So I'm new

[spider_desu]

Hello, everyone ^_^ I suppose this is my introductory post, so I shall introduce myself. I go by spider_desu, foxfire, Ambrose, and bachan (pronounced with Spanish or Japanese vowels). For those curious in my real name, it is Steven. Although you will find that I am just as easily addressed (and just as well described) by any name you can place on me, as my character is in my speech and not my title. Quick random information (with as little rambling as possible): 17 years old, Senior, Eastern United States, Math and Science buff, LOVE foreign languages, HATE literature, usually loaded with homework or busy.

- takes a deep breath - That was a mouthful. Well, the introduction finished, I now actually had a point to this thread. My question was how you all develop your constructed languages. How many of your merely study, practice, and perfect pre-constructed languages (such as Lojban or Toki Pona?) and how many of you truly develop your own? For those who develop your own, how do you create your vocabulary? Does it derive from another language, or the merger of languages, or is there even a logical pattern at all? Or perhaps do you just randomly scribble down words that make sense to you and just keep a pen-and-paper dictionary with you?

I was just curious what the normal method was of working with conlangs whee I personally have done little towards truthfully making my own language, although I am a whore for cryptology and encrypted communication so I have found several ways to re-write the English langauge (using Japanese or Greek or Cyrillic symbols) and I have even invented new phonetic methods of spelling words that lead to an impressively legible sentence. On top of this I am a professional at 1337-ς¦º3Λ|{ (1337-speak) I have even used original writing styles for Spanish in order to make conversation doubly-difficult to read. The one skill that I lack is the invention of vocabulary.

So I'm really just looking for opinions on how other people go about the subject 3nodding

EDIT -

A note to everyone: I have begun work on making a language after reading through the Language Construction Kit and staring at about 14 different languages (that added to my previous lingual knowledge) and I am quite excited. I will go ahead and post any updates about the language here in this thread for those interested. I already made an introductory post to show out about how the language works, but soon I will get around to posting an official alphabet and counting system. Check by to stay updated, as I don't feel like making a new thread but I'm very excited.  

[TheFrogDaysAreOver]

Hi! I'm Connie, Conlanger, or Conlover. Nice to meet you! ^_^

I develop my vocab by thinking of an English phrase like, "How are you?" and scribbling down what makes sense to me. Sometimes I'll modify it, actually mostly that's what I do, but after all is said and done, it really is gibberish. I then proceed to think of which word sounds like its English equivalent. (The initial phrase, after editing, was "Nu ru vaš?", and I thought that "Nu" sounded like the verb.) So I derived "nuro" (to be) from that. After sidetracking and making a whole bunch of grammar junk, I came to the conclusion that inversion of the subject and verb must be used for questions, and thus came about the word "ru". Logically, this must mean "you", so that was the definition it was assigned. And then I had a conundrum. "Vaš" didn't seem to fit as "how" because it came at the end of the sentence. But I thought to myself, 'Hey! I can fix that!' and made a new grammar rule stating that all question words must be placed at the end of the sentence. (I did this because I originally wanted a SVO conlang and making this rule made it possible to keep it that way without changing the meanings of "nu" and "ru".)

So yes, I do randomly scribble. But keep in mind that my conlang is VERY young, so I can still go with phrases first, once you have concrete grammar rules, you must find different ways of making words. (I think I shall derive from previous Þjàmšu vocabulary, but that's open to speculation...)

I think it just depends on the person, honestly.

Good luck with your conlang! ^_^ (Does it have a name yet? Tell me!)  

[Layra-chan]

Make you a grammar, boy.
Vocab can come after you've built yourself a phonology, morphology, and basic syntax. You'll want those so that you don't end up with all your words being irregular right off the bat.
First pick some sounds that you like. Try to make them somewhat regular, in that if you have a t and a p and a b, you should probably also have a d (voiced/unvoiced distinction). You don't need a d, but if your language is going to sound like a language and not like a malformed cypher, you'll want some regularity.
Then figure out how your words are built. Do you string concepts together into long words like in German, or are they each given their own individual short words, like in Chinese? Do the endings of verbs change depending on tense and on who's doing the action, like in Spanish? Do nouns require case, gender, number, and if so, are these built onto the words or kept as separate objects?
Finally, you'll want to figure out how to make sentences out of these words; word order, how to mark clauses, what things need to agree, etc. This should be done at approximately the same time as figuring out the morphology, as there is a trade off between, say, how free your word order is and how much grammatical information is marked on to each individual word.

