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Have you made any languages for yourself, recently?
Honestly, that's the entire reason behind LangTime Studio, and it's brings me more joy to create languages with my wife Jessie than it does to create them on my own. Bringing life to the languages of our little animals that in turn helps to bring our board game to life is one of my life's greatest treasures at this point. :)
Today's Lexember word from Sovála comes from our cat language Sarkezhe. All the animals of Savála evolved bipedal, humanoid qualities after human beings were wiped out via a substance that emerged in the waters of eastern Canada. What the cats call yikwi, also known as the blood water (so called by the rabbits), gave small mammals the power of speech and sentience. It emerged once in the old days, and what followed were the first wars of the animals, after which they reached a somewhat stable peace. Though they remained separate societies, they established regular contact with one another and got on well together—until the day the blood water emerged again.
After a brief (ha) hiatus, here's a new episode of The Art of Language Invention! This one's on assimilation and dissimilation.
Wait wait wait, there are two editions of The Art of Language Invention? When did the newer one come out? What's in the newer one that isn't in the older one? I have the older one; should I get the newer one as well? — Zhyler anon
Sure does. This is the old cover:
And this is the new cover:
There's an entirely new chapter in the new one. I made it the fourth chapter pushing the orthography chapter last. There's a new case study on one of our LangTime Study languages: the rabbit language Engála! I was happy that made it in, although I was bummed initially at having to include it. I wrote up an entire case study on the Munja'kin language from NBC's Emerald City. I contacted my old showrunner David Schulner and asked for his blessing and he was happy to have me include it. Then it was run up the flagpole to NBC and NBC declined! This was the same network that had previously given me permission to use the Defiance languages in the book which are used a lot (and they're used a lot on purpose! NBC gave me the full greenlight to use them! HBO said the GoT languages had to comprise 49% or less of the language material in the book, so I had to use it judiciously). I was so bummed, but it did allow me to use one of the languages that Jessie and I created, and that made me happy.
I should post that Munja'kin case study somewhere at some point... Won't let me publish it? I'll just give it away, then! 😤
Amazing artist @nel-fie just shared this wonderful image for my birthday! I honestly couldn't be happier. :) These are the six animals we've created languages for over at @langtimestudio :)
Introduction to Sarkezhe
It's week 4 of season 7 of LangTime Studio and this week we're introducing our season 4 language Sarkezhe: a conlang for cats! This is a vowel harmony language with noun classes and it's loads of fun. To watch our latest stream (today at 2 p.m. Pacific) you can follow this link:
Season 7, Episode 4 of LangTime Studio, where we create a language live on our stream. In this episode we
Been following your work for a while, how do you feel about people watching you and Jessie fall in love on the langtime lives? Is that a bit trippy?
Though I'd known Jessie for some time, we worked together for the very first time on Motherland: Fort Salem, and the circumstances were such that we working remotely for like 12+ hours a day (some of that together, but a lot working separately) over a very short amount of time. They brought us onto the project very, very late, so we'd done everything we needed to do for the entire season in a month or so. When the season was done, that was it until a potential next season. It should have been a clue to me that I scrambled to think of some other project that the two of us could work on in the interim. All I knew is I had so much fun working with Jessie that conlanging on my own didn't seem as fun anymore. This, plus a couple work videos that Jessie and I did together (the first of which is lost to the ages, since the microphone wasn't turned on), was what gave me the idea to start LangTime Studio. Since our professional work is all NDA, a live stream where we work on our own stuff is the only thing we could actually live stream. Now we've been doing it consistently for five years.
My life has kind of gone inside out since the fall of 2019, but given what we have now, I can't regret any of it. It's become a part of our story. There's quite a bit in our LangTime videos (especially the first three seasons) that say a lot, if you know the back story. But one thing that was constant—and remains so—is that I absolutely love the opportunity to play around with language with Jessie. I'm continually amazed by her creativity, her humor, and her brilliance. It is something that all of this was live streamed—especially as that was the only way we saw each other for a while—so it's nice that we had such a nice audience. For that, I credit Jessie, since above everything else, her kindness is what fostered the audience we have.
Every day when I wake up I feel very, very lucky and grateful for the life I have. There are a billion different outcomes for a life—many not so nice. I am eternally grateful that this is the outcome I get to live in.
Fiat Lingua Top 10 for 2025
It's time for the annual Fiat Lingua rewind!
Background: I created Fiat Lingua over ten years ago with the idea that it could be something like the Rutgers Optimality Archive: A place where conlangers could post work that they wanted to showcase, or work that was in progress. We've had tons of contributions over the years, and some standout work I'm really proud of.
