stuff that they read on Wikipedia/watched online. But when I call them out on this it's somehow 'elitist' because I have such a high standard—or that you need a master's degree understanding to all of it—but no, I'm still applying for undergrad and you just need to read more. Nobody in the writing community tells you to only read plot summaries and watch youtube videos on writing advice, right?

"But these literature are inaccessible" well that's not really an excuse because langscipress has loads of open access grammars for you to read and peruse. There are also open access articles that you can find just by googling things; hell, just go full on jolly roger and find stuff to download—trust me, it's 99% there.

It's alright if you're just having fun, but just remember that you'll never really hit a level that is reasonably high. Reading doesn't really require you to be smart; nor do you need a degree for it—you just need time and dedication to learn about topics that you want to learn. Perusing Wikipedia is only supplementary and will only get you so far.

I just hate how the conlang community usually treats these as an end-all-be-all, especially because most of the mainstream community nowadays treats conlang as if it were not an artform; moreso a competition where people can make the 'most cursed' conlang—where they're not even syntactically weird, just phonologically weird.

[writingwithcolor]

Conlanging Issues: A Compendium

NOTE: This question was submitted before the Nov 1, 2023 reopening and may not adhere to all rules and guidelines. The ask has been abridged for clarity. 

Most of my questions are about linguistics. […] One of the major locations in my story is a massive empire with cultural inspirations ranging from North Africa in the far south to Mongolia/Russia in the far north […] The middle region is where the capital is and is the main root of culture, from which Ive been taking inspiration from Southwest Asia […], but most notably southern regions of India. I've tried to stick to the way cities are named in Sanskrit-based languages but added the names of stars to the front (because the prevalent religion of this region worships the stars [...]). So Ive ended up with names like Pavoprayag, Alyanaga, Alkaiduru, Alcorpura, Cygnapete, etc. Is this a consistent naming system or should I alter it in some way? The empire itself is named the Arcana Empire since [...] each act of my story is named after a tarot card [...]. Another region in my story is based more on parts of South China and North Vietnam, so I've tried to stick to names with a Chinese origin for that. I understand the significance of family names in southwest [sic] Asia, so I wanted to double check [...]. They have only two short given names. Based on the birth order of the child, the first half of the name comes from the fathers family and the second half from the mothers family. It is seen as disrespectful not to use both names because using only one is seen as denouncing that side of your family. Thus I have names like Su Yin, Dai Jun, and Yi Wen for some of the characters from this region, and the city itself that they are from is named Bei Fen. On the other hand, Im having further trouble naming characters. […] Ive been trying to give my human characters names from real human cultures to distinguish them from the website-generated names of say, orcs, elves, dwarves, etc, but I think I should change many of the names Ive used to be more original and avoid fracturing real world cultures for the sake of my worldbuilding. […] Im still very weak in the linguistics area (even after four years of French, sigh) and am having trouble finding where to read about naming patterns so I can make new ones up. I read your naming guides but am still having trouble on where to start for specific languages. […] Im trying to look into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian specifically.

You're Going Too Broad

In my opinion, you’re casting too wide a net. You mentioned looking into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian to develop fantasy names. These languages are very different from one another, so unless you’re using them separately for very different parts of your world, it will be hard to draw inspiration from them in a way that makes sense. You’re taking on a huge amount of research in order to worldbuild cultures that span a massive geographical area (basically all of North Africa and Asia?) and have very little in common. Are you sure you want to take on that task?

I could see it being more manageable if most of your story is set in a small region of this world, which you will then research in depth to make sure you’re being as specific as possible.

Taking Persian as an example, you’ll have to decide whether you want to use Old Persian, Middle Persian, or Modern Persian. Each of these comes with a different alphabet and historical influences. They’re also associated with different periods of time and corresponding cultural and social markers. Once you’ve decided exactly when and where you want to start from, you can then expand the borders of your area of focus. For example, if you’ve decided to draw inspiration from Achaemenid Persia, you can then look at the languages that were spoken in the Achaemenid Empire. A quick Google search tells me that while Old Persian was the empire’s official language, they also used Aramaic, Akkadian, Median, Greek, and Elamite (among, I’m sure, many many others and many more regional variations). Further research into each of these will give you ethnic groups and bordering nations that you can draw more inspiration from to expand out your worldbuilding.

Don’t forget to make sure you’re staying within the same time period in order to keep things consistent. It’s a lot of work, and this is only for a small portion of the continent-spanning worldbuilding you’re trying to do.

You can get away with painting the rest of the continent in broad strokes without too much depth if the story doesn’t go there and you don’t have any main characters from those parts of the world. Otherwise, you’ll need to put this same level of detail into your worldbuilding for the area with Turkish-inspired names, and again for the area with Sanskrit-inspired names, and so on.

I know this isn’t what you were asking, but I honestly have a hard time helping you figure out where to start because your ask is so broad I don’t quite know where I would start myself. So, this is my advice: focus down on one region and time period and go from there. Feel free to write back once you’ve picked a narrower focus that we could help you with.