The Language Construction Kit gives a very good outline for the things you need to figure out to make a language. I'm changing the order slightly because I think that basic grammar ought to be built before vocabulary, or else that wonderful sounding word that you spent so much time designing might end up being completely ungrammatificated by the rules you create later.  

[Shen Trey]

hello everybody! so glad someone decided to let me join! omg I have been fartin around gaia forever looking for something like this!

anyways I have created dozens of languages and am glad to be able to share them with people who actually care ninja well anyways, give it a look see!  

[Serali88]

Kawazoe Michiyo

hello everybody! so glad someone decided to let me join! omg I have been fartin around gaia forever looking for something like this!

anyways I have created dozens of languages and am glad to be able to share them with people who actually care ninja well anyways, give it a look see!

Hey! Do any of these languages have pretty scripties ( writing systems )? mrgreen I love writing systems and I tend to call them "pretty scripties". mrgreen Good to have you both here!

*Hugs* Would like to see some of your stuff soon! I haven't been on here in a while due to alot of things that were ( and still ) are happening that has been keeping me busy. And they're not good things either.

But it's good to come back and see new people here!  

[Shen Trey]

Serali88

Kawazoe Michiyo

hello everybody! so glad someone decided to let me join! omg I have been fartin around gaia forever looking for something like this!

anyways I have created dozens of languages and am glad to be able to share them with people who actually care ninja well anyways, give it a look see!

Hey! Do any of these languages have pretty scripties ( writing systems )? mrgreen I love writing systems and I tend to call them "pretty scripties". mrgreen Good to have you both here!

*Hugs* Would like to see some of your stuff soon! I haven't been on here in a while due to alot of things that were ( and still ) are happening that has been keeping me busy. And they're not good things either.

But it's good to come back and see new people here!

first of all my Culture prohibits me from touching any female other then my chosen love (so no huggies please and thank you) second yes I have three basic writing systems which I call Calligraphy, but I have not yet been able to put them on the computer crying though I am working on this and will have them up in my profile and on various other websites as well  

[spider_desu]

Conlang Lover

Hi! I'm Connie, Conlanger, or Conlover. Nice to meet you! ^_^

I develop my vocab by thinking of an English phrase like, "How are you?" and scribbling down what makes sense to me. Sometimes I'll modify it, actually mostly that's what I do, but after all is said and done, it really is gibberish. I then proceed to think of which word sounds like its English equivalent. (The initial phrase, after editing, was "Nu ru vaš?", and I thought that "Nu" sounded like the verb.) So I derived "nuro" (to be) from that. After sidetracking and making a whole bunch of grammar junk, I came to the conclusion that inversion of the subject and verb must be used for questions, and thus came about the word "ru". Logically, this must mean "you", so that was the definition it was assigned. And then I had a conundrum. "Vaš" didn't seem to fit as "how" because it came at the end of the sentence. But I thought to myself, 'Hey! I can fix that!' and made a new grammar rule stating that all question words must be placed at the end of the sentence. (I did this because I originally wanted a SVO conlang and making this rule made it possible to keep it that way without changing the meanings of "nu" and "ru".)

So yes, I do randomly scribble. But keep in mind that my conlang is VERY young, so I can still go with phrases first, once you have concrete grammar rules, you must find different ways of making words. (I think I shall derive from previous Þjàmšu vocabulary, but that's open to speculation...)

I think it just depends on the person, honestly.

Good luck with your conlang! ^_^ (Does it have a name yet? Tell me!)

No name yet, mainly because I have yet to develop an actual language xd Just countless ways to write languages once I have invented one.

