Conlang construction philosophy? :)

[Jalyha]

"although clearly more skilled at it" --- not really... I haven't had any classes or done much real research... as I said, I usually start from basic common-sense. I don't even know the right terms for some of the things I use/do... lol.

As for your first request, I have to decline. After one incident of identity theft, and another instance of an internet stalker (who came to my home!) I do not share personal information anywhere, nor do I intermingle my websites. My forums must remain eternally separate. I don't mean to offend anyone, I'm sure no one here is like that, but we all have our boundaries... I'm sure you will understand.

I might, however, be willing to rant at you for 16 pages in a pm


Rikmalor Humir ... ? = Humir is beautiful? Or I've missed a step?

Either way, it's lovely! Did you actually transcribe all 50k words?! That's amazing. Most people don't get nearly so far! I'd love to get my hands on that software. I, unfortunately, must do everything by hand.

I tend to be lazy and avoid gender declension, altogether. I'm no linguist, despite my passion, and I always worry about messing it up. Since I don't speak any actual foreign languages, just my made-up ones, and English is my 1st language, I am a bit limited by my own ignorance as far as *spoken* languages.

I can usually understand at least the rudiments of written languages, however, although I'm better with those of latin origin.

One thing I'm very careful of, when initially compiling my root-word lists, is only pulling from languages that have a common base.

You said you "used a list of 50 thousand words in norwegian (25%), swedish(25%), danish(25%), german (10%), english (10%) and spanish (5%)" I would have excluded the English and Spanish words for this stage.

Languages do tend to pull from other languages/cultures, taking a word here and there when they have no other term for it. However - that doesn't usually happen till the language itself is more fully developed.

I'd be interested in knowing what words you transcribed to start.

I start much smaller, of course, doing everything by hand. I start with:
water food
Woman Man
Child Infant
Tree Mine
Not mine Want
Need Danger
Stop Ground
Tree-food (fruit) Ground-food (veggies)
Animal-food (meat) Weapon
Hot Cold
Up Down
Far Near
Tool Good
Bad Fight/Battle/Hunt
Come Go
(Various numbers)

Once I have those words down, I work on a basic layout of how the words fit together. (Grammar, but beyond basic into almost non existant) Then I add words for:

also a/the/this
covering (hat/hair) top
bottom unseen
tame predator
relating to a person nature-related
objects feelings
philosophy related to learning
time not/against
seperate from ability
sour/bad good/sweet
now! finished
(various colors) love/fondness/desire
big world/not of the world
round/smooth rough/sharp edged
before self
money/currency/trade
with reduce/undo
between/among past
same different
bad many
in favor of again
false/untrue big big!
better Bush
Rock Grass
Wheat/Oats/Barley
Pigs Cows
Chickens Goats
Sheep dogs
bears fur
work home
children spouse
parent peace/end fighting/battle
ruler/leader house
table seat
bed horse
bird wash/clean
clothing (maybe) shoes
weight good/well
purse/pouch yield
conquer center
speak hear
see touch/feel
taste herbs
material injury
death hard/difficult
beauty faith
old new
sun moon
(various gods/goddesses/stuff)

This usually takes quite some time AND gives me enough to start writing whole sentences/stories in the language. Once I'm good enough at that where I don't have to cheat/look, I write out all the grammar rules and start adding to the dictionary.

When you actually speak/write the language, it's easier to tell when a word doesn't fit.


Currently, I'm working on a (still-unnamed) language for the people of Naos (on the planet Naos - cause of course their land is the whole world right?) I'm still at the caveman stage, though, so I only have my basic word list, alphabet (or syllabary, really), and a few cobbled-together grammar rules. The entire language is made up of 88 letters, (or syllables).


na- used to emphasize something. It can mean "big" (when used with another "a" sound consonan) Na-ra, Na-ka, Na-va) or "right away" when combined with a "y" sound which indicates action.(Nayotu - literally, "Right now - come/go - labor" which means, in essence, "Get to work!!"

central syllables are broad applications to a thing, surrounding syllables define it. "Va" is, by itself, a ruler or leader of some type. Na-va, is a big ruler - king or emperor, depending on the 3rd syllable.

ri is drawn as a sun&moon, and is only used in describing Gods, or abstract concepts.

os -dirt/earth


Naossatu subject or nominative the world (is, does, ...)
Naostusv object or accusative (something affects) the world
Naosstu vocative O world!
Naossotu possessive or genitive the world’s
Naossutu indirect object or dative (given, sold, etc.) to the world
Naossytu ablative (something is done) by the world

In learning to read/write, young children on Naos are taught with the syllables marked separated with a simple dash - or dot between them. This dash/dot is pronouced with a "j" sound, (which is not even noted in the "alphabet" and making the sound while speaking is considered offensive (to either the listener or the subject at hand), while a pause between each syllable is considered either sarcastic, or a way of talking down to someone. Similarly, writing with dashes/dots is only done as a means of educating someone, or insulting them, except at the end of a line, when it indicates a joke or jest.


I don't have a scanner, and my attempts to snap a pic of my written alphabet have failed I do use unicode letters/symbols to effectively write in my own language online, but I haven't assigned them yet... However, the syllables I use for the language of Naos are:

a
b ba bo bu by
d da do du dy dv
f fa fo fu fy
g ga go gu gy gv
gh tch qtl tvl
h ha ho hu hy hv
k ka ko ku ky
l la lo lu ly lv
m ma mo mu my
n na no nu ny nv
o
q qa qo qu qy
s sa so su sy sv
t ta to tu ty
u
v va vo vu vy
w wa wo wu wy
y ya yo yu yv

(all the isolated vowels (and y) make a long-vowel sound, the others make a soft-vowel sound. I haven't gotten around to typing them up yet.

In my notebook, I've a dictionary, so far of about 986 words (those listed above, and a few, tentative "next level" words.


Anyway... I don't want to bore you with any more of my language... unless you want more, in which case I would be happy to upload the written language once I kick my camera around... and update you, if you like, as I work.

WOW I keep doing such long posts.. I really don't mean to either

Anyway:

Nasytuva dytlv sutuma. Nayotu -

[rgcalsaverini]

"Rikmalor Humir" Bravo! Due to the very low level of inflection adjectives will always precede the nouns.

"Did you actually transcribe all 50k words?". God no! I barely have time to eat properly, that would take me ages. I download lists of thousands of words on many languages from this site. The software works like this: given a list of words, it registers the frequency of every letter to appear on the beginning, end and middle of a word, the relative vowel to consonant ratio and the frequency of every pair and trio of letters.
Take this list of words:
babaca, cababa, abaca, baba, bac

This is the rule the software devises from that:

b: beginning 61% middle 50% end 0%
followed by:
a: 100%
b: 0%
c: 0%

... and so on.

Then the software saves that rule file, and I can load it to generate words that follow that pattern, with that rule I got: cacaba, baca, caca, bacababa, babaca... I like using it because it have no creativity at all to create words, and they all end up looking like the languages I speak. So when I told about the languages mixture that I used, I was talking about mixing the rules, so my language sounds nordic, but with a little bit of english and spanish to make it more exotic.

I know VERY little about linguistics too, I'm pretty sure that what I've done is all wrong

I like very much the way you develop your conlang! I tend to rush it and devise the words mostly as I need them. Your approach on the other hand starts with the words that are more likely to be used by a primitive people, and build it up from there, this way your conlang seems much more consistent. I'll take a few steps back on mine and try to evolve it more naturally!

Although it does seem to take a lot of time, it seems well worth it, I like your conlang very much! Please keep me updated on its development and post the alphabet when you have a chance =)