- Niki

So there’s logistical issues in regards to your naming system for southern China-coded regions. One issue is history: mainly on how there is not simply one language in China but multiple due to having a lot of ethnic groups and the size of China. South China in particular has different dialects and languages than the North as seen in this map of Chinese languages and dialects. There’s also how historically Mandarin was not the official language until 1913 in China and historical China saw vast changes in territory dependent on the dynasty. Before then, Mandarin was primarily a northern Chinese language based in Beijing while southern China had its own languages, dialects, and dynamics. Not to mention, historical China saw an evolution of language just like English has Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English. For instance, Vietnam was once part of China during the Tang Dynasty and at another point, it was not part of China.

-Mod Sci

If You’re Borrowing Whole Words or Elements, Research More

The other issue is inconsistency with the cultures you’re deriving this conlang from. In regards to “two given names,” the Chinese name I was given was one syllable and then I would have a last name that was also one syllable. There’s also how not every family is perfect. Not every marriage is sanctioned and some children may come from single parents. Some families may not cooperate with marriage and sometimes children may be abandoned with unknown parents. There does not seem to be contingencies for these names under this conlang system.

The main problem with conlangs is that one needs to truly understand the languages one is drawing from. Tolkein managed to create conlangs due to training in linguistics. Mandarin is already a difficult language with multiple tones, and trying to use it for conlangs without knowledge of how Mandarin works or a good foundation in linguistics is just a Sisyphean endeavor.

-Mod Sci

Four years of French wouldn’t have taught you about linguistics as a science or anything about the language families you’ve listed - Indo-Iranian, Sino-Tibetan, and Turkic, nor any Asian naming conventions. I agree with Niki that you need to narrow down your research.

Pur/pura means city in Sanskrit (ex: Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur). Prayag is a place where pilgrimages are done. Naga isn’t a place name in Sanskrit (google says it means snake), nagar is and it means town. X Nagar is a very common name for places (Ex: Rajinder Nagar). Many cities in Karnataka have names ending in uru (Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Tumakuru, etc) but the language of Karnataka is Kannada - a Dravidian language and completely different family from Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan). I’m not sure where “pete” came from. “Bad” and “vaal” are common suffixes for places too (Ex: Faisalabad, Allahabad). A disclaimer that I do not speak Sanskrit, I speak Punjabi, which is a descendant of Sanskrit and in the same linguistic family (Indo-Aryan languages).

- SK

Also, This Is Not…Really Conlanging.

Hi OP. Linguistics refers to the science of studying how languages work, not the discipline of learning languages. And nothing shows that gap more than how you have thus far approached constructing fictional languages and toponyms. 

The reason why Sci and SK have a lot to say about your place names is because they don't resonate—you have borrowed whole words into your toponyms (place names) from a variety of languages—without an accurate understanding of what these words mean, how they’re pronounced, where they’re derived from—and expected them to work together. I suggest you read the links below on why conlanging is not as simple as choosing some languages and mashing their IRL words together: 

Why Using Random Languages Wholesale in your Fantasy is a Bad Idea 

Pitfalls of Mashing Countries and Languages in Coding

In your city names, for example, you’re using star names from multiple languages that use different sets of sounds represented by different sets of historical spelling rules. “Cygn-” and “Arcana” stick out like a sore thumb—the fact that one “c” is /s/ and one is /k/ is an obvious flag that they are Latin-derived English borrowings. This is because spelling rules were created in Middle English to make sense of the mix of “c” pronunciations across words of Indo-European origin due to a historical split called the Centum-Satem division. This is a phenomenon that is very specific to our world history, and to the history of English at that. Ironically, in your attempt to avoid stock fantasy names (which also often fall into the Latin-derived English pit), you are taking the exact same approach to naming.

Like Niki said, your selections are far too broad to code under a single umbrella. Do you expect that whatever language that city name came from runs the full gamut of sound inventory & spelling variety that spans multiple continents and hundreds of languages? Because that’s not how languages work. (And yes, I mean hundreds. Indigenous languages and linguistic diversity are a thing. See Niki’s note about just the languages in Persia. And nation-states bulldozing over those languages and pretending it’s just one language is a thing. See Sci’s note about China.) I haven't even talked about the variation in morphology (how words are formed) or syntax (sentence structure).

Please just read or re-read my guide on “naming conlangs” in this post and start from there.

~ Rina

PSA ON CONLANGING AND FANTASY NAMES:

For fantasy language asks submitted after Nov 1, 2023, the asker must indicate that they have read Mod Rina’s conlanging posts linked in FAQ 2 (Guides and Posts by Topic) of the Masterpost under the question “How do I make a fictional language for my story?” While this is an older ask, we are posting it as an example to our followers.

Per our new rules, any questions that can be directly answered in or extrapolated from the FAQs, or questions that indicate that the relevant resources haven’t been read, will be deleted with a note in the Deletion Log explaining why.

As always, if this post was helpful or educational to you, please consider tipping the relevant mods: SK, Niki, Sci, and Rina.

Edited for terminology errors

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

Word of the week rules and submissions!

What is this?

This is no longer a tournament as that takes too much time and admin. We have also already decided that многоꙮчитїй/ mnogoočitii from Old church slavonian is the best word, so no need to do that again. Instead, I will use this blog to highlight a word (or a couple of words) every week (or other time period if the queue runs out) from languages which aren't English. This will be based on reader submissions with me editing for clarity and adding a blurb about the language, much like in the tournament.

In short, tell me about your favourite words! Let's all learn something new! (My favourite phase of the tournament was definitely research/round one)

Who are you?

