Conlangs?

Is anyone else making a language for a story?

I'm... thinking about it. I feel like I have to for most of my stories, because I want internal consistency, but there's only one that I feel like I need to do more than that. That's for Thyreia, the setting of my novel "Emerald Prince". 
But I'm... not going all out with it, really. I only started thinking that much about it after watching a couple of Youtube series about it -  this one and this one. 
So I started thinking about what their language would be like. Thyreia is a peaceful country of scholar sorcerers, so their language would be very technical and specific. They would place a lot of importance on using exact language, and they would have a lot of different words with slight nuances that can mean a lot. As for sound inventories... I speak some Japanese, so I decided to just go with that, except with a "th" sound (because it's in the name of the country already - but a soft th sound - English actually has two, which I only know from those videos. ^_^; ), and with syllables that can end in consonants. The main Thyreian character's name is Evindr, so I was also thinking that maybe the "-(c)r" ending could be a thing. I probably want to make a writing system but I haven't yet...

But... I don't really know anything about any of this. So... have you tried to do any language stuff? How did you do with it?

I haven't tried to make my own language because good LORD I do not have the attention span, but I actually do study fictional languages that already exist. If you don't plan on putting 210% effort into it, I suggest perhaps making it a dead or ancient/lo longer used language in your story, so it only comes up sometimes and maybe there's a character or two that can understand it.

So the first thing is the alphabetical and sound structure.
In English we have sounds like sh and ch and th that use two letters to make a new sound, but in many fictional languages these specific sounds are narrowed down to one symbol. K and C could also be condensed to one when the alphabet is sound-based, so many fictional languages have fewer characters than the classic Latin alphabet. You can also decide here which sounds you want to include or exclude and how the language sounds spoken on a range from harsh to smooth.
The structure could also vary. It could be written graphically like Mandarin, or in sound-based letters like English, or it doesn't even have to be linear. For example, words in Circular Gallifreyan are written with the sound symbols in counter-clockwise form.
Vowels are also something that varies in many fictional languages. In Circular Gallifreyan, vowels appear as half-circles of a certain size or location as opposed to full-circle consonants. In Quenyan, vowels are portrayed as accents and emphasis/pronunciation/location is determined by whether it is above or below it's holding consonant.

So after the sounds an alphabet, it comes to the actual word meanings. This is where you have to keep grammar in mind as well as root words. If you want the language to be specific as you say, then they probably would not have things like metaphors or idioms- think the way Drax speaks in Guardians of the Galaxy. For example, you could have a root word "dacr" or something, that generally means tooooo sayyy "dance". But this one word could be extended to meanings involving sports or movement in general; it could become equivalent to run, skip, walk, spin, etc.
But then you must consider conjugation. Maybe for "dacr", past tense could be "dacr'i", future tense "dacr'o", multiple could be "dacr'et", and so on.

So if you want consonant heavy, sharper words, I suggest looking at these languages:
    - German
    - Russian
    - Vietnamese
    - Romanian

And for a little insight on alphabetical structure, I'd check into:
    - Arabic
    - Egyptian Hieroglyphs
    -  Mandarin
    - Ogham
    - Norse Runes
And the more out-there fictional alphabets:
    - Circular Gallifreyan
    - Daedric
    - Quenyan
    - Klingon

I have made up my own languages, but I don't come near the amount of effort and detail you want/have been putting into yours! And luckily, I don't have to, it would drive me crazy. I follow this 'rule' that if the POV character understands the conlang, the reader should understand it too (I write third person limited, the kind that sticks extremely close to the character), which means it should be written in English (or whatever language the book is written in). And luckily, the POV character usually understands the conlang. I only use made-up words if there isn't a proper translation. Oh, and curse words! Really, they are so much more powerful if you don't know their exact meaning. 

