How to Make a Language: The Basics
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- Опубликовано: 4 июн 2024
- It can be hard to know where to begin when you set out to create a language for your story. In this series Adam will break down some tips for creating naming languages, advanced conlangs, and more. First up: naming languages.
Naming languages are commonly found in books where the author presents a sliver of a language-a few terms or phrases to help sell the worldbuilding or as part of the plot. Creating one of your own is easier than you might think!
Script and VO by Adam Bassett
Animation by Cole Field
Special thanks to Slorany for helping draft the script and providing some of their resources for conlanging (see them below!)
#conlang #writingcommunity #authortube #writingadvice
Check out Campfire, a customizable tool for writers to plan, organize, and share their work:
www.campfirewriting.com/
-References-
An interactive IPA chart: www.ipachart.com/
Conlangs: How to Construct a Language MIT lecture notes: ocw.mit.edu/courses/linguisti...
David Peterson's Conlang Lessons on RUclips: • The Art of Language In...
William S. Annis' Conlanger's Thesaurus: fiatlingua.org/wp-content/upl...
-Also Check Out-
Other videos we’ve made about conlanging: • How to Make a Language...
Artifexian's RUclips Channel: / artifexian
Biblaridion's RUclips Channel: / @biblaridion
Conlangs University (Community-Made Resource): sites.google.com/view/conlang...
Names Aren't Neutral: David J. Peterson on Creating a Fantasy Language (PDF): fiatlingua.org/2019/03/
-Social Media-
Adam's Twitter: / adamcbassett
Cole's Art Insta: / acolefield
Campfire's Twitter: / campfirewriting
Discord: discordapp.com/invite/6dTUvx3
Facebook: / campfirewriting
Reddit: / campfiretechnology
Instagram: / campfirewriting
-Affiliate Links-
ProWritingAid: prowritingaid.com/?afid=9308
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Bookshop: bookshop.org/shop/CampfireTec...
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You can check out Part 2 (How to Make Complex Conlangs) here: ruclips.net/video/ihaAeYtBmko/видео.html
this is what I've been worrying for like this whole month already, I'm doubting if I will able to create my own fictional language, it seems very hard but I guess I still need to try it
It depends on your goals! If you just want to add to the worldbuilding a bit I'd definitely recommend trying a naming language like what we talk about in this video. If you want to go even further beyond that we'll have another video on more complex conlangs soon (but you can get a head-start by checking out the resources linked in the video description).
My best advice is just to figure out what you want to accomplish, then take it one step at a time.
-Adam
I went through four different iterations, the trick is to use one glyph as one word
It’s faster and more fun to design cool symbols, hell I made 36 in one day! so good luck😊
That day being today
I'm gonna try and look into the naming of certain states to create a mythical Language for America. Like Tolkien did for England.
I think the comedy potential of an American con Lang cannot be overlooked
I find you can often cheat a little, just by giving things names that appear similar, or have common elements. Elbrin is the capital city of Elboriah. Lake Targua is located in Targuithnah. The Serbel is the headstream that flows into the lake Serbelheim, around which is the elven kingdom of Serbeloth.
The names obviously appear connected, but what they mean, or which was named after the other, I haven’t bothered to decide yet. You can just make it up later, when you need it.
Excellent timing for this video series. My brother and I are at the point where we need to begin developing our on conlanguages for our collaborative novel. I will be sure to check out the tools you linked!
Loved the animations in this episode, especially in the beginning when you listed examples of writers using conlangs.
Wow. This is super useful. How did you know i needed this?
Thank you!
Great tips ! Gonna go for naming language, but I'm gonna be lazy for now and took grammar and structure from french x)
(And for real I'm in shock with the Languages panel in Campfire, I can't explain how my brain froze and explode at the same time when I figured I could clik on "construct a new world"... This is so perfect... thx for that !)
I wouldn't say stealing from French is "lazy." It's like beginning with a starter kit and then finding all the ways you can deviate from it. That's how I always built with Legos so I'm pretty sure it works here too.
And awesome, I'm glad you're enjoying Languages in Campfire! I've actually been working on some big updates to it that I can't wait to see implemented later this year. I didn't talk about it in the video but the research I did for this series definitely pushed us to take another look at that tool haha. Probably won't be out until late 2022 but I'm excited. :P
-Adam
@@AroundTheCampfire I said lazy because in a way I just write something in french and translate into my conlang and I view this as a google translate in some sort, I don' try to explore another type of construction but maybe I'm just overthinking this and it sounds good anyway x)
I didn't check the language panel until you upload this video and it inspired me to go take a look, sometimes you find inspiration and news ways in Legos or in research :p
"No existing language does this"
Ithkuil: Am I a joke to you?
i remember when i made 0.001% of a fake language, thinking it was the first ever, then realising it was a thing already
I mistook the video for one about giving names to languages. Took me a moment to realize what you meant by "naming".
Upvote sighting of Captain Mal, although I was already upvoting.
So i have my own world. with multiple kingdoms and tripes... I want to make a believable world, but writing 20+ languages as an addition to my world... seems impossible atleast for myself. how should i go about it? 1? 2? or 3? maybe the 5 biggest? as advance conlangs? Or should i just base it on sounds?
Also sounds travel and evolve, so where one kind of sound begins 5 may sprout.. How do i make sure these 5... bloomers, if they ever should get elevated to an advance conlang, that they actually follow a fitting evolution?
Let's look at Europe. There's a bunch of countries there, each with their own histories. Because of that you have a lot of different languages-though many are all based on similar origins (Latin).
Over in the Americas, things are a bit different. Despite the many cultures, there's really only a couple of major languages: English, Spanish, and Portuguese-if memory serves. It's a vastly different picture due to colonialism.
I think there are two answers to your question:
(1) you could think about your kingdoms' history. If a few used to be or are vassal states of another more powerful kingdom, then it stands to reason they might have adopted the larger kingdom's language. If only for logistical reasons. If the states are all independant (or if they want to be independant) they'll more or less try to retain any native languages.
(2) You could also just do whatever you want.
Not every project needs a language-and if you do make one with 20+ that sounds like a chore to follow. I believe in ASOIAF Martin only really shows us Dothraki. He might mention other languages, or hint at them, but if I'm remembering correctly that's the only one he really showed us a lot of. And that persists in the show. If you start throwing around 20+ languages it might be an interesting thing for worldbuilding, but for a story it could make things very difficult to follow.
your best bet is to flesh out a couple language families (think of the romance, siouan, mon-khmer etc families on earth). you'd make a proto-language for each (latin for the romance languages, etc) then some broad notes on how each language differs from the other ones in its family. hope this helps!
honestly got bored this summer, decided I should make my own country and wow I’m getting invested
Haha! Happens to the best of us. Keep at it 👏
Don't y'all love how the abbreviation for international phonetic alphabet is IPA. Y'all should tell your dad about it. He'll know what you mean, with his dog fish head IPA.
This video convinced me to learn Klingon
Also, establishing a Swadesh List for the language might be a good step.
Misread this as Swedish list and was confused.
@@Ggdivhjkjl 😄
I don’t got a book or a movie I’m doing this for shits and giggles 💀
I have ELVES!