I have already made a few definite decisions, though 3nodding I want separate words to specify subject and time of a verb, although I may have different conjugations to represent negation. As for helper verbs (to want to ____, to need to ____, should _____, etc.) I am still deciding whether I want tenses (such as the -tai and -kunai endings in Japanese) or separate words.

As well, I know I will have a 100% phonetic alphabet. None of this semi-phonetic crap they have in all European languages. My writing style will probably be Greek-derived, both because I love Greek letters and I want to be silly whee

Grammar-wise I had a few things I had decided and many I was considering. I figure that whatever comes first is what the speaker (or language inventor) deems the more important. In English and many European languages it is more important who did an action, rather than what they did. And what they did is more important than to whom it was done. In Japanese, to whom something is done is more important than what is done.

I thought for a while and I see equal importance in what is done and who does it. Thus I have had difficulty deciding if verbs should go at the beginning or middle of a sentence, but I would not agree to put them at the end.

I will also be a preposition whore, and they will (along with subject and object markers) will be required. Although I will do people the favor or removing similar prepositions (such as "from"/"of" or "to"/"at")

All in all it is a work in progress. I have bought a composition book and so I can actually design a language during free time now. I will read through the Language Construction Kit in hopes that it can remind me of anything I neglected, then I will see what I can come up with.

EDIT- Thank you Layra-chan ^_^ Loved the Construction Kit. I had never previously looked into the differences between individual vowels and consonants. I knew there were sounds in other languages that weren't in English, but until reading through that I was at a loss to understand the construction of these sounds. I think for simplicity I will find a language with few phenomes and imitate their pronunciation rules, although it's nice to know how to create consonants now 3nodding

As for grammar- I already had some ideas as I said, but I will look into other languages to see if there are any practices I like. And I have some good ideas for vocabulary development now ^_^ Thank you again.  

[Shen Trey]

spider_desu

Conlang Lover

Hi! I'm Connie, Conlanger, or Conlover. Nice to meet you! ^_^

I develop my vocab by thinking of an English phrase like, "How are you?" and scribbling down what makes sense to me. Sometimes I'll modify it, actually mostly that's what I do, but after all is said and done, it really is gibberish. I then proceed to think of which word sounds like its English equivalent. (The initial phrase, after editing, was "Nu ru vaš?", and I thought that "Nu" sounded like the verb.) So I derived "nuro" (to be) from that. After sidetracking and making a whole bunch of grammar junk, I came to the conclusion that inversion of the subject and verb must be used for questions, and thus came about the word "ru". Logically, this must mean "you", so that was the definition it was assigned. And then I had a conundrum. "Vaš" didn't seem to fit as "how" because it came at the end of the sentence. But I thought to myself, 'Hey! I can fix that!' and made a new grammar rule stating that all question words must be placed at the end of the sentence. (I did this because I originally wanted a SVO conlang and making this rule made it possible to keep it that way without changing the meanings of "nu" and "ru".)

So yes, I do randomly scribble. But keep in mind that my conlang is VERY young, so I can still go with phrases first, once you have concrete grammar rules, you must find different ways of making words. (I think I shall derive from previous Þjàmšu vocabulary, but that's open to speculation...)

I think it just depends on the person, honestly.

Good luck with your conlang! ^_^ (Does it have a name yet? Tell me!)

No name yet, mainly because I have yet to develop an actual language xd Just countless ways to write languages once I have invented one.

I have already made a few definite decisions, though 3nodding I want separate words to specify subject and time of a verb, although I may have different conjugations to represent negation. As for helper verbs (to want to ____, to need to ____, should _____, etc.) I am still deciding whether I want tenses (such as the -tai and -kunai endings in Japanese) or separate words.

As well, I know I will have a 100% phonetic alphabet. None of this semi-phonetic crap they have in all European languages. My writing style will probably be Greek-derived, both because I love Greek letters and I want to be silly whee

Grammar-wise I had a few things I had decided and many I was considering. I figure that whatever comes first is what the speaker (or language inventor) deems the more important. In English and many European languages it is more important who did an action, rather than what they did. And what they did is more important than to whom it was done. In Japanese, to whom something is done is more important than what is done.

