Conlangs
A conlang is a constructed language, or a language in which that a person (likely an author) creates a language using linguistic analysis and understanding of the human psyche and communication.
There are often 3 parts to a language that need to be considered in conlangs;
Spoken Language
Written Language
Communal language
Spoken language is how the language is used to communicate between speakers vocally, things that often impact this are tonality and emphasis.
Written language is how the language is written down, in english we write uniform letters left to right in straight lines, whereas in other languages you might write up to down, or right to left, or you might even write in spirals. You can even dodge letters all together, but it is reasonably difficult to make a writing system that avoids repetition.
Communal language is how language changes in community, like for example english has evolved due to slang and simplifiers. For example; the word okay comes from the term all correct, and in some twist of the word it became Oal Korrect, then being shortened to OK. This shows evolution in language, and really cements a language in world and makes it feel real.
꒦ˎˊ˗ ︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶ ꒦꒷꒦₊˚
In Humanity I will be making 3 unique languages at least, one for each continent outside of the blank continent, however I may do some more, making some country based dialects or languages with same base sounds.
There are environmental factors you need to take into accout as well however, for example a conlang that i made before was for a desert civilisation where the rock around was too tough to carve, so the only written language they had was small spirals that would convey simple words before they were washed away by the winds. And so they were mostly spoken word.
You can then consider punctuation; will your language's written language even have punctuation? Or will it have punctuation for niche concepts like assertiveness and doubt.
꒦ˎˊ˗ ︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶ ꒦꒷꒦₊˚
As a newbie to conlangs, I first went to the Conlang Creation Society Website which then spurred me on to the Conlangers Library, which taught me some Conlang terms that will be important for this breif;
Artlang - Directly means artistic language, which is a language made mostly for fictional media or aesthetic reasons.
Natlangs - Natural languages, languages that are spoken in real life, or commonly in countries.
Babel text - Genesis 11:1-9, to my understanding, this is a text that is translated by most Conlangers. This allows for artists to understand each others works. Usually used as a test drive for conlangs and understanding.
Glossopoeia - The action of creating a conlang. A Glossopoeist is a Conlanger.
Neography - Meaning New Writing, it is the action of making a writing system for a conlang.
꒦ˎˊ˗ ︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶ ꒦꒷꒦₊˚
How to make a Conlang
In this I will be following the Conlanging 101 guide by tabby!
First, the question of purpose, this is obvious for me, as I will be making these for my animated series. However I will be doing this for fun also, so that will be how I treat this!
Second, Examples; I think before I find examples I will first need to find out what the landscape of the area is, the first continent I will be doing this with is going to be the music continent. So Im thinking of making the music continent mainly inhabited near jungle, and due to this I might make this continent directly inspired by Africa in terms of landscape and geology. Due to the Sahara desert being in close proximity to jungles.
Due to the geography of the area being humid and arid, the sand will be a large part of the belief system of some of the peoples of this continent, likely being one of 2 gods in a bitheist religion.
The way this language is going to have come about is likely through people mimicing the creatures of the jungle's calls, harmonious and unique, and so the language should likely be tonal and maybe melodious in its usage. Possibly using a metronomic bird or creature to keep plosives on beat
＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼
Language Examples (With Colour!)
Basque
Basque sounds very rhythmic and nice to the ear, the plosives are like small breaks from a song, I could use this to make a more fast paced variant of the language, the vowels are weighted very "A" heavy, which makes the language feel slightly more regal to me for some reason.
Igbo
Igbo has a nice feeling to it, with its plosives and nasals weighted the same it feels quite polite and welcoming. With emphasis on the glides, it feels far more open ended, which is a quality I enjoy.
Korean
The Korean language has very nicely weighted vowels, that are very nicely placed, the ends of words are also very vowel heavy, with Os and As, which make it sound very sharp with Ss and SHs
German
German has a large emphasis on the CHs (like in the word loch) as well as in the alveolar sounds in the language. This makes it sound quite harsh, however also oddly soothing, and with some of the opened letters it feels very comforting to me.