Anyway, this leaves me with only a few sentences of conlang, since I don't want to throw long dialogues of unintelligible gibberish at the reader. With each language, I try to imagine some basic sounds that set the language apart. For example, I have 'Eagle speech', a language filled with harsh shrieks. I know which letter combinations are used often in that language, and well, from there I just type them in random order until I have some sort of sentence I like. I have a vague idea what verbs and things like plural nouns look like, so I use that to give the reader the idea there actually is a structure behind it. My efforts end there though. I have no idea what each word exactly means, I only know the general meaning of the entire sentence. Tolkien will be so ashamed of me, but yeah, I don't need to know more of this language to tell my story.

If I were you, I would figure out the 'root sounds' that define your conlang. Make a list of them, then combine a few of them to create a word. It should result in words that are unique, but still sound like as if they belong to the same language. Then I would simply look at existing languages to come up with sentence structures and grammar. Of course, you can create something all by yourself, but man, that sounds like a hard job...

Of course, what you also should wonder is if you really need a fully-fledged language to tell your story. It's awesome to make your own language, but also time-consuming. Most stories don't need a super-detailed language, so only do if you find it fun ;)

It's one of those things where you have to know it, even if you don't really put it into your story.

Some of all of that is accurate, but some of it isn't. Try those videos I linked, those are really interesting.

As for how I was thinking of having it come up in the story - one of my stories is about a guy from a more-or-less real world setting, who gets summoned to a fantasy world, and has to pretend he's from there. The sorcerer who summoned him gives him a spell that's basically an automatic translation in his mind. But since there are a lot of differences between the languages, it can get disorienting. For example, English is a head-initial language (I just know that term from those videos). That means that the most important part of the sentence is at the beginning. Other languages, like Japanese, aren't. So, for example, there are a lot of times where in English, you'd say, "he just did that because he was trying to save me when I fell off a cliff," (e.g. so please don't punish him for it) but in Japanese, the order would be more like, "Cliff-fallen-me saving was all he was trying to do." (... example from a show I like). 
So, when Julien is listening to them speak Thyreian (or whatever the language is called), he'd get a little lost from not being used to the word order. I'd mention this in text, but still show what they say in English. It's just something Julien would mention to the sorcerer, not something I'd actually show in the story. 

I do sort of want to make a script, though, just because I'm going to be drawing a lot, and I've already written that the magic appears in the form of writing. So yeah. I was thinking of making it an abugida (wikipedia). Like I said, mostly the same syllables as Japanese (which would make it easier to translate into Japanese ^_^; ) but maybe change some vowel sounds, in addition to adding a "th" sound. I think the "th" sort of gives it more off an Ancient Greek flavor? I'm trying to have a little of that. Not 100% but just a little. 

There are apparently generators where you put in the sounds your language has and it can generate roots for words, but I haven't tried them yet. Those videos talk about them. 

But yeah, just try those videos, they're good. 

I've sort of made a language, but it wasn't for a work that could be published. It was for a Legend of Zelda fanfic I planned, but haven't actually gotten around to writing. For words, I looked at the matching word in my own language, and said "Alright, ancient Hylian, smooth, takes you forever to get around to the topic you were originally talking about" so most of the words are short, though there are the long ones.

Here are some examples;

Arin - means, Original, the First. pronounced like it's got a silent e after the r [are-in]
Ocarri - means Ocarina, or Flute. the double r is trilled like in spanish so it's pronounced something like O-car-rrrrrrri].

Priner/Prinera - means Prince or Princess respectively. , you can kinda see how my logic got that one. [pronounced Prin-er and Prin-er-a]


So ya, sometimes, it's not about the logic, it's looking at the words and saying "Alright, what would look good here?"

Apr 11, 2017 5:29:01 GMT -8 lavendermintrose said:

It's one of those things where you have to know it, even if you don't really put it into your story.

Some of all of that is accurate, but some of it isn't. Try those videos I linked, those are really interesting.

The videos are interesting indeed! But keep in mind they are not made for writers (okay, I haven't seen them all yet, but it appears to be the case), but for people who are into designing languages. Sure, if you like that, please continue doing so! There has to be a new Tolkien hidden here somewhere, after all ;) But otherwise; this is a form of worldbuilding disease and it eats away your writing time ;) (maybe that doesn't matter now, but if you dream of becoming a professional writer one day, you'll simply not have the time to make your own language. You'll have to cheat. Know your language, yes, but not in great detail.)

