rc45 | the first of the Goodfic Guide articles

How to Make a Language for your Original Character

Or

A Guide to Naming and Speaking in an Imaginary Language

By OracleofChaos

We’ve all seen it far too many times… the Princess of Moonwood and her horse Shadowlite. Or you get horrendous names like Carilantielwen. It’s far too cliché, you don’t need to give your characters names like that just to make them sound foreign. Now, I’m not saying that creating a language is easy, it’s hard. I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject, I’m sticking with the cheaty method for now and that at least requires some effort on my part. However, I assure you that it’s worthwhile. Now, I’ll run through the cheaty method and those of you who are brave and determined can continue after that with the guide on how to actually build an entire language from scratch.

Cheaty Method –

Pick a culture base, Eastern or Western, North or South.

My Examples will be Culture of Language One is Roman. Culture of Language Two is Arabian.

Now, pick three or four vowels.

Ex: Lan 1 – a e i u / Lan 2 – a i o u

Next, pick 8 or 10 consonants. Feel free to combine two consonants and count them as one.

Ex: Lan 1 – c sz t mn x l r p/ Lan 2 – b ch f j l m w x z

Now mix your consonants with the vowels and you have some nice name and words in an imaginary language…Remember to make some rules on how to pronounce certain letters.

Ex: Lan 1 – szuitae (zooeetay) s in sz is not pronounced, ui is an oo ee sound, ae is an ay sound. Lan 2 – flajich (yeelagheeh) f is a y, j is a gh, and ch is an h.

Create a Language –

In order to make your own language, you’ll need to start with at least three languages that already exist.

Example: Latin, Greek, and German.

Now we are going on the basis that this language you’re using has been changing and evolving over time. You want to pick one of the three to be a root language, or a proto language. Next, you want to pick a parallel language or sister language to be the secondary language of your people. Mix them into a pidgin.

Ex: My proto language is Latin, the sister language is Greek. The Vocabulary will be Latin, but the grammatical structure will be Greek. You then transform this so that you have almost the third language which is a pidgin of Greek and Latin.

Once this is accomplished you add in the third language, maybe changing some of the common words for a Proto language spelling of the third language. Bingo you have your language.

Ex: My pidgin of Latin and Greek now has some Germanic words thrown in, though the spelling may be warped.

Now, if you want to get really complex, you make an entirely separate language the same way. Then you count the two languages as sister languages.

Ex: I’ve never done this so I’ll give you a famous example. Tolkien did this to create Sindarin and Quenya. The modern generations of Tolkien fans have seen a further transformation of the languages because most people who go to learn them learn a mix of Quenya and Sindarin, instead of both separately.

For further information visit the following sites…

http://www.langmaker.com/ml0102.htm

http://www.cherryh.com/www/latin1.htm

http://www.zompist.com/kit.html