I'm a linguistics student and language nerd from Sweden who decided to run a tournament of non-English words because I wanted to highlight language diversity. My native language isn't English, so please be kind if my posts are worded weirdly sometimes (or my username is misspelled lol)

What makes a word good?

There are many ways that a word can be good, but here are some examples: it sounds good/feels good to say, the script looks nice, it denotes an interesting concept, it denotes a concept you like, it does something interesting grammarwise, usagewise or soundwise, it's funny, it's an interesting/fun compound, it has an interesting/fun etymology, it just has good vibes... The possibilities are endless

Rules:

No words in English, but loanwords from English are allowed with good motivation

No conlangs (I love them but the focus is on natural language)

Words from signed languages are allowed and encouraged as long as you can provide an explanatory picture or film for the sign

Words from pidgins are allowed

Words from extinct languages are allowed

Usage should be widespread within a language community (if it isn't/wasn't used in the language it doesn't belong, neither does words only your family/friend group uses, but slang words are allowed)

No words that have appeared in the tournament or previously on word of the week (search for the word on my blog, all words are tagged)

How submissions and posting work (read these before submitting):

Each person is can make two submissions at a time. Please wait until yours have been posted before you submit more

The submission form is currently open. It will remain so until I have too many unposted submissions, then open again when those have been scheduled

If you're able to, please provide an IPA transcription for your word (the International Phonetic Alphabet has a sign for each sound used in any language, which makes transcription of exact pronounciation possible)

You will need to provide a translation/explanation of the word in English since that is the language used on the blog for ease of communication and reach. If the exact translation of a word is part of what makes the word good, please provide that too

It is possible to be credited for your submission if you want to

If more than 5-6 words in the same language are submitted, all of them might not be posted until some time has passed to avoid one language dominating

I reserve the right to pick which words I want to share if I have many submissions and don't want to do all of them. I do this in my very limited spare time because I think language is fun and if it doesn't spark joy I won't do it

Submissions will be fact-checked, edited for clarity and get a short text about the language. If I find something interesting while researching I might add a note about that as well

Have fun! I can't wait to see your submissions and learn something new!

Submit your word(s) through this form

[m1dori-eyes]

Be wary of linguistics rant, Elden Ring ahead

Ok so I just made a different post about this but I need to elaborate: The Elden Ring messaging system is legitimately such an interesting microcosm about how language is used as a tool and shaped to suit the needs it's being used for. I could actually make an entire study about how this can be used to better understand the formation of pidgin languages in the same way that epidemiologists studied the Corrupted Blood Incident in World of Warcraft to better understand the mechanics of how disease affects human behavior. Video games as an academic lens into peoples' minds has always been a fascinating topic to me, and by the end of this, you'll see why.

First off, message.

So for those not indoctrinated into the series/game, Elden Ring is a big open world game made by From Software, which won game of the year 2022 among some other awards (if you've played it or know anything about it, just skip to the next header). Each player plays as a Tarnished and explores this massive environment called The Lands Between individually, but if another player is walking in the same area that you are, you can see their "ghost" moving through the world, and you can "invade" or "be summoned" into another player's iteration of the world in order to briefly interact with it before returning to your own iteration. This occupies a weird space in between singleplayer and multiplayer, with these heavily limited and kind of random methods of interaction between players, but that's not the most interesting way of communicating with your fellow Tarnished; that title goes to the messages system. You can write a message onto a small stone, and leave it on the ground, and then that little stone with the message on it will have a random chance to appear in any player's iteration of the world for them to read. This is a tradition which has been going in From Software's games long since before the inception of Elden Ring, although I'm mostly going to be focusing on the message system of that title, because documenting the history of the 13+ years running Soulsbourne franchise is way too much, even for a nerd like me. The point is that messages are a lot more likely to be seen than any other method of player-to-player interaction, and you can even leave little "gestures" to go with them, where the reader can see your character striking a pose while they read the message. What a neat little mechanic, which definitely doesn't have any hidden layers of depth, and certainly wouldn't spawn an entire emergent system of pseudolinguistics, right?

No message ahead, be wary of mimicry

Well, when I said that messages are written by other players, that was a lie. To make a message, you don't type it out with your keyboard, you select what you want to say, from a big list of preset phrases. It works that way for a lot of reasons, foremost of all as a profanity filter, but also to prevent too many spoilers and maintain atmosphere. The sets of phrases are incredibly limiting, famously requiring players to use weird fake old-english diction in order to express a simple thought (Strong foe ahead, be weary of death. Look carefully ahead, visions of item. Suffering, o suffering, why is it always bad luck? etc). This seems like a limitation which would put a serious damper on anyone trying to actually communicate their thoughts, but gamers are a persistent sort, and have a lot of trouble taking no for an answer. They also have way too much time on their hands, and like to solve puzzles, a terrifying combination of traits, and the perfect one to accidentally create a conlang. With the unexpectedly massive audience that this game picked up on launch, millions of people left messages desperately trying to get something across, and if the game's preset vocabulary didn't contain the phrases to express it, they would forge their own path. Any big fans of linguistic history can already tell the direction that this might be going, as we move on into the next chapter:

Teacher, Liar, Lovable Sort

When the game released, there was chaos. The Lands Between are fraught with hidden passages, deception, and blatant bullshit, and the first kind of players leaving messages tried to helpfully communicate what you could trust, and what you couldn't. This is what the message system was intended for after all, giving advice to your peers, and what many people still use it for today. The second kind of players tried to do the opposite, deliberately leading people to their doom, just because they could. The third, and most numerous sort, were simply awestruck at everything the game had to offer, and left a series of remarks on the beauty and humor of the world. The messages left by each group are pretty easy to differentiate to the trained eye, which is the main feature causing me to point out this division of players. Let's call these groups the teachers, the liars, and the lovable sorts. A teacher can be recognized if their messages suggest something within reason, and being backed up by the peer-review of nearby messages to the same effect. If three messages are all sitting on the ground next to eachother, each saying something along the lines of "seek up, look carefully ahead", then a local collage of teachers are trying to let you know about a secret path ahead leading you up towards a hidden objective. However, a single message next to a bloodstained cliff-edge stating "jumping required ahead" is almost certainly a liar, trying to deceive an unsuspecting player into making a dubious leap. Liars sometimes use slightly simpler grammar than teachers do, being less committed to getting their point across. Wait a minute, linguistic variance based on intent? No no, this is just a video game about fighting monsters, surely such an interesting emergent system wouldn't arise from something like that. Lastly, the lovable sorts have the most ranging grammar, spanning from a simple word such as "dog" (a word used colloquially to describe all creatures, from turtles to dragons), to complex sentences requiring the combination of many phrases. However, a lovable sort can be differentiated by the fact that they merely remark upon the world as it is, instead of trying to offer advice to other players, as a teacher or liar might. Some of their most iconic phrases are "Elden ring ahead", used to sarcastically denote a dead end where a player might have been expecting treasure, "you don't have the right, o, you don't have the right" which indicates a locked door, or the world-famous "try finger, but hole", a phrase which explains itself. The most incredible thing about the words of the lovable sort, is that they all require a little bit of thinking to understand their actual meaning, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes like a second language to you! Wait a minute, a second language?

Message? Wasn't expecting introspection

As time went on, the three main groups of message-writers still kept chugging along, creating new works of writing every day, but advancements in understanding of the game's inner workings allowed these messages to become more and more complex. Compound words started to be formed to represent concepts outside of the preset vocabulary, like "skeleton, house" for coffin, "dung, key" to describe the donkeys accompanying traveling merchants, and "edge, lord" being used to refer to the NPC Ensha, a man wearing flamboyant armor made out of bones who takes himself way too seriously. It's worth noting in this section that for a specific period of time, The Lands Between were overtaken by a horde of messages stating only the words "fort, night". Despite the crude and humorous nature of the entire thing, it was clear to see that the linguistic patterns of the Elden Ring community were evolving into their own beast, far beyond the usages that the developers had intended. Words had shed their original meaning, to instead take up contextual meanings based on how players used them, effectively becoming different words entirely. Depending on how you define this, it's either a microcosm of incredibly fast and severe linguistic drift, or the emergence of a new pidgin or conlang entirely. If you really stretch things, you could almost call the message system of Elden Ring an entirely new language in and of itself.

Well done, victory ahead!

I think that video games are an excellent way to observe human behavior under conditions which are controlled, accelerated, and completely recordable, and this is the closest that we've ever seen to an entire language growing completely from scratch. People are always the same, whether you want to call it instinct or just cyclical tendencies, but normally the formation of a new language can take incredible periods of time, hastened only by tragic events like diaspora or massive losses of cultural knowledge (research what's been happening to Gaelic as a spoken language for more info about this sort of thing, it's kind of depressing but is also important to learn about, and there's a lot of people on this site talking about it who can do the topic way more justice than I can). Even for other topics which either require great passage of time, or great tragedy in order to research (I.E. geology or epidemiology, respectively), there are a lot of simulations and predictive models which can tell us how these systems behave without actually experiencing them. Linguistics has never had this sort of thing...until now, perhaps. Obviously there won't be any academic breakthroughs based on a bunch of people online all writing "rump ahead", but it's an incredibly interesting thing to see happening for a field which is so hard to actively advance, and it could lead to actual scientific methods of generating new languages via human interaction for research purposes. Of course, there's always the sizable chance that this goes nowhere and I just wrote this insane rant because I like to type, but if nothing else, I at the very least exposed some of my mutuals to "try finger, but hole".

[uphillsky]

CONLANG COMMUNITY OF TUMBLR

I am currently trying to decipher the conlang of Dark Tongue, the language of Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy and 40k, using minimal and inconsistant references. I'd say I'm making pretty good headway for what I'm working with, having deciphered near enough half of the compound words and root meanings that I actually have as sources. That being said, I have run into several issues that I could use help with:

The phonemes of this language do not map onto english, but I do have access to the phonetic alphabet used by the language. Is there any way to set up such that I can type in that script?

Two of the phonemes don't make any sense. They have been written as (I, ee) and (E, ii), and I cannot figure out the correct pronounciation for either of them - and they do some heavy lifting as vowel sounds in this language. Please help in some way lol

I just straight up don't have enough sources. This one is a call to fans of 40k and Warhammer Fantasy: please send in some excerpts you can find that feature the Dark Tongue, used by Chaos rituals, magic, and daemons, which has a corrupted form used by the Beastmen (making it less useful but still a potential source).

