# Conlangers?



## Cryoforion (Sep 9, 2008)

Just a shot in the dark. Any fellow conlangers here? (Conlanger = someone who creates constructed languages. Conlang, constructed language, ah, ah? get it?  )

Yeah, I'm a hopeless nerd, but I'm secure in that.  And really, yes, inventing new languages can be an art form (Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Heavens that's convenient.  ).

I've extensively created two languages to date (with a smattering of ideas, premises, and bare-bones root systems lying around to boot), and both have managed to win starring roles in various stories I've written.

So, just thought I'd throw this out there and see if there are any other crazy language-makers afoot, or anybody else who's interested (you do _what_ now? why would you voluntarily do _that?_).

Anyone?


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## foozzzball (Sep 9, 2008)

I've never really gotten into Conlanging seriously. I think about the furthest I've ever taken it has been to develop some meanings for freaky made-up words, maybe some really basic grammar, but... you know. Nothing that'd stand up to any kind of real scrutiny.

Any online guides you know of for it? I've never managed to find one that explained the techniques satisfactorily.


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## Cryoforion (Sep 9, 2008)

Ah, cool! (It's nice to not be alone  )

Here's a very handy one:

http://www.zompist.com/kit.html

It covers a lot of basics and helps explain how creating a true language is different than creating a cipher (an alternate vocabulary that replaces all the words in an English sentence without any true linguistic/structural/grammatical changes). It's pretty clear for the most part, though his section on consistent phonology is a little


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## M. LeRenard (Sep 9, 2008)

Call me lazy, but I've never really understood the point of 'conlanguages' (could that be a word?) in any form of writing.  Even in Tolkien's work, and he's the father of conlanguages, to be sure.  It's one thing to stick in a little French or Russian or whatever if you have a character who only speaks said language, but to have somebody tell somebody something in Elvish or Pomeranian (dude.. I want that to be a language now), which nobody but the author knows, seems a little on the gimmicky side.  I can see how it would be fun and cool to come up with such a language, but I don't see any need to stick it into a work of writing.
But then again, I'm the kind of person who just uses normal, everyday colloquial curses even when writing fantasy, because I think it's better to use a word everybody knows the meaning to even if the characters might be saying something else in reality.  The important thing, for me, is to get the meaning across, and fie on authenticity if you're confusing the reader in the process.  So I don't tend to deal with conlanging for that reason.


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## foozzzball (Sep 9, 2008)

So far I've only ever used it seriously once when I had these two foreign cultures meeting, and to add contrast I had a couple of lines of non-english dialogue where the viewpoint characters didn't get what was being said either, rather than putting in something like 'they gabbled in a foreign tongue'.

But yeah. Don't use it much otherwise.


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## Frasque (Sep 9, 2008)

Yep! Conlangs are fun.


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## Stratelier (Sep 9, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Call me lazy, but I've never really understood the point of 'conlanguages' (could that be a word?) in any form of writing.
> .
> .
> .
> The important thing, for me, is to get the meaning across, and fie on authenticity if you're confusing the reader in the process.  So I don't tend to deal with conlanging for that reason.



Agreed there, too.  In any given cast of characters the language used when they are speaking amongst one another will by rule be 'reader' language.  I mean, that is so utterly obvious it's lame to even mention it -- but the point still stands, if characters are speaking in their "own" language then as the author you are automatically the interpretor/translator.  Names of characters and places are (usually) not translated, so they can help convey the sound of a language, but at the same time, if you overpopulate a written passage with nonreader language you risk destroying the sense of immersion and driving a reader off.

So in the written world, to effectively communicate a language you don't strictly need to have a fully developed alphabet and grammar system (*cough* Klingonese), but you do need the _abstractions of_ them to provide a consistent feel.


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## Cryoforion (Sep 9, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Call me lazy, but I've never really understood the point of 'conlanguages' (could that be a word?) in any form of writing.  Even in Tolkien's work, and he's the father of conlanguages, to be sure.  It's one thing to stick in a little French or Russian or whatever if you have a character who only speaks said language, but to have somebody tell somebody something in Elvish or Pomeranian (dude.. I want that to be a language now), which nobody but the author knows, seems a little on the gimmicky side.  I can see how it would be fun and cool to come up with such a language, but I don't see any need to stick it into a work of writing.
> But then again, I'm the kind of person who just uses normal, everyday colloquial curses even when writing fantasy, because I think it's better to use a word everybody knows the meaning to even if the characters might be saying something else in reality.  The important thing, for me, is to get the meaning across, and fie on authenticity if you're confusing the reader in the process.  So I don't tend to deal with conlanging for that reason.



Agreed--for some (like me), conlanging is fun regardless of what you use it for. And agreed--in any work of writing where your audience does _not_ speak a given language, it's not wise to include much of it.

In fantasy, conlanging is handy when dealing with invented/non-English cultures that may have a need to express an idea not represented in the English language. Case in point, Watership Down's _tharn_. _Tharn_ is rabbit-speak for fight-or-flight-instincts-overridden-by-sheer-paralyzing-panic. In which case, using the invented term is handy simply for sake of syllable count.

Granted, insertion of occasional invented terms is tricky. It's awfully tacky to have an * with a footnote "Just so you know, _tharn_ is a rabbit word for..." Instead, by mentioning the word sporadically at first, and only in places where its meaning can be easily inferred from circumstance, you indirectly establish its meaning, opening up the possibility of more extensive use later on.

 But even then. People like English. They like reading in their own language (unless they're weird...like me!). So any conlang used in fiction has to be presented _very_ sparsely.

Although, as Stratadrake mentioned, having a language in the back of your head is also handy for creating place and character names. I like being able to create meaningful names, even if they're meaningful only to me--and during creative dry-spells, when struggling to find a name for the shining silver city your hero has just discovered, it's awfully nice to be able to just call it "Shining Silver City" with no one the wiser. 

For sake of the third time being the charm, as Foozzzball mentioned, there are certain cases when the point-of-view character encounters a foreigner/alien/time-traveler/whatever who doesn't speak his or her language. In stories like that, I prefer some real italicized crazy-speak over "The creature spouted gibberish." I think it adds realism (but again, it can slow the story down, so it must be used in very conservative moderation).

But, at the risk of repeating myself, the real impetus behind language making is for the sheer fun of it.

Nice to meet you, Frasque! Any current projects you'd like to share?

*is excited by the prospect of talking nerd with fellow linguists*


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## Adelio Altomar (Sep 9, 2008)

M. Le Renard:
The term is conlang.

And I have tried to incorporate phrases and such into my stories but not only is the tendency to send the reader off there, it also (in my opinion) looks very weird, _even to the original author of that foreign language._ And the constant persnickety perfection concentrated on just a few simple words (normally an alternative form of a noun's declension or the irregular paradigms of a verb) derails you from the story altogether, often leaving you wondering about why you were doing whatever word you're doing in the first place before you go back to inflecting your noun or verb.

But it is very fun; I myself am a conlanger, working on Hjovena and Alyat, sister languages that are isolated on a single planet. More details when I don't have homework (and even then I can't guarantee I'll even open up the file with the stuff in it, much less work on it).


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## Nargle (Sep 10, 2008)

When I was a kid I made up a language with my brother and my friends. It was nearly 100% me, though. I just taught them all. Not like they remembered, though **Eyeroll** I never used it in any writing, though. Usually just for fun.

Nargle was one of the words in that language. And unfortunately it was the only one to survive!

I used to write notes to my friend using like a Druid alphabet I think? It was pretty cool =3


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