Does anyone have some good tips on creating a language? I need to build one for the Nafreet in Five Realms and I don't want to just through letters together, but I would like it to make some sense.
Well, if you don't have any Star Trek geeks at your table, you could always use thlIngan Hol (http://www.kli.org) as a language for some race/culture.
However, the klingon language is rather guttural and rough, and I don't know if that fit your needs. :?:
When I built the language I use for my book, I first came up with some words that had a specific meaning already, then I broke down both the my version and the English version of the word, assigning a new sound to the letter. When I made new words I continued to add to the set of changes until all the letters were assigned a new sound. If you want to change the sound of the language, all you need to do is replace some of the hard consonants with softer ones, or vice versa. Mine uses a mixture of both (and liberal apostrophes) to get it to work. Don't bug out if a word sounds strange from the translation, use it as a starting point to figure out a word that works.
I hope that made sense.
I would always say start with grammar, at least forming the basics in your head, as well as alphabet, general sounds and example words. Then move on to the bulk of the vocabulary.
Thanks folks. I am looking for a written language (since I am not gaming currently in this world) and I want it to be very lyrical or mysterious language since no other humans have a different language.
Grammer is probably the best way to start and start making substitutions. Does anyone know of a good font site that as some very different looking fonts. Either completely made up letters or something like arabic or some other real language that looks completely different from English?
If you've got windows, the Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Old Latin and Greek alphabets should be already written into most of the fonts (Times New Roman especially). Just check your character map.
http://www.ukindia.com/zalph.htm is a site which includes the indian alphabets, whilst http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_reference_alphabet that wiki shows the African Reference Alphabet (although it holds many similarities to the Roman alphabet).
The chinese 'alphabet' is also a good place to look for ideas. Unlike our method of writing, the chinese characters actually represent concepts rather than sounds (or so I gather) which could be interesting for your method of writing.
Note also that in many languages, there are formal and informal dialects - for example in arabic, most dialects are written identically, but spoken they vary widely. In certain indian languages, there are different sections of vocabulary for each caste.
Quote from: WensleydaleIf you've got windows, the Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Old Latin and Greek alphabets should be already written into most of the fonts (Times New Roman especially). Just check your character map.
http://www.ukindia.com/zalph.htm is a site which includes the indian alphabets, whilst http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_reference_alphabet that wiki shows the African Reference Alphabet (although it holds many similarities to the Roman alphabet).
The chinese 'alphabet' is also a good place to look for ideas. Unlike our method of writing, the chinese characters actually represent concepts rather than sounds (or so I gather) which could be interesting for your method of writing.
Note also that in many languages, there are formal and informal dialects - for example in arabic, most dialects are written identically, but spoken they vary widely. In certain indian languages, there are different sections of vocabulary for each caste.
You learn something every day! I had no idea that the arabic and cyrillic fonts were already in there! Thanks!
Cyrillic is very heavily influenced by the Roman alphabet (although the sounds are differently assigned), however, so it may not be that useful to you.
www.omniglot.com
There's also a generator you can download that produces a lexicon for a fake language. It's called LangMake, I think...I'll have to find it again. It produces pretty good results, though.
Quote from: Xathan, Actually Back This TimeThere's also a generator you can download that produces a lexicon for a fake language. It's called LangMake, I think...I'll have to find it again. It produces pretty good results, though.
I found it! Here (http://www.langmaker.com/langmake/#Download%20Now!) is the site.
It does warn that it may not work with some versions of Windows, but it seems to work on mine and I am running XP.
Thanks for the info Xathan!
Okay, I've been playing with this a bit and it is pretty cool. You can list words, then let it generate a new word for the word you just defined. You get to set the consonant and vowel patter n as well as define what a C or V is. Then you can 'shift' the language over time and generate new words by combining two words. It even gives entemologies for the words.
That's pretty neat.
Okay, I've found one flaw in the program, and I think it is because of the age of the program. You can't save (or maybe I am doing it wrong) the language you create in the format the program uses. Thus you can't reopen the language.
But you can copy it to excel.
If you download it I suggest you also download the vocabuld file, open it, copy the vocabulary column, then paste it into your new language. It is 1600 words that are commonly used with variations listed. Very nice.
Best site on the topic I've found: http://www.zompist.com/kit.html