I thought for a while and I see equal importance in what is done and who does it. Thus I have had difficulty deciding if verbs should go at the beginning or middle of a sentence, but I would not agree to put them at the end.

I will also be a preposition whore, and they will (along with subject and object markers) will be required. Although I will do people the favor or removing similar prepositions (such as "from"/"of" or "to"/"at")

All in all it is a work in progress. I have bought a composition book and so I can actually design a language during free time now. I will read through the Language Construction Kit in hopes that it can remind me of anything I neglected, then I will see what I can come up with.

EDIT- Thank you Layra-chan ^_^ Loved the Construction Kit. I had never previously looked into the differences between individual vowels and consonants. I knew there were sounds in other languages that weren't in English, but until reading through that I was at a loss to understand the construction of these sounds. I think for simplicity I will find a language with few phenomes and imitate their pronunciation rules, although it's nice to know how to create consonants now 3nodding

As for grammar- I already had some ideas as I said, but I will look into other languages to see if there are any practices I like. And I have some good ideas for vocabulary development now ^_^ Thank you again.

0.0......sweet!  

[spider_desu]

Good news, everyone! ^_^

Ai hav bigμn wμrk aun mai nu leingwuj

Of course the above is a complete bastardization of it whee I removed many sounds in the English language that I did not believe to be aesthetic. I am considering removing sounds that do not exist in East-asian or Middle-eastern languages, as well. Unless I decide to remove those sounds, the language currently has 23 phenomes (I allowed for the use of 4 others when writing another language with my system) and 23 letters. Yes- perfect phonetic.

I wanted my language to be beautiful and flow naturally and elegantly off of the tongue. No quick stops in the middle of words or harsh sounds. As such, I have adopted the (loose) practice that hard consonants should only come at the beginning of a word, if at all. Of course I may allow exceptions for this if I find that a word sounds pretty despite a hard consonant.

I also have developed a list of personal pronouns (pμrsμnμl pronauns) derived from the Pinyin of Mandarin Chinese, Malay, and French (I looked at 14 very different languages and chose what I believed to be the prettiest, then modified these slightly)

singyulμr:
fμrst pμrsμn - uo ("oo-oh"/"wo") I, me, myself
sekμnd pμrsμn - dau ("dah-oo") you, yourself
θrd pμrsμn - el/il ("el/eel") he/she, himself/herself*

plμrμl:
fμrst pμrsμn - uis ("oo-ees") we, us, ourselves
sekμnd pμrsμn - dais ("dah-ees"/"dice") you all, yourselves
θrd pμrsμn - ils ("eels") they, themselves*

(*Since the main users of this language will be myself and my girlfriend I have discussed vocabulary and pronunciation with her and she does not believe the words "he" and "she" should be similar. She also is confused by the use of the French word "he" as "she" in my language. These are probably going to change)

For now I have stolen a few Greek letters to represent sounds. I believe I will keep that practice so that I can type my language on a computer. It would be terrible if I lost the ability due to two or three original characters rolleyes One thing you may note is my spelling of English words with my own system. This will remain a possibility, but I hope to not have to write English words in the future when I have an intact vocabulary.

You may also note I have no "gender-neutral" singular pronoun. My language, as I said, will be pure elegance. For this reason all nouns, unless stated otherwise, will be female (the more elegant and graceful, though less powerful of our race)

I don't want to waste too many threads, but I am very intrigued by languages and having quite a bit of fun now that I am finally making my own. I think I will be posting any grammar and vocabulary updates here in this thread. I may go ahead and edit the first post to mention such.  

[Layra-chan]

Might want to move this to the Conlang Lessons and Grammar subforum, which is where the actual development of conlangs occurs.  

[TheFrogDaysAreOver]

Okay. You're welcome and good luck! =D
(I hope you'll figure out a good name soon! ^_^)  

[Shen Trey]

hm a name for a language is the hardest part I discovered