#conlanger things

[polysprachig]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjDqBz7kw1M)

Make yourself some popcorn, conlangers. Biblaridion Lang’s latest Youtube video about “How Not to Make a Language” is worth so much of a watch I can hardly impress it upon you enough.

[polysprachig]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFc3CvMMY48)

[polysprachig]

Question for Conlangers:

If you’ve already compiled your conlang vocab in a dictionary, to what extent did you personally include a general pronunciation guide and/or ipa?

[polysprachig]

Have you ever encountered conlanger's block with Ätchgö? If so, what types of block, and what are some ways you combat it?

I occasionally go through periods where I don’t work on ätchgö too much, usually because I’ve shifted my focus to another topic for the time being, but I still try to come up with at least a few words per week and I can’t say I’ve experienced a conlanger’s block with it. The three persistant, major problems I tend to have with conlanging however are: 

Misplacing a piece of paper that I know has a unique word, translation or chunk of a story on it so I have to hunt all over the place for it

Realising at some point (usually if I’m writing a long poetic text in ätchgöan) that a word combination is impossible to say in the given string of words, which at least recently has made me create a new construction to remedy it in some cases

The looming threat of needing to come up with a script

If you’re really struggling with conlanger’s block, I would recommend trying to translate something into your conlang. That way you don’t have to completely come up with something from scratch, but are still actively creating things in the language. (I’ve been working to translate some of my favourite quotes from the Epic of Gilgamesh (Standard Akkadian) and it’s super motivating and tons of fun!)

(:

[polysprachig]

Conlanging: Lexique pro is the lexicon building software I've been using. It's easy to use, free, and it seriously saved my life/conlang! 😘

Thanks for the tip! I’ll be sure to check it out. (:

[polysprachig]

Hi! Do you have any advice for someone that's trying to make up their own language for a book?

Practise babbling. It might sound incredibly weird at first, but once I had a number of sounds and definitive words in my conlang, I would mutter gibberish to myself in a way that sounded like it fit in the language. I learned that way which sounds worked and which ones didn’t, and realised how difficult (or practically phonetically impossible) a word or phrase I had initially written down was by trying to say it aloud in a variety of sentences.

Consider environment. This may sound like some next level shit, but hear me out. There is some interesting research out there on how location (ex: altitude, landscape, temperature) and a variety of other external factors may have influenced the development of a specific language in very specific ways. Depending on if there’s a fictional people to speak your fictional language in your book and if they’re prone to live in a certain environment, you might want to read up on features of non-related languages that are attributed to external factors in that kind of environment. It might give you some ideas of different elements to include in your conlang.

Write down everything, but know that your orthography will most likely change over time. Even conlangs have some level of natural evolution, or at least mine did in noticeable ways.

Heavily consider the universe in which your language exists. For instance, my conlang ätchgö is spoken by a bronze age nomadic group that died out before the Romans ever gained control in Egypt… or so it’s thought. This is reflected in both the wording and the finite amount of topics that can be discussed in the language and words that can exist.

Don’t aim for grammar rules that are too perfect and consistent. It makes the language appear too contrived imho. If a handful of phrases don’t make any literal sense but still mean a specific thing in your conlang, you can always chalk it up to some mistranslation, warped borrowing from another dialect, a dialectical thing that people argue is totally right or totally wrong, or simply of unknown origin. 

Create your own series of untranslatable words, idioms and/or etymologies. It adds a sense of realism to the language.

I hope this gave you some ideas, and I wish you the best of luck with your conlanging efforts!

- @polysprachig

[polysprachig]

have you ever had problems with ätchgö (creating new words, grammar) ? because currently i've been having problems with coming up with new words for my own conlang and i feel a little bit like i'm failing because it's my own language!) :'(

If you’re feeling a bit stuck with your conlang, I’d recommend two main things to get back at it:

Watch @dedalvs (i.e. Dothraki creator David Peterson’s) Youtube videos on conlanging. I recently got into them, and when it comes to great conlanging ideas, especially in regards to making up new words, he provides some really awesome insight. 

Practise translating songs into your conlang. You’d be surprised how much new grammar and vocabulary this forces you (in a fun way of course) to consider. Because ätchgö is created to be a historical language that died out sometime before the ancient Romans (possibly even before the ancient Greeks, my timeline for it is still in the works), I’ve been working to translate all the songs from the film The Prince of Egypt – especially since the vocabulary and themes in the songs includes things that would exist at the time of the ätchgöans.

[polysprachig]

I actually have a question, not for the game thingy! Do you have any tips for keeping a conlang organized when you are making it?

My top 3 recommendations for keeping your organized conlang would be:

Effectively keep track of your new vocabulary. Sometime’s I’ll make up new words or short poems when I’m out and about, and once I’m home I transfer the originals into my ätchgö folder (which is why I try to have index cards on me at all times) as well as handwrite them into my ätchgö notebooks.

Keep two notebooks for your conlang: one for scribbling around in and another for official language business. 

I use a composition graph ruled notebook for my scrapwork. It’s messy and all over the place, but that’s kind of the point. Before I did a lot of my work on random pieces of graph paper and I’m still hunding down loose sheets from the last few years to add to my folder. I recommend trying to avoid having to do that. This composition book is where I keep lists of translations I’m working on, different types of vocab (i.e. different parts of speech, thematic vocab, functional language), imaginary conversations, example sentences for new vocab, work out the IPA and make changes to spelling when necessary, and stick in post it notes with ideas for words or etymology that I haven’t fully thought out yet. 

My “official language business” book is small, golden and from Paperchase. It fits in my bag and I carry it around with me pretty often. It’s where I keep track of the rules of my conlang: syntax, pronouns, verb tense rules, prefixes, official etymology of key terms that I plan on using more in the future, idioms, notes on the linguistics debates between ätchgö scholars in regards to usage and the two dialects, and a mini-list of words that are inspired by places I visit.

Never write a word only once. It will be impossible to find when you need it. Even if it’s a rare word, make sure to provide yourself with at least a handful of pages where you’ve used that word so you don’t end up losing it. Consider keeping an updated list of rare words, and if you write literature in your conlang, keep good track of the names of the stories you have, where to find them, and what words are unique to them.

Hope that helps! I really wish I had done some of these things sooner myself. I’m reorganising everything at present.

[polysprachig]

concept: a langblr accent tag, but for conlangs