mːdzʌ mɑɪlitsweyndzʌn eɪ ijiːɛtʃvybvlɑbvɹy
“The humans know absolutely nothing of value about the wizard.”
(Kekeblin, a Third Realm language)
Try to imagine Game of Thrones (the TV series) without the Dothraki language. Specifically, imagine Jason Momoa, as Khal Drogo, growling all of his lines… in English. No matter how much intense energy Jason brings to the role, something would feel like it was missing.
Now, at risk of fantastical blasphemy, imagine Lord of the Rings without any fictional languages. Not Quenya or Sindarin (the elvish languages), not Khudzul (the dwarfish language), not even the Black Speech (the language written on the One Ring). How much air gets sucked out of the room at just the thought?
Invented languages can capture a fictional culture with just a few sounds and provide a fictional people with an irreplaceable depth of identity (when done well). No one will ever listen to Tolkien’s Quenya and Star Trek’s Klingon, for example, and imagine an even remotely similar people—but they will immediately begin imagining and wondering! (The fact that both languages come with their own constructed histories and mythologies is an added bonus for dedicated fans.) The caveat is that Quenya was the result of decades of work by Tolkien, and Klingon was written by a professional linguist, Mark Okrand. Who has the time and resources to put that much effort into an invented language? At that point, you’re a linguist first, not a writer.
I have some good news: even if you don’t even know enough about linguistics to understand why “unvoiced anal fricative” makes freshmen linguists giggle, you can still craft effective language icebergs. Depending on how you go about it, the whole process can take anywhere from several minutes to a long weekend, rather than months or years.
Having tools for constructing fantasy languages is useful in a variety of ways. I, as an example, really hate naming characters and things—it’s my least favorite part of writing a new story. Having a language sketch makes it significantly easier for me to name things as I am no longer working in what feels like a blank space; I have tools and examples to work with, as well as a list of sounds I can playfully combine to see what feels right. It shifts naming from a chore into an engaging exercise of discovery—which I far prefer over clutching my empty head and wondering why a mystical word that just feels right won’t float into it on command.
Fictional languages can be used for more than naming or representing a fictional people or culture. A popular fantasy trope is for magic to be bound to a specific language—if you wanted to lean into this trope (and do it better than many), you could partially construct this language of magic and then draw from it whenever someone needs to speak magic in your stories.
So here are the steps and tricks I keep in mind when I (a writer first, not a linguist) create invented languages as part of my worldbuilding. I’ve broken these steps into “methods.” Generally speaking, each subsequent method takes more time and effort than the last, but also results in a language that is more detailed, has more depth, and is easier to build on in the future.
(Most of the below sections have been given their own pages, accessible by hyperlink. Doing so made organization and accessibility much easier, particularly given the word count of some of these sections.)
The Gist: pick a flow, make up words or phrases as needed, and thoughtfully revise after the fact.
Hoi, hoi, u embleer Hrair, m’saion ule hraka vair.
Hoi, hoi, the stinking Thousand, we meet them even when we stop to pass our droppings; a lapine proverb.
Watership Down, page 42
The rabbit language… was invented word by word in the course of writing.
Richard Adams
Method 2: Naming Language (Sounds into Syllables into Words)
The Gist: choose a sound inventory, choose syllable structure rules, choose word formation rules, and then make words (and/or phrases) as needed.
My initial vocabulary also featured many words themed around honor and bravery, as I determined those two ideals were a critical aspect of Kekeblin culture. Two examples are “honor” (tsehr) and “coward” (nehlethimon)
Method 3: Birthing and Developing a More Complete Language
The Gist: identify grammatical features your language might need to compose sentences and make statements, then decide on how you will implement those features. Strictly speaking, there is no end point to this process; you work until you decide you are done.
If you’re not sure what kind of things your language needs to be capable of doing—grammatically—an easy way to generate ideas is to collect a list of simple (and/or complex) sentences and translate them into your language. If you don’t know how to do something in a translation, you now can make a choice on whether or not (and if so, how) to make that translation possible in your language.
Method 4: Developing Languages, Language Families, and Histories
The Gist: making a language as alive (or, at least, life-like) as possible by giving it dialects, including regional and/or time period variations, parent and daughter languages, sister languages, a world and culture with competing languages, etc.
Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.
JRR Tolkien
Conclusion
My purpose here was not to persuade people uninterested in invented languages to try to create one, much less start writing a fictional world so that they have a place for their fictional languages. Rather, I hope that authors with little to no experience in creating their own languages, but who wish to try to make one, discover this essay and find it useful.
If you have any further questions, hopefully the following supplemental material can answer some of them. Alternatively, leave me a comment or Contact Me and I’ll share what I know! In the meantime, have fun making up words.
Addendum A: Sample Language Outlines
The following are outlines (or parts of outlines) for languages that I have made, roughly organized to match the above stages.