I do not study languages outside of having a creative writing degree and a passing knowledge of French (I can tell people that I don't speak it). Please help in any way cause I am in over my head lol

I am more than willing to go into details to any degree, and would in fact shout into the void if I but thought the void wanted to listen. Any help as appreciated!

[aromantisk-fagforening]

Not to be nerdy and queer, but imagine making a conlang with like 10 base genders (gender systems maybe?), where gender affects verbs and adjectives and stuff, also designing it for being easy to make language for your own genders (high variation between spelling of pronouns and adjective modification, unlike French).

[kjagasanpijrtu]

Hi! I do conlang commissions!

Call me Ire (she/they). I'm 23 and I'm away too into worldbuilding for my own good. I love talking about all these worlds locked up in my head and giving advice. My askbox is open for anyone looking for advice or guidance, or just interest in any of my worlds or conlangs

Speaking of conlangs, I DO COMMISSIONS I CAN AND WILL MAKE ONE FOR YOU IF YOU WANT. I may or may not have a special interest in linguistics lmao

For anyone interested in my credentials, I've made 7 or so conlangs and contributed to a few extra, and I specialize in synthetic and polysynthetic inflection. My commissions are open and actively support me while I put myself through the hell that is american higher education. I'd love it so much if you'd let me make a language for you!

Pricing and terms below the cut, dm if interested <3

Ko-fi Venmo

I divide the languages I make into 4 parts: Phonology, Grammar, Dictionary, and Writing System. I charge a certain amount for each part depending on the desired complexity for each, and I can do all or some parts depending on your needs. For example I can make an entire language from scratch or I can focus on, say, just the phonology or dictionary if you would prefer to do the other parts yourself

In other words you're basically ordering a custom language like a sandwich, as stupid as that sounds. I'm very flexible so don't be afraid to tell me what you're looking for, especially if it's weird (I love weird, don't hold back). Just beware that complexity charges may apply at any stage if what you're looking for is particularly laborious

TL;DR: A barebones conlang with 150 words and no writing system costs about $35. A language with the full complexity and dumbassery of English with 550 words would be $138 (and might incur some complexity charges)

Additional details at the bottom (they are important please read them). Interspersed are some samples of writing systems I've made, all of which have alt text that contain some juicy details. Prices are in USD

Phonology /fəʊ.nɑːɫə.d͡ʒi/

How you want the language to sound. Choose one.

Simple Phonology - $5

I'll make a vowel and consonant chart for the language's phonemic inventory with IPA characters (as seen above). This of course will also include a romanized alphabet you can use to make your own words if you wish.

Full Phonotactics - $10

Everything in Simple Phonology plus more details including charts of possible syllable structure & consonant clusters, vowel stress & tone, and any other phonological feature you'd like to add.

Grammar ∅

How you want the language to work. Can be similar to or vastly different from English, all up to you. Choose one.

Basic Grammar - $20

I'll make rules that cover basic sentences and questions, including basic inflection for nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs if applicable. Includes ~50 basic and grammatical words.

Complex Grammar - $30

Everything in basic grammar plus extra rules that cover complex sentences and word derivation (which may give you extra free words!)

Natlang Grammar - $50

All the bells and whistles. All of the above plus extra declensions, inconsistencies, and situational grammatical constructs. You'll be putting me through the wringer.

Dictionary 📖

The words themselves, even the weird ones.

Words - $10 Per 100 Words

I'll build you a dictionary for your language, word by word. You're welcome to also interpret this as 10¢ per word if you just need a handful. Plus I have a word bank so you can customize what general topics you want to focus on.

Writing System 𐎧𐏁𐎠𐎹𐎰𐎡𐎹

How you want your language to be natively written (my fav part). See below to decide what works best for your language if you want one.

Alphabet - $20 ΑΛΦΑΒΕΤ

A writing system where each character represents a single sound. A versatile choice that can work for pretty much any language, as evidenced by the Latin alphabet and its variations being the most used writing system in the world.

Abjad - $25 أبجد عربي

The predecessor to the alphabet which only writes consonants and rarely includes vowels. Best used for languages that have a heavy focus on consonants and where vowels don't carry much grammatical meaning, like Arabic, Ge'ez, or Aramaic.

Alpha-Syllabary/Abugida - $25 한글 अबुगिदा

A middleground option between an alphabet and a syllabary, where each character is made up of smaller parts that come together to represent a syllable. Another versatile choice used all over the Indian subcontinent and the Korean Peninsula.

Syllabary - $35 ひらがな カタカナ ᏣᎳᎩ

A writing system where every character represents a syllable. Fits best with languages that have lots of open syllables, like Japanese, Inuktitut, or Cherokee. More expensive because syllabaries often contain a large number of characters.

Logography - $1 Per Word 漢字

A writing system where every character reassembles a whole word or concept. Can work for any kind of language but works best with languages that are phonologically dense and/or have simple grammar.

Mixed - Negotiable وαत ðə ファⲕ 암 あй रीᏗŋ

Want a system that incorporates more than one of these? Great! Those are my favorite to make!

Number System - $8 ٩ ٨ ٧ ٦ ٥ ٤ ٣ ٢ ١ ٠ I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

If you want I can create a written number system to pair with your writing system. It can be simple or complex and can be any base you want (within reason of course).

