From the Klingon language of the Star Trek universe, to the Na'vi language of James Cameron's “Avatar”, fictional language can make a work of fiction feel “real” and alive. Creating your own language can be overwhelming. For example, J. R. R. Tolkien studied linguistics academically before writing the novel Lord of the Rings, which combines multiple languages to create his own. However, depending on the scope of the project, even an amateur can come up with his own creative language, either for fun or as part of building your fictional world.
Step
Method 1 of 2: Using an Alphabet
Step 1. Give your language a name
Please make as you like! Make sure the name does sound like a language.
Step 2. Start with the pronunciation
Please choose how you pronounce your language to determine how it sounds and feels overall. However, to be more thorough and professional, you must provide background meaning so that the pronunciation is not just a sound.
Step 3. Create a language alphabet
Here your creativity is tested. Please make the alphabet as you like. Here are some options that can be taken:
- Create a pictograph or symbol. Many languages (eg Chinese) use symbols to communicate their language. If this is your choice, you should also create a pronunciation for each symbol. Each symbol has its own unique sound. The numbers are a great example.
- Make up a list of alphabets or syllables. Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hindi, Japanese, Arabic… Create a set of symbols that reflect each letter or an entire syllable, or even a diphthong.
- Use an existing alphabet. For example, if you use the Latin alphabet, you can simply create a new word for each object instead of creating a whole new pronunciation system.
- Merge multiple alphabets. Add accents to existing letters (such as the Spanish alphabet) to create new letters or sounds.
Step 4. Create a new vocabulary
There are several words for your language. You should start with general words, and move on to specific words.
- Start with foundation words, which will be used very often. Words like “I”, “he”, “and”, “a”, “to”, and “which”. Then, move on to verbs like “is”, “had”, “like”, “go”, and “make”. Don't forget the important a a e i o u y in the accent.
- Move on to general things. As your vocabulary grows, naming things pops into your head. Remember names of countries, body parts, verbs, etc. Don't forget the numbers!
- If you're having trouble, don't forget that you can borrow from another language. You can even change the word. For example, French for men is homme, while Spanish is hombre. He said it was almost the same and only a few letters/pronunciations were changed.
Step 5. Compose your own dictionary
Open a dictionary and start copying words with their translations. This method is not only useful when you forget how to pronounce a word. However, you also don't miss any words.
Make sure your words are easy to pronounce. Don't let your tongue slip
Step 6. Make your words look natural
One of the mistakes of language creators is to use too many upper commas in their vocabulary.
Step 7. Create grammar rules for your language
Grammar describes how sentences are formed. You can copy from an existing language, but change it up a bit to keep your language original.
Step 8. Decide how to pluralize nouns
You need to determine the difference between “books” and “multiple books”. Many languages add the ending –s as a distinction. You can choose to end or even prefix words. You can even create new words! (For example, if one book = Skaru, you can make multiple books = Neskaru, Skarune, Skaneru, Skaru Ne, or Ne Skaru and so on!))
Step 9. Decide how to make tenses in the verb
This will explain when something happened. The three main periods in language are past, present, and future.
You may also want to distinguish present-day verbs (such as English, for example “swim” and “swimming”). However, this is not very important. Indonesian does not have this distinction
Step 10. Create another suffix substitute
For example, in Indonesian a noun prefixed with me- and ending in -kan turns into a verb, or a verb ending in -an turns into a noun.
Step 11. Decide how to conjugate the words
Conjugation is a verb change to indicate the doer of the action. In English, for example " I like " and " He likes ".
Step 12. Write sentences using your new language
Start with simple sentences, such as "I have a cat." Then you can move on to more complex sentences, such as "I like watching television, but I prefer to go to the movies."
Step 13. Practice
Like learning a foreign language, it takes a lot of practice until you can use the language fluently.
Step 14. Test your language on others
You will love their confused looks. Perhaps, you will seem strange or even annoying. However, don't let that discourage you!
Step 15. Teach your language to others, if desired
If you want to share your language with friends, teach it to them. You can even try to spread your language as much as possible.
Step 16. Save your rules in a dictionary or phrasebook
That way, you always have a reference if you need to remember your language. You can even sell them for money!
