5 ms·

How to create a (fictional) language in one day

81 points by sicher 15y ago

DanielStraight 15y ago
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-Rosenfelder/dp/098447000X http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfe... See also his website: http://zompist.com/kit.html http://zompist.com/kit.html
pferde 15y ago
Quite cool write-up, thanks. It reminds me of CircleMUD's spell "garblelanguage" (http://www.circlemud.org/pub/CircleMUD/3.x/uncompressed/circle30bpl22/src/spell_parser.c http://www.circlemud.org/pub/CircleMUD/3.x/uncompressed/circ..., look for struct syllable syls[]. Of course, it is much more limited in scope.
ColinWright 15y ago
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.
- pferde 15y ago
  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.
  - trebor 15y ago
    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 https://github.com/rk/werd
    - pyry 15y ago
      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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaran%C3%AD_language
  - lukejduncan 15y ago
    Sure, but there is a difference between a "fictional" language such as this encoding and a synthetic language like Tolkein constructed (as I understand it).
  - bloggergirl 15y ago
    Cool... and a fun code to crack for the average person.
- Udo 15y ago
  I see it the same way. It's interesting, but it's "just" an advanced transliteration mechanism. It would be even more interesting (and more fitting for this headline) to make a language generator outputting unique words that are not based on a known language. For example, one might take an english dictionary and isolate word cores, then generate a different word for each core and apply rules to those in order to make nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Of course, it gets more complicated with custom sentence structures and grammar...
  - LeafStorm 15y ago
    It might be easier to use Esperanto as an "intermediate form" for this, since it's easier to split words into their roots and grammatical components.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  You're not. There are actual fictional languages that are constructed at the syntactic level instead of just as a series of shallow modifications to an underlying English sentence. This is a neat little project and dead-on for what it needed to do, but you're right in that it's not a whole language. There are fictional languages, like Klingon and Na'avi and a raft of others, but they take more than a day and some Python to do right.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Tolkien did a bunch too. But I think that's overstating the case. The fact that we're drowning in these things in popular fiction is an existence proof that all you need is a linguist with too much time on her hands.
- acheron 15y ago
  Yeah, it's basically just a cypher of English. Still cool though, and a good way to approximate a fictional language in a short amount of time.
getonit 15y ago
A friend of mine runs lipsum.org and has shown me the generator code - it uses similar tricks to avoid the repetitions that show up, albiet rarely, in most lipsum generators. You very rarely notice the difference, but when you do it's quite striking. A little bit of care goes a long way :)
qntm 15y ago
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!
- dennyabraham 15y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain http://www.asha.org/practice/multicultural/Phono.htm 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.
- Raphael 15y ago
  Yeah, I was thinking up some groups of brand names. It's not much pressure since it's for comedy, so the brands can be stereotypically lame. I picked a restriction or two for each set, such as a certain number of letters or syllables, or always starts or ends with the same letter or letters.
angelortega 15y ago
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 http://triptico.com/artwork/antichthon_universalis.html
- chaosfox 15y ago
  Never heard of this one but it sounds like someone attempted to remake the Voynich manuscript. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_Manuscript http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_Manuscript
jgfoot 15y ago
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/ 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 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.

81 points by sicher 15y ago

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-Rosenfelder/dp/098447000X http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfe... See also his website: http://zompist.com/kit.html http://zompist.com/kit.html

pferde 15y ago

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

ColinWright 15y ago

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.

pferde 15y ago
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.
- trebor 15y ago
  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 https://github.com/rk/werd
  - pyry 15y ago
    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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaran%C3%AD_language
- lukejduncan 15y ago
  Sure, but there is a difference between a "fictional" language such as this encoding and a synthetic language like Tolkein constructed (as I understand it).
- bloggergirl 15y ago
  Cool... and a fun code to crack for the average person.
Udo 15y ago
I see it the same way. It's interesting, but it's "just" an advanced transliteration mechanism. It would be even more interesting (and more fitting for this headline) to make a language generator outputting unique words that are not based on a known language. For example, one might take an english dictionary and isolate word cores, then generate a different word for each core and apply rules to those in order to make nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Of course, it gets more complicated with custom sentence structures and grammar...
- LeafStorm 15y ago
  It might be easier to use Esperanto as an "intermediate form" for this, since it's easier to split words into their roots and grammatical components.
Vivtek 15y ago
You're not. There are actual fictional languages that are constructed at the syntactic level instead of just as a series of shallow modifications to an underlying English sentence. This is a neat little project and dead-on for what it needed to do, but you're right in that it's not a whole language. There are fictional languages, like Klingon and Na'avi and a raft of others, but they take more than a day and some Python to do right.
- ajross 15y ago
  Tolkien did a bunch too. But I think that's overstating the case. The fact that we're drowning in these things in popular fiction is an existence proof that all you need is a linguist with too much time on her hands.
acheron 15y ago
Yeah, it's basically just a cypher of English. Still cool though, and a good way to approximate a fictional language in a short amount of time.

getonit 15y ago

A friend of mine runs lipsum.org and has shown me the generator code - it uses similar tricks to avoid the repetitions that show up, albiet rarely, in most lipsum generators. You very rarely notice the difference, but when you do it's quite striking. A little bit of care goes a long way :)

qntm 15y ago

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!

dennyabraham 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain http://www.asha.org/practice/multicultural/Phono.htm 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.
Raphael 15y ago
Yeah, I was thinking up some groups of brand names. It's not much pressure since it's for comedy, so the brands can be stereotypically lame. I picked a restriction or two for each set, such as a certain number of letters or syllables, or always starts or ends with the same letter or letters.

angelortega 15y ago

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

chaosfox 15y ago
Never heard of this one but it sounds like someone attempted to remake the Voynich manuscript. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_Manuscript http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_Manuscript

jgfoot 15y ago

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/ 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 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.