About your story: I love the idea the sentence structure gets completely turned around. An idea you could use as well is to let the translator spell translate things wrongly because words have multiple meanings. Like 'crane'; are you talking about a bird or a machine? You can get some funny situations with that. 
The translator, however, does kill your need for having the different language completely fleshed out. I mean, everything gets translated into English (unless the main character loses his translator spell at some point, or he comes across a word that cannot be translated, but those moments should not happen too often). So technically, all that you have left is the funny sentence structure.

Besides, keep in mind that above all else, your story should be readable. A sentence like 'Cliff-fallen-me saving was all he was trying to do.'
is funny, but difficult to read. One character talking like that is fine (like some sort of Yoda of the group), but a whole cast of them? That's going to be a pain to read. I mean, dialects are hard to follow and are considered a no-go in written dialogue for that reason (or should at least be used with care), and you want to go a step beyond dialects.

I like the abugida idea! I'm not sure if the 'th' sound adds Ancient Greekness to it though (it doesn't to me, since it reminds me of English), but maybe you can incorporate the Greek alphabet into your script to get that Greeky flavour. Just a bit ;)

Apr 11, 2017 6:53:44 GMT -8 queenofeagles said:

The videos are interesting indeed! But keep in mind they are not made for writers (okay, I haven't seen them all yet, but it appears to be the case), but for people who are into designing languages. Sure, if you like that, please continue doing so! There has to be a new Tolkien hidden here somewhere, after all ;) But otherwise; this is a form of worldbuilding disease and it eats away your writing time ;) (maybe that doesn't matter now, but if you dream of becoming a professional writer one day, you'll simply not have the time to make your own language. You'll have to cheat. Know your language, yes, but not in great detail.)

It doesn't take a long time to just watch the videos and understand how things should work, so that you don't end up writing something that looks really fake to people who know a lot about languages. It's research, and while researching too much can be a waste of time, doing the research can make your story feel more real, and make it better. 
Anyone in any art form should try to learn things about other art forms. You can't do well in one art if that one art is all you know. 

As for the "backwards" or "turned around" sentence structures (which, first of all, aren't "backwards" - like I said, real languages do have sentences that way, it's only "backwards" if you think English is somehow more right... but anyway... ), I wasn't intending to actually write the sentences that way. That's one of those things that I would know, that wouldn't actually show up in the story. Or, the sorcerer would explain that to the main character, that that's why he felt sort of disoriented trying to follow the conversation. 

Actually, my keyboard-smashing does seem to result in something that makes sense according to those videos - I don't follow a totally random process, after all. Besides, the draft of my first novel is over 200k words long (I know, it's obese...), but the number of conlang sentences is five. Just five, without even a translation. I doubt I can add more 'realness' through that. However, keeping the conlang simple gives me more research time for other things like ancient weaponry - which will matter much more since my target audience are probably much more into that. Oh, and landscapes, but that's my personal field of interest. 

You write for an English-speaking audience, right? Then 'backwards' isn't such a weird way to look at it since that's how your readers will experience it. English feels right; they are not used to sentence structures that work differently - unless they happen to be Japanese or something :) 

Ah, okay... So your conlang will really be your personal world building information and never makes an appearance in its 'full form' in the novel, so to say. 

Yes, just like your ancient weaponry. Sort of, the philosophy and magic of my story's setting are the interest point. 

Also, I plan to illustrate it, and maybe even make it as a comic, so the script will show up there. It's also just adds an extra layer of interest, and since it's interesting to me, why not?

And I'm writing two other projects first, and developing this one while I do those. 

Ah, if it involves illustration, go for it! especially since it interests you. 

I came across this lovely site that creates conlang. You can throw in your own consonants and vowels to give it your own twist. Maybe it can be of help:

www.vulgarlang.com/index.html