If you want to expand the spread of your language, write a dictionary of your language (including the alphabets) as study material, and give it to the people you want to talk to
Method 2 of 2: Using Grammar
Step 1. Name your language
this is the most important part in all languages. You have lots of names to choose from! You can even make words out of your language. Everything depends on you.
Start with frequently used words such as 'and' or 'me' or 'one' or 'si'. It is recommended to use short words because they will be used often. For example, the word 'ant', 'es' or even 'loo' which means 'and'
Step 2. Start laying out your grammar rules
For example, if the word "bird" is 'Vogelaviatiolaps', you could make '"birds" into 'Vogelaviatiolaps'. The –s suffix that denotes a word in the plural is used in many languages. If you want to make it a little more complicated, you can add gender like European languages, such as French or German. For example, if you want to say a 'horse' is male, you can make it 'Mat Fereder', but if a cat is a female, make it 'Fet Kamaow'.
It should be noted that some languages do not even have a plural form. In Japanese, “cat” and “cats” are (neko). The way languages work is different, especially from two very far apart places. Experiment with creating your grammar rules
Step 3. Consider creating a language based on an existing language
For example, in your language, 'Vogelaviatiolap' means bird. This word can come from
- 'Vogel' comes from German, which means bird
- 'aviatio' is of English origin, but is incomplete because it is part of the term 'aviation'.
- 'lap' comes from Onomatopoeia. This term is exhaustive, but it should come from the word 'Flap!'
Step 4. Consider creating some words based on words from your native language
For example, if you make up the words 'Khinssa' which means 'China', 'Bever' which means 'Drink', and 'Casnondelibreaten' which means 'Accident', why not make 'tea' into 'Khincasnonbever' or 'Bevernondelibreatekin' or even 'Khinssacasnondelibreatenibever'!
Step 5. Take inspiration from existing alphabets and words
- There's nothing wrong with adding nonlatin characters like. You can even create languages that don't contain elements of the Latin alphabet entirely, such as Chinese characters!
- You can even take whole or change some words from other languages. You can make the word 'pen' into 'penn' or simply 'pen'. Use a dictionary to make sure you don't miss any words.
Step 6. Don't forget to monitor all your work, preferably in writing
Step 7. Use your language
Get used to using your language, and share it with others. Once you feel confident in your language, experiment and spread it around.
- Take a book/novel and translate it into your language.
- Teach friends.
- Communicate with each other as soon as your friends learn this language.
- Speak your native language and start spreading it to friends, family and strangers!
- Write a poem/novel/short story in your own language.
- If you are very ambitious, set a goal to help others become fluent in this language. One day, maybe you can even make it the official language of the country!
Tips
- Practice often so you don't forget!
- Don't forget punctuation!
- To shorten it and provide an interesting background, add connotations to various letters, preferably vowels. To do this, look for words that start with/have a certain number of vowels. For example,: austere, acrimony, ebullient, embolden; in this case, the vowel A can carry a negative meaning, while E has a positive meaning. That way, even if you forget a word in the dictionary, you can still guess based on the composition of the letters
- Remember that you must know how to write it. For example, we write from left to right, while Arabic is written from right to left, and Chinese is written by column, and so on. When creating a writing system, take a break every five minutes and work again so that all the letters don't look the same.
- Make sure you practice the pronunciation and spelling of many of the basic words in your native language. examples in Indonesian: are, who, when, from, why, if, what, where, can, may, etc.
- Don't use random letters. Language must “make sense” so that it is easy to learn and pronounce. For example, don't use oh as e, hello as llo, and Goodbye as c yah).
- When you're just starting out, stick to the language you like. Thus, grammar is easier to create. However, you shouldn't copy the grammar rules completely because your language just becomes code
- Creating letters based on pictures (pictographs) is an easy way to get started with a writing system.
- It helps if you make affixes that mean something and combine them to make a word. For example, if the syllable 'tah' means original, 'ky' means story, and 'fen' means traditional, then 'Tahky' is a true story, 'fenky' means traditional story, and 'Tahfen' means original tradition.
- If you want to type in your language, try looking for a Handwriting Font Creator. Then, plug in the font and type it into the word processor. If you normally operate an image editing program, create an image for each character so that it is easier to upload to the network.
Warning
- Unless intended, check that the translated word is not a slang word. That way, if you want to say it, you can say it easily.
- Switch away from your language for a while if the creation process is frustrating and you want to give up. This happens often and can demotivate you.