Na'Vi
This is a Conlang made for avatar with a 1000 word dictionary and speakers all around the world. This shows the prowess of the conlangs, something I might take from this is the creation of new word structure being ejectives (small stops before the end letter), creating new structure and word ideas is something I greatly enjoy doing, and so that is likely what I will take the most enjoyment in doing.
／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／＼／
Creating the sounds for my language!
For this part, I will be starting with the consonants, as they are the primary starting point for many conlangs, if you want to understand the IPA (international phonetic alphabet) here is a really informative video by TheLingSpace!
And here is the IPA wikipedia so you can listen to some sounds for your leisure!
There is a small question I need to think about in my language, do I want to avoid voiced or voiceless consonants, as I was planning on having all plosives be said on beats of a metronome, so there would be no need for the plosives to be voiced as they would need no note in terms of musicality, which is often why in musicals, they wont have a long pause for an actor to say a line (think the line "say hello~" where the o is held for about 20 seconds) on any voiceless consonants (like s or p) as they simply would never work in the context of music. But also I want there to be some voiced consonants to include in speech, so I think what ill do, is only add voiceless plosives, and every other consonant is voiced. That way when the plosives are said on the beat, all voices in the area will stop, giving the area a kind of "bump" to it. I also don't want to add very many difficult to pronounce letters like many uvular sounds, which can have notes, but in general can lead to throat issues more if you aren't used to it. Now I could add the fact they just are used to it, however; due to it hurting me, I will not be using them so I can speak this language for practice.
Here you can see I went with the plosives "p","t" and "c", as they are some of the only ones I could think that fully stop your vocality in place for air. Also, usually in making beats, humans will gravitate to Ps, Ts and Cs. I didn't note it down, however I will also be including the Glottal stop "ʔ" (which is seen as the stop in the word "UhʔOh" spelt Uh-Oh)
I also used the fricatives "v", "z" and "ʑ" as if you add a vowel after them they can easily sound nice and melodic.
Using the flap "ɾ" allows for a kind of half plosive, as it uses the same movement as a "d" but with less of a stop, kind of like a "d" with a hole in it if that makes any sense.
The usages of the nasal "ng" was so that I could add a bit of nasal to the language, seemingly very straightforward, but needed nonetheless Now, you will see this chart and think that there aren't enough consonants, thinking of english shows 21, but due to the unique way that the language is going to be spoken, these 9 should be all I need.
𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬
In terms of vowels, I was going to make the language use a bizarre one like "ɤ" but I realised that the base 5 vowels work perfectly for melody. So I will be using the vowels "a", "e", "o", "u", and "i"!
Diphthongs
Diphthongs are 2 vowels placed next to each other, now, I doubt there will be much use of diphthongs in the higher tempo areas of the region, but for the lower tempo out there; ill be adding the diphthongs "ou", "ae" and "ai"
Triphthongs
Triphthongs are 3 vowels placed together to make a single noise; like in the word "beau", in terms of this, I likely wont be using many, however I might use "eau"
𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬𐃬
Making words!
In order to make a lexicon for a language you need some root words that you can mash together to make more complex words. So I will be making 500-600 of these root words, which will overall make up the base lexicon of the language. I will be writing them in Latin characters (ʑ will be written zh, ɾ will be written r, and ʔ will be written ? ) as I will be making them into a writing system later. I should also likely make a name for this language. But I will make it after the lexicon so I can feel more of the understanding of the sounds etc.
For making adjectives, I will be using this list of these Gradable and Non-Gradable adjectives from the british council learn english page
⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢
Here you can see the way that I am formatting the dictionary.
⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢
the reason why the dictionary is so important is so that words can be made through joinery of others, for example; The sound of wind is the combination of sound and air. Being Civ and Porov, so the word becoming Porciv means "woosh" in a sense.