Using our fancy statistics program (you know, the free version) we're able to determine the top 10 visited posts for this year (and see my note on number 7 about December's Fiat Lingua this year. Ugh...). This year the stats program wasn't compatible with the major WordPress upgrade that happened in November, so all the stats for that period are GONE. :( So take this year's top 10 with a grain of salt...
NUMBER 10
"Tone for Conlangers: A Basic Introduction" (April, 2018) by Aidan Aannestad: It's been on the top ten every year since I started doing these posts, and this year it barely clung to its place! Will it make it next year? Well, will conlangers still be interested in learning how to do tone? My guess is yes.
NUMBER 9
"Izhglen: An homage to my childhood self" (July, 2025) by Jessie Peterson: A brand new article for this year, Jessie revisits her very first conlang attempt from when she was a young child. Back then, she took English words and mixed up the letters, pronouncing them as if they were new words. This time she decided to take that same premise and see if she could make an actual, functional conlang out of it. Very cool read!
NUMBER 8
"A Grammar of Izikazi" (June, 2025) by Matthijs Krul: A new one to Fiat Lingua this year and it cracked the top ten! This is a grammar of the conlang Izikazi by Matthijs, a long time conlanger and noted owl enthusiast. Definitely one to check out!
NUMBER 7
"Superbasic Full Conlang Starterpack" (October, 2022) by Alex Dedov: Sooo... Remember when I said above I'd have a note about December's Fiat Lingua article? This was it. Unfortunately I realized today as I was pulling the stats for the top ten that it was also the Fiat Lingua article for October, 2022. I liked it so much I accidentally posted it twice without recognizing that I'd already posted it three years earlier. >.< As a result, I, for the first time in history, changed the Fiat Lingua article for December to another one (one I'd been waiting for a dry month to post—a grammar of one of Jessie's early conlangs Gineso). I also added the hits for both articles together, and so Alex Dedov's one page (literally!) guide on how to create a language clocks in at #7 this year!
NUMBER 6
"How to Not Verb" (April, 2020) by Logan Kearsley: This is the first appearance for this article on the top ten. It's an examination of what it could mean to not have verbs in a conlang (featuring case studies of several different conlangs).
NUMBER 5
"Grambank & Language Documentation: Zhwadi and Its Features" (June, 2023) by Jessie Peterson: Down three spots at #5 is Jessie's Grambank example with Zhwadi. This is a short description of how to use Grambank in conlanging with a link to a fillable Google spreadsheet any conlanger can copy and use to introduce their conlang to others. This is just an example of how to use the main online resource.
NUMBER 4
"A Conlang-Venture: A Select-A-Feature Adventure" (January, 2024) by Jessie Peterson: Down one spot from last year is Jessie's 700+ page .pdf choose-your-own-adventure conlang (with document-internal links, so you don't have to scroll!). If you haven't gone through it before, you should definitely go through it at least twice (to see how things differ if you make different choices the second time!).
NUMBER 3
"Names Aren’t Neutral: David J. Peterson on Creating a Fantasy Language" (March, 2019) by David J. Peterson: Hey, it's me! This is my essay about names in sff and why most of them are pretty bad. This is its highest place ever on the top 10 at #3!
NUMBER 2
"Patterns of Allophony" (April, 2015) by William S. Annis: William Annis hasn't written a lot of Fiat Lingua articles, but he does consistently have the most popular ones. This year, "Patterns of Allophony" jumped up from #5 all the way to #2!
And now for the top viewed article for 2025 on Fiat Lingua...
NUMBER 1
"A Conlanger's Thesaurus" (September, 2014) by William S. Annis: Back-to-back! William Annis's resource on how to create unique words with unique interrelationships and associations has proved useful to conlangers has claimed the top spot on Fiat Lingua yet again. It's a testament to its enduring utility.
* * * * *
And that's it for 2025! I'm looking forward to posting more conlang articles next year. If you are a conlanger, a conlang-researcher, or conlang fan who has something to say in .pdf format about a specific conlang or conlanging in general, please consider submitting something to Fiat Lingua! We take any and all articles related to conlanging in whatever form you have them. I'm also happy to help you think up ideas, or refine those ideas you have. There is no strong review like in a fancy journal: I just want to get what you have up. I'm especially in interested in hosting personal conlang stories—stories about how or why you started to create a language, or your experience creating your own language—personal stories that are often lost, but are so vital, as there is an absolute dearth of literature about conlangers! If you think you have even the seed of an idea, please get a hold of me! I want to share as many stories and ideas as I can.