To make this as easy as possible for me to understand what to make for you, please provide a reference, idea, or general vibe for each part of the language. I understand not everyone has that much knowledge about languages so I won't request anything too specific, but examples from real-world languages usually give me a lot to work with.

Terms ⚠️

Final product will be a single Excel Spreadsheet (.xlsx file) for one language that contains instructions on how to use and expand the language. Unfortunately I don't have enough experience with vector files or fonts to provide digital versions of the writing systems I make so photos of hand-drawn characters are all I offer for now.

Payment is minimum 50% upfront and the rest upon completion before the final product is delivered, as it divides the trust evenly between two unfamiliar parties. I accept payment through Venmo and Ko-fi only (no crypto or other bullshit).

Refunds: if something occurs where I will not be able to fulfill a commission, I will do what I can to return any money given to me. However if significant work has been put into a commission before an event that prevents its completion, the initial 50% payment will not be refunded.

Usage: if the language I make for you is used in a publicly released creative project, I ask that you credit me. Please notify me if you plan on using your language commercially.

I maintain the right to alter terms and pricing.

Thank you for reading this far ur amazing <3

[yersina]

a linguist plays chants of sennaar (pt 5)

[pt 1] [pt 2] [pt 3] [pt 4]

the home stretch!!

disclaimer: can't promise that i'll have any insights that a layperson wouldn't have, this is kinda just me thinking through the grammar of the language out loud haha.

this post covers the fifth and last language in chants of sennaar and will contain spoilers for both the language and the endgame! it also assumes you know what the symbols mean already.

i.... to be completely honest with you, i did not enjoy this language 😂 i think the experience of deciphering it got lost in favor of the storyline, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for everyone, but hey, i am the one going through each of these languages like a linguistic bloodhound here lol. because of that, i'm not as familiar with these words as i am with the other languages.

before we get into anything else, and also because i imagine that this will be a shorter post because the game itself tells you what patterns to look for, i do want to say that this language strikes me as being incredibly artificial. which is a good thing! it emulates the digital apocalypse vibe that exile gives. but a language that leans so heavily into being constructed and recombined and modulated so easily really gives me the impression that it was created and not organically developed. the only other irl example that comes to mind at the moment is korean hangeul, which was purposefully created by king sejong and is an alphabet, not a logography. like, this is a language that i would make for fun in high school (which is to say, it gives a kind of overly grammatically strict, awkwardly too regular vibe?).

it's kind of funny that this language is where i'm starting to get reminded of conlangs, especially when, well, everything in this game is a conlang. but if we take each of the radicals in this language as affixes/morphemes when they're being combined into one character, then this actually reminds me of a specific conlang (ithkuil, i think?) where you can convey incredibly complex ideas through very few words.

the language of the anchorites isn't quite this complex, but hopefully the comparison gets my point across?

i’m curious if only certain elements can be combined with each other or if there’s a certain order to them, but it’s hard to tell when there’s such limited evidence in the game. interestingly, i believe the anchorites’ language is the only one in this game that makes a distinction between “die” and “death/dead” by combining the noun with the verb “go”. not sure why the developers suddenly made that decision haha.

this language, like most in the game, is an SVO language, which we can see below:

but i think also they (the developers) were trying to convey more complex sentence structures than their language was designed to communicate??? so then you end up w smth like below:

which, if you translated literally, would actually be “you man i wait”. again, super interesting bc i think an actual, more accurate anchorite sentence should be “i wait you man”. they have a more complex sentence here bc of the predicate (“you’re the one”) and the dative (“for”), but really the sense that they’re trying to go for is “i was awaiting the one [who is you]”. i guess it’s possible that different grammatical cases are treated differently in this language, or that, like english, word order is occasionally variable (even tho that option seems iffy bc we haven’t really seen evidence of it before), but tbh i suspect that really it’s that the developers wrote the dialogue and then brute forced it into the anchorite language haha. no shade! (and also impossible to confirm either way lol) just kinda amusing and also it makes sense when it’s p obvious their focus shifted from the language to the story.

this trend continues throughout all of the anchorite dialogue (imo) and makes it kinda slow and awkward to read if you don’t have all of the characters translated. in my opinion, the way that the language functions in the last part of this game makes it pretty clear that the developers meant for you to rely on the given translations during this potion of the game, especially when the translation mechanic is mostly through the matching terminals in exile, rather than speaking with people.

annoyingly, the anchorites’ language is also the only one in the game that doesn’t have words for the other people/cultures in the game (demonyms), which also doesn’t give much to work off of in terms of cultural context, relationships, etc.

again, i’ve decided not to get into an in-depth orthographic analysis of this particular language bc the game itself introduces you to them. one that i noticed that wasn’t specifically addressed in-game is the similarity between “open” and “key”, which is something that i actually also noted before in the devotees’ language. i’m sure there are others, but i’m also sure you can find them yourself!

all in all, a strange ending to this game. if you’ve made it this far in all of my posts—thanks for hanging around! hope you were able to learn smth new :)

[y-rhywbeth2]

Elves: Language/s

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index[tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. There's a lot of lore; I don't know everything. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest. Frankly these posts may get updated now and then. etc]

Physiology and quirks | Names & Clans and Houses || Pan-Cultural things: Social life | Time and 'Growing Up an Elf' | Homes | Language | Art | Entertainment | Technology || Elven 'Subraces' still a wip || Philosophy and Religion & Pantheons || Half-elves | [WIP]

I have a weak spot for fictional languages and a compulsive need to poke them with a stick and babble about it. It was this or get sucked into trying to build actual headcanoned conlangs out of this nonsense. So.

