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 Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 7:44 pm
For my main story -- posted under The Lawless, and pretty confusing from what I've heard -- half the characters created their own names from combination or permutations of words from a dead language. For instance, Ad'eli comes from Aden, which means flower, and Elienii, with the apostrophe showing where the words come together.
Lately I've been in a snit trying to make this nonexistant language make sense, and even though I doubt I'll use the language outside of names or crude, broken sentences, I'm trying to give it sustenence so it doesn't feel so stupid.
So I'd like some input on what people think of the different bits of languages they know- parts they like, and parts they don't like, parts that make sense and parts that should be considered, if that isn't too difficult.
i.e. In German, there are nearly a dozen different ways to say 'the' depending on the case and the word itself (This includes Der, Die, Das, Den, Dem, Deren, Dessen, etc.), which I find incredibly annoying and am, therefore, trying to avoid adding the word 'the' to my language at all. Is that a bit over-the-top?
Things like that. I'll be grateful for any thoughts on the matter. ^-^
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 7:32 pm
i like the idea of developing a language. Ive been working on one for some time but haven't had much success. though personaly i think every language needs "the" though it is a pointless word in some respcets.
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Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 7:17 am
SatanBarbie i.e. In German, there are nearly a dozen different ways to say 'the' depending on the case and the word itself (This includes Der, Die, Das, Den, Dem, Deren, Dessen, etc.), which I find incredibly annoying and am, therefore, trying to avoid adding the word 'the' to my language at all. Is that a bit over-the-top? Things like that. I'll be grateful for any thoughts on the matter. ^-^ Actually, languages like Russian have no articles 'the, a, an'. So you could get away with it. Speaking as someone who's still developing her story's language after five years... Go for what you want it to sound like, first (flowing, hard, raspy, musical), then develop an alphabet and basic grammar and syntax (which words go where in a sentence). Find out your basic words like "hello" "goodbye" "please" "thank you"... you can find out a lot about culture from these words. For instance, my story treats hello and goodbye like 'aloha', and the term means literally, "wind for wings".
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Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 9:59 am
It's a dead language, so for the most part nobody in the story would use hello or goodbye... Would be odd for a name, but I'll come up with something.
For the most part, the words that are common in everday language are insults, but some of them would have studied the language and use it to talk in code, that sort of thing, so syntax'll be important. One of the main characters thinks she can speak it, and often tries to translate things literally and fails miserably.
I've conjugated the verbs successfully, so I figure that pronouns would be dropped often, since the verb conjugation tells who should have said it, and what gender they are. (The language blatantly labels males as the dominant of the two, and adds an e to label someone as subordinate -- an insult if they're male, or just normal if they're female.)
Thanks for the input, by the way. ^-^
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 4:28 pm
It isn't necessary, but it sure makes not contradicting yourself a whole lot easier if you set down the rules first--which goes for anything in your universe--magic, language, science, whatever.
My advice:
1. Go to a library and look at a couple of different 'learn a new language' books (as well as listening to a couple of minutes on a learning tape/CD/DVD) and compare them, so you can use one that is close to how you want your language to 'sound'.
2. Check out a book on learning a new language and follow it when creating your own language, as if you were going to teach someone else how to speak/write your new language. It'll make more sense that way--like figuring out how many letters are in your alphabet, because English has 26, spanish has 28 (including 2 dropped and 2 different ones added). Always a good thing to know...
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Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:09 pm
One important point is how you want the grammar to be, and what grammar do you even want. If it is a dead language, you can probably make in intensely grammatical, but not actually need to develop the rules for it fully. You can decide if you even want preposistional phrases, adjectives, and adverbs. If you really want something strange, don't have verbs at all.
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