

How to create a (fictional) language in one day - sicher
http://www.sicher.org/2011/10/18/how-to-create-a-language-in-one-day/

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ColinWright
Perhaps I'm missing something, but rather than actually being a new language,
this seems to be a simple and direct transliteration of English into a
different encoding.

Am I missing something?

PS: I should add that I've up-voted this because it is interesting, just not
really a new language.

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pferde
Hence the adjective "fictional". :) He just needed something that sounded and
looked cool enough for his work of fiction. and yes, you're right - new
language would have its own set of grammar rules, vocabulary, etc. Still,
quite cool for a quick hack like that.

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trebor
It qualifies as a "fictional" language because Colin is right: it's just an
alternative encoding of the English translation. There's no nuance to it at
all, even the Star Wars "language" Mando'a (or however you spell it) is
better. Mando'a isn't high on my list because it's not really a language, just
an English lexicon of alternative spellings. But at least there are rules to
the composition of the words!

Sorry to geek out for a second, I've been studying conlangs and considering
making one. I suggest use of a real word generator, like my Werd script[1] (a
translation of the original), that generates words based on rules.

[1]: <https://github.com/rk/werd>

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pyry
The word mando'a bounced around in my head for a while, then I remembered that
mandu'a is Guarani[1] for 'to remember'.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaran%C3%AD_language>

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jgfoot
If this interests you, there is an entire hobby that consists of inventing
constructed languages. For example, check out this guy's web page, featuring a
lot of languages he personally constructed, each with really creative grammar,
phonology, and writing systems: <http://dedalvs.conlang.org/> That guy is so
talented that the makers of the HBO series "Game of Thrones" hired him to
create the "Dothraki" language used in that show. (I think James Cameron also
hired a linguist to create the alien language in Avatar).

I will avoid getting into a debate about whether replacing phonemes with other
phonemes really makes a new language. But I will say that taking English and
coming up with replacements for English words means that you are locked into
an English conceptualization of the world. In English, we have a word, "go,"
that stands for a huge set of concepts; other languages conceptualize the
concept of movement completely differently.
<http://www.russianlessons.net/grammar/verbs_motion.php> . If you treat
creating a conlang as a creative endeavor, somewhere in the creative
neighborhood of writing a sci-fi or fantasy novel, then a big part of the
creativity comes from these types of decisions.

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qntm
I find one of the disproportionately hardest things in fiction is coming up
with names for things. Now I'm writing a thing where people cast magic spells
and I find myself needing a boatload of original fictional words which read
like they have a common syntax and origin. So this should be useful!

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dennyabraham
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain>
<http://www.asha.org/practice/multicultural/Phono.htm>

I don't write a lot of fiction anymore, but one of the best ways to generate
names is to create a phonemic inventory and use markov chains to generate
names from it. there are a couple such generators online that use established
corpuses, but it shouldn't be too hard to write.

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DanielStraight
If you want to create a complete language (or just understand what would go
into such a process), I cannot recommend this book highly enough:

[http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-
Rosenfe...](http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-
Rosenfelder/dp/098447000X)

See also his website:

<http://zompist.com/kit.html>

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pferde
Quite cool write-up, thanks. It reminds me of CircleMUD's spell
"garblelanguage"
([http://www.circlemud.org/pub/CircleMUD/3.x/uncompressed/circ...](http://www.circlemud.org/pub/CircleMUD/3.x/uncompressed/circle30bpl22/src/spell_parser.c),
look for struct syllable syls[]. Of course, it is much more limited in scope.

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angelortega
Some people said this is what was done in Antichthon Universalis, but others
say it's something more complicated.

<http://triptico.com/artwork/antichthon_universalis.html>

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chaosfox
Never heard of this one but it sounds like someone attempted to remake the
Voynich manuscript. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_Manuscript>