If your character has elven on their character sheet: no they don't, the elves are just humouring you. No PCs actually learned this istg.

'Are you still putting off that elven subrace post?' YES.

The 'Elvish' you put on your character sheet as a language proficiency - or Lalur ('the Singing') in Elvish - is actually a pidgin tongue akin to Common, a 'simple' trade tongue that allows elves from various backgrounds to communicate. Elven languages tend to be varied, sometimes to an extreme extent. Drowic altered rapidly due to adapting to Underdark survival and meddling from the church of Lolth, and each drow city has a different dialect; and the Lythari dialect is utterly unlike any other.

As per the advice in Drow of the Underdark (1e), it's a perfectly valid choice to simply cherry pick words from canon glossaries and invent your own elven languages and dialects.

'Standard' Elven seems to look like this: 'Ai armiel telere maenen hir.' 'Qu’kiir vian ivae, qu’kiir nethmet. Ivae marat vand Cormanthor. Mythal selen mhaor kenet. Qu’kiir vand tir t’nor' Very big on diphthongs and ' .

Menzoberranzan Drowic looks like this: 'Khaless nau uss mzild taga dosstan.' 'Kyorl jal bauth, kyone, lueth lil Quarvalsharess xal belbau dos lil belbol del elandar dro.' They like their hard double consonants along with their dipthongs.

And the Lythari dialect looks like this: 'Na kwast wahir athu kyene wekht unarihe.' Seem to be a lot of 'clipped' sounds.

Put a moon elf a drow and an elven lycanthrope in the same room and tell them they have to use their mother tongue and they're not going to get anything done. A fluent speaker of the standard surface elven can make out about 14% of drowic by linguistic overlap, but nothing more, and such applies to other elves: a group of green elves and a migration of aquatic elves that encountered each other once had to spend time breaking down language barriers to talk to each other.

Usually the structure of elven languages flows like English, because the writers aren't actually making a genuine conlang. And then sometimes it really doesn't which makes trying to mine vocabulary and grammar annoying.

As well as spoken languages for daily communication, there are complicated mystical formal languages like Seldruin and 'High Drow' which is used by powerful spellcasters (High Mages and High Priestesses of Lolth respectively).

Elves also utilise alternate forms of communication like sign language and a sort of braille on a regular basis, even if abled. Drow are most known for their use of sign language (its lack of verbal component in particular is useful in the open Underdark, where making a noise is extremely likely to guarantee your death) but surface elves also use it, and use of 'braille' was promoted by moon elves for the sake of the visually impaired and blind, though many sighted elves also use it for secret messaging. Drow in particular make use of it for that, but they're hardly alone.

The alphabet elves use to write in Elven and Common is espruar, created by moon elves and adopted by other elven people (likely due to the amount of wandering and mixing the early moon elves got up to, pre-Crown Wars).

Comes in two variants, the latter of which is the most usually seen:

There's also an older variant of pictograms used by early elves that were 'predecessors' of the Thorass alphabet... which also might actually double as music instructions.

Seldruin is written in a distinct and basically extinct alphabet called Hamarfae.

Elven includes at least six grammatical tenses not found in the languages of shorter lived races to accommodate the elven understanding of time. While it hasn't come up in canon, with the Seldarine being ambiguous about gender elves should probably also have more complicated grammatical gender as well.

Just about every word in Common has about ten or more potential translations in an elvish language, each with a slightly different nuance which may be context sensitive as every word in elven appears to have several meanings within itself. Sort of like there's a word for every facet of a concept or thing, depending on what about the topic you specifically want to discuss.

Want to talk about the winter this year? Two words that will get translated into 'winter' in Common are Loress and Orth. Loress means winter as in the aspect of the season as a period of dormancy, slowing down and hibernation and winter's effect on plant life, you'd probably use it to discuss gardening and crops. Orth means winter in its aspect as a period of danger and consequences (closed roads and frostbite and death by exposure). But in common they just say 'winter.'

What you stress and how you use it will give you an entirely different sentence.

For general elven: Ar means great, Cor also means great, Selu means great.

Cor has connotations of 'grandness' and 'monarch,' carrying connotations of highest authority, and possibly a sort of peak: the highest point its possible to reach, and maybe culmination and fulfilment.

Ar also means 'sun,' probably the colour gold (since teu means silver and moon), as well as connotations of a high rank and the responsibility of guardianship and/or guidance judging by the title 'Arakhor' (ar + akh (duty-need) + or (woods) - the tree guardian, grandfather tree, the one who protects the woods)

(Thus gold elves, the Ar'Tel'Quessir have a name that communicates that they are the people of the sun (by golden appearance and affiliation with Labelas Enoreth), the 'highest' of the People, and they are those with a duty to look after the elven people and their ways.)

Not sure about selu, it places an emphasis on a translation into 'high' and it mostly crops up in connotations of High Magic. Usually gets contracted to sel, like 'Seldarine.'

And then, by changing the stressed syllable, a word has a different meaning.

For example 'Cormanthor,' 'Cormanthor,' and 'Cormanthor' are three different words!