I use a lot of IPA in the following sections, because that is my preferred method for recording sounds and intended pronunciations. You can look up how individual sounds are pronounced here. If you are not familiar with IPA and have no interest in it, you may find spotty use for this particular addendum.
Descriptive Only: Guller
“Gullers,” in the Third Realm universe, are essentially dog-sized griffins, except made exclusively of seagull parts. They are an intelligent species in a very, very early stage of development.
Gullers provide an example of a creature that doesn’t really need a language in any form to be developed for it, just notes on how they communicate to keep my descriptions consistent. Here are my only notes on their language:
“The guller natural language does not appear to be a true language—it’s close to animal communication, with lots of sounds without direct meaning, and body language. That said, most gullers quickly pick up any language they hear, the most obvious sign of their intelligence. Perhaps they didn’t develop a language of their own because of this.”
Method 1 Example: Roderish (Gobbledygook)
The Gist: Roderish is my example of a gobbledygook language.
gor-/gorskr-: Prefix. Denotes largeness, greatness, or danger. Use the ‘skr’ ending when the word begins with a vowel, nasal, or ‘r’ equivalent.
IPA: goɹ-/goɹskɹ-
Method 2 Example: Fhaatch (Naming Language)
The Gist: Fhaatch is my example of a naming language.
Syllable Structure: C(C)(C)V(C) — Note that the “C” not in parentheses means that every syllable must, at the minimum, have a consonant followed by a vowel.
Special Rule: Even though having two consonants before a vowel is possible (in a syllable), this is rare and usually limited to names. Syllables are normally preceded by either one consonant or three.
Method 3 Example: Kekeblin (Birthing and Developing a More Complete Language)
The Gist: Kekeblin is my most-developed language. The above link takes you to a summary of the language. You can also read my complete grammar (with a dictionary) here, or a brief grammar (with a dictionary) here. The documents are not perfectly internally consistent—the larger a language becomes, the more onerous it is to keep every fine detail perfectly up-to-date when changes are made.
It should also be noted that Kekeblin intentionally incorporates many features that fly in the face of naturalistic languages. (The story behind that is that Kekeblin is an invented language within the Third Realm universe, with the person inventing the language intentionally being obtuse.)
Addendum B: Supplemental Material
The following provides additional resources and thoughts that worked better in their own space rather than messying up the main article.
Supplement 1: Reading and Online Material
The Language Construction Kit (Mark Rosenfelder) is an excellent, and extremely dense, starter for language construction. The book contains far more information than most will ever need in the first few chapters alone. However, if you ever get really into language construction, the sequel Advanced Language Construction is a gem.
The Art of Language Construction (David J Peterson) is a little more digestible than the former book, but its provided information is still rock-solid. The prose is a little friendlier and easier to read, and pop culture fans might enjoy this book more for its use of Dothraki and other languages that have graced TV and film (mostly ones written by Mr. Peterson, of course).
In the Land of Invented Languages (Arika Okrent) will not teach you how to create languages, but it will give you a history of invented language in a short and very entertaining read. Most of the book focuses on languages invented with the goal of becoming international auxiliary languages, but there is still a lot of material on languages invented for other purposes (such as movies and TV); regardless, the entire book is thought provoking for the questions it poses about the human condition through language.
ConLang.org is a great website for English speakers to meet and discuss language creation, find other language creation resources, and learn about in-person and online events. (You can also go there to hire a conlanger to create a language for you, if that’s your preference—or to help expand or organize a language that you’ve already begun.)
I use these resources whenever I use the International Phonetic Alphabet:
- IPA Keyboard: An online keyboard that lets you type in IPA and copy the text into other applications.
- IPA Sound Chart: An online IPA Chart with pronunciations for each symbol. Just turn up your volume and click!
- Word Generator: A tool that allows you to enter syllable- and word-formation rules, as well as the sounds present in your language, that then generates a large list of possible words for you. Useful for generating ideas when you are stuck, but using every suggested word/syllable on the list will create languages that feel very unnaturalistic.
Supplement 2: In-Book Dictionaries
The Gist: A quick risk analysis of in-book dictionaries.
The Gist: An orthography is a system for writing a language. There are many kinds that naturally evolved on Earth, described here. I’ve also provided an example of one that is interesting but not a natural evolution of writing or language. Useful if you want to make an orthography for your language, or just want quick information so you can describe one.
Supplement 4: “Unwritable” Languages
The Gist: Ideas for languages that aren’t necessarily writable, but still may be worth planning out how they work.
Supplement 5: A Proposal From a Professional Conlanger, David J Peterson
The Gist: David J Peterson’s proposal (and plea) at the end of his book, The Art of Language Invention.
The Gist: A basic list of words that may spark ideas for words and concepts that would/could/should be included in your language.
Copyright © 2023 by David Ludlow
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