On the surface, the title of this post sounds ludicrous. Make a language? How could anyone do that? But people have done it. I’m one of them. And this series will (I hope) help you to do the same. In the end, you should have all the knowledge needed to make your own constructed language (or conlang).
Why Make a Language?
I know, it doesn’t exactly sound like something a normal person would do, but there are reasons. They might not be good reasons, but they’re still reasons. So, why would you want to make your own language? Let me count the ways:
- Worldbuilding. You’re an author (or a screenwriter or game developer) and you need something more than just gibberish. Sci-fi has aliens, fantasy has elves, and even Hollywood action movies might want to have the bad guys speak in something other than obvious Arabic or Russian. This is, in my opinion, the most important reason, and the one that will be the main focus of this series of posts. Examples of “worldbuilding” conlangs include Tolkien’s Sindarin (as seen in Lord of the Rings), Avatar‘s Na’vi, and the Dothraki language of Game of Thrones.
- Communication. The earliest attempts at created languages were mostly made to ease communication between speakers of multiple, indistinct tongues. In effect, they were trying to make their own lingua franca. That sort of thing still goes on (now usually called an “auxiliary language”, sometimes shortened to auxlang). Esperanto is the most famous example of this class of conlang, but it also includes Lojban and older efforts such as Ido and Novial.
- Art and philosophy. Some languages are created purely for their artistic effect, or specifically engineered to some ideal. Either way, they aren’t necessarily intended to be spoken. Rather, they’re more to be admired. The language Toki Pona fits into this class, as it was specifically designed as a kind of experiment in minimalism, while Ithkuil forms an almost perfect counterpart of extreme complexity.
- Secrecy. Writing down your thoughts in a form only you can understand certainly has its uses. After all, if you’re the only one who can read the language, then it’s effectively not much different from a one-time pad, right? (Well, not exactly. First, it probably won’t be much better than a cryptogram, since you’ll want something that’s easy for you to learn. Second, your notes will be as good as a key. Still, it might be fine for a diary or journal or something like that.) Obviously, there aren’t any good examples of a language like this.
- Fun. We don’t always need a reason to do things. Most conlangs are made because their creators wanted to make them. That includes most of my early efforts, for example. (I’d link to them, but they were never online to begin with.) Plus, it’s a good way to learn. Case in point: I hated English in school. Absolutely loathed it. Didn’t really care too much for Spanish in high school, either. Now, I’m writing this post, and I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t tried to make a language a long time ago. In the past 15 years, I’ve probably learned more about things like phonology, language evolution, and grammar in my spare time than many college graduates would pick up in a university setting (excluding those that major in linguistics, obviously).
What Are We Going To Do?
Well, the way I’ve planned it, the title of this post is a bit of a fib. We’re not going to make a language. We’re going to make two of them, running in parallel.
Language #1 is going to be the simpler, more familiar one. It’ll be a bit like English, with a lot of other influences, especially the top languages of Europe. There won’t be much here in the way of weird grammar or sounds that make you feel like throwing up when you try to pronounce them. We’ll call this language Isian.
The second language will be a bit more…advanced. Here, we can throw in odd sounds, strange words, and concepts that might boggle the mind of the average speaker of American English. It won’t be too far out there, and it won’t hold a candle to some of the real-world languages found in remote parts of Africa, the Amazon, or New Guinea, but it will be unlike any of the choices you probably had in high school. This language will be called Ardari.
For both languages, before we do anything, we’ll start with a little bit of theory for the bit of creating that we’re doing. For example, the first part of the series will be about phonology, so I’ll make a post that delves into the science of phonology and talks about how that relates to conlangs in general. That will be followed by a post where we create the sound system of Isian, then another that does the same for Ardari. Sometimes, if it’s a particularly small bit of info, I’ll combine both languages into a single post.
The Home Game
At any point along the way, comments are welcome, as are corrections and (constructive) criticism. This will be a bit of a democratic effort. (In other words, I’ll take all the help I can get!) And, of course, you’re perfectly welcome to play along at home, making your own conlang as we go. If you do, I’d love to see it, so don’t be afraid to post!