Combining Cor = 'Grand/great ' + Manth = 'Promise/vow,' apparently with connotations of hoping/having faith in the promised outcome + Or = 'Wood,' 'place,' probably also 'copper'

Cormanthor means 'the King's Vow Forest.' Referring to the forest of Cormanthor.

Cormanthor means 'Place of Great Promise.' Referring to the capital city of Myth Drannor, Cormanthor.

Cormanthor means 'Ruler of the Forest True,' and 'King of the Oathlands,' was the green elven title for the coronal (king) of Cormanthor. Apparently when stress is taken of manth and or they combine meanings to get 'faithful-wood/land' or 'oathland'

And then there's 'Cormanthyr' which is a different word altogether whose nuance can be translated as 'the Fulfilment of Promise' and 'Culmination of Hope and Faith' simultaneously.

Also sometimes seems like nouns double as adjectives.

Theur means 'shield' and 'unbreakable,' 'unyielding.'

Aegan means 'physical strength' and 'strong.'

Plurals are just come in so many variants.

Vel -> Vael Sig -> Sige Or -> Ora Athil -> Athila Quess -> Quessir

[rusty-gloinks]

MURDER DRONES EPISODE 5 : Random details and favorite parts of this episode

Will be putting major spoilers under cuts if anyone has NOT seen the new episode, or has yet to see it. CW/TW: Blood, body horror, murdery stuff! SPOILERS!! AHHH!!! You get the point. I am not responsible for your actions :3

(This post is a mix of different things btw, Md related tho)

None of this will be in order, and I might need to make a PART TWO!!! Since the total is 45 images. :’)

FIRST UP. I would like to take the time to appreciate doll so have some LOVELY LITTLE images of her I took.

She looks so fucking awesome???? Like holy shit. She slayed!!!!!

not to be fruity .but. yea

SHE. also Isn’t that the campsite? Or just a different location with the same appearance.

OKAY. Next up. BABYGIRL . I SQUEALED AT LIKE EVERY SCENE OF THEM SHES SO FUCKING CUTE. MAN😭

BLEEEEEH (I’m going to make this my icon soonthat was the purpose of the screenshot. Also because I love them)

World is mine by Hatsune mi- cyn. World is mine by cyn. The famous vocaloid /j (HSES 😭😭😭😭)

Noticing how her balance is SOOO Much better while holding someone?. Also MOOD .just like me .real 💔

i lov e you🥺EEEK /p. Shes melting

MY SIB AND I WERE FUCKIJG DYING OVER THE PUPPY EYES.LMAO. I love their humor

J* , and they locked her in the basement. I am so SAD about this information

PROTECTIVE BIG BRO MODE…babys

Okay, listen, i know these 2 got shipped before the release but OUCH this makes things so much weirder!!! eugh:( (mainly saw em as friends.tttotallt not becsuse I project my friendship with my silly mutual onto them.no. /sarc)

anyways forget them being friends as my headcanon. THEYRE FUCKING SIBLINGS EVEN BETTER!!! (prjdedcts me and my elder sib onto th— *gets killed /j*

GAY RIGHTS(After the 2nd watch i realized she was making them kiss each other and I started laughing so hard my sides hurt)

Okay glitch QUIT SHOWING OFF. god damn !!!!! Literally appreciating this scenery so hard. 10000/10. :3

YKNOW HW I WANTED TO SEE TEARS IN THE NEW EPISODE!! LOOK. KIND OF CLOSE!!

LOOK HES SOBBING!!!! ALMOST. I GOT WHAT I WANTED OMFG!!!!! YAYYA!!!! (Love it when ppl cry /j

Lovely little lad. Reading abt dogs:) so cute…

subtle hints of favoritism..👀(she obvs likes J more I think,)

I love how immediately i could tell this was drawn by Liam. Canonically J in the show but like his style is so adorable and bouncy!!!! AND LIKE yummyys:3 eated

Cute detail in Uzi’s room. SHE LIKES BABY COWS GUYS. ITS TIME TO MAKE FANART OF UZI WITH BABY COWS. /J

Blushys:)!

For those wondering what this is it’s basically a ripoff of YouTube. The caption is titled "Top 100 Doors ever!!11!" and then the views at the bottom 😭😭. KHAN AND HIS FUCKING DOORS GOD DAMNIT

This part scared the shit out of me i was literally about to cry. I THIUGHTT SHE KILLED HIM

I had to slow this down and repeat the same clip OVER AND OVER Just to get it right, apparently the solver can swap roles? (The order is supposed to be yellow then purple since Uzi takes over as an admin instead of CYN.) very cool.

STP FIGHTING D:

BOTH VRY SCARY :(

Better glimpse of her backpack. Cute little skullbat zipper!! Also batteries. 👍

Apparently DEAD BATTERIES, aka the logo on Uzi’s sweater could be a possible band? Or reference to a band I don’t know? Like how they have my chemical robots (or something like that) as a ref to the band MCR (romance).

Sigh., N was that you.

Conlang? Fictional language? Glyphs? I’m assuming it’s VERY important (since liam lovessss foreshadowing, i will further elaborate). Hoping there will be ways to "simplify" it to english!

Yknow how in episode 2 Uzi takes braidens sentience or sumn like dat. Yea 💀

Alright I’ve hit the limit, gonna rb again with part 2!!!!! Soon. Maybe