Con-langing

The art of constructing languages. And it sure is an art – in patience, determination, and … overcoming the fear of math, apparently. I recently decided I didn’t like where my vocabulary was going, or the look of my writing systems. Well, the writing systems I still like, but they need work. What I was really bothered by was the sounds of my constructed (fictional) language. The Phonology, to be linguistic about it. So I sort of “shopped around” for ideas, keeping in mind that I like the sounds of Japanese, French, and Italian. I also like the sounds of Russian, Arabic, Irish, and Greek, but I want to keep things pretty simple. So I looked into French vowels and … all the possible syllables in Chinese (since there’s more variety/possibilities in Chinese than in Japanese, and I wanted a broader range of sounds to work with). I came up with a list of 11 vowels, 23 initial/medial consonants, and 3 medial only consonants. For clarification, a few of those consonants (all of the medial only consonants, and 6 initial/medial consonants) are actually what we call “clusters” in English – two (or more) consonants next to each other with no vowel separation. In addition, I included what’s called a “terminal” /n/, a consonant (in this case /n/) that can come at the end of any syllable. Otherwise, consonants must be followed by a vowel. Vowels, however, can act as single  syllables. So I set up a chart listing all the possible syllables available, and came up with 304 possible single syllable words, not including the medial only syllables (since they can’t act as single syllable words).

After doing a lot of math, here are the possibilities:

• 304 single syllable words (including syllables that end with a terminal /n/)
• 92,979 two syllable words (including the use of medial only syllables)
• ~ 305,424 three syllable words
• ~ 8,540,721,616 four syllable words
• ~8,541,124,323 total words (1-4 syllables in length)

Obviously, not all of the ‘generated’/possible words will “work” – based on sound aesthetics and sound/concept associations – but that is a lot of possibilities! Plenty to work with to create an extensive lexicon.

All of this work was inspired by the excellent author (Gary Shannon) of the article Auto Lex Word Generator, who also runs a really interesting website called Fiziwig. His articles on conlanging (constructing languages) are particularly interesting, and easy to read.

Based on his Auto Lex Word Generator article, I determined that for my current phonology I can assign approximately 92 two syllable words – to use as “roots” – to each of the 1000 categories in Roget’s Thesaurus. I got a list of all the categories from Wikipedia, which provides a nice outline of the Thesaurus, which I’ve printed and will begin assigned roots to over the weekend. As I translate texts (starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then working through the Lord’s Prayer and the Babel Text), I’ll be able to just look up a word in the thesaurus, determine which of the 92 possible roots I’d like to use, and create the words I need based on those roots. Of course, first I have to create a table of all possible two syllable words … Which could take the rest of the weekend!

On a final note, Gary Shannon also provides on his Conlang Page a series of “graded sentences” which, according to his description,”A translation of all 1200 of these sentences would constitute a fairly complete documentation of the grammar of any language, constructed or natural.”

At some point, I’ll work through those sentences; first, I’ll be translating those 3 texts I mentioned above so I can get a feel for the phonology and the grammar. Once I’ve translated those 3 texts, I’ll be revising/recreating the writing systems as well, starting with a character system (like Chinese Hanzi/Japanese Kanji, but looking more the Seal or Grass/Running scripts of Chinese). Then from some initial characters (probably 1 character for each primary root of each of the 1000 categories, so about 1000 initial characters) I’ll develop a sort of “block” alphabet similar to Korean Hangul. Finally, from that script I’ll be developing a cursive style alphabet, which I’d like to set up 2 “forms” for – one for writing vertically (based on Mongolian or Manchu), and one for writing horizontally (based on Arabic, Avestan, and handwritten Tibetan).

I know that sounds like a lot, but the idea is that the original writing system was just the character system. The block alphabet was then later developed to help teach pronunciation and to write loan/foreign words. The cursive script(s) were then developed even later simply for aesthetic purposes (because so many people wanted a more “organic”, curving alphabet to use for shop signs, in advertising, or simply to make writing by hand a little easier). The vertical version of the cursive alphabet will be developed first, since vertical writing is most common. The horizontal script will be adapted from the vertical script just so I have that option.

 

Mijanu, new Graven map, and SteamPunk!

I’m currently working on 2 different projects at once – developing vocabulary (and semanto-phonetic character-glyphs) for the Graven conlanguage Mijanu, and completely rebuilding Graven from the ground up with a whole new island shape, new organization, new everything. Except key locations, that is. They’re staying, just … staying somewhere new. It’s a little complicated, but basically my original map was totally higgly-piggly (I just *had* to use that word today), not very well organized, and pretty much just slapped together in a week from a collection of other partially finished maps I’d started and gotten tired of over the course of a year or so. This time, I’ve actually planned out the different areas, what they’re “based on” (real-world associations, if you will), and I’m starting with streets instead of buildings. That way things are a little more organized and realistic looking, but still with a good, solid “growth flair” as I like to call it. Basically, I want this planned, but planned so it looks like the city “grew” into a lovely whole. I’ll post the first iteration once I have some streets to show scale; I’m working at 24″x36″ and 300 dpi, as I plan to print this out as a massive poster and then have it laminated so I can take notes on the map itself, as it hangs gloriously on my wall. I’m really looking forward to that, actually.

Now, Mijanu. I’m still working on fleshing out the grammar and getting some sample texts translated, but here’s a little “taster” of what the language looks like in the Latin alphabet (American, English, romanized, whatever).

“Ete.na irra.ren nina eskitu.tan. Ete.na orei.sun koreya.tan, hera par.sun yu.fararu.led. Terre, ete.na kora.sun navu.tan.” (trans. “I went to the market yesterday. I wanted (to buy) a cow, but couldn’t find one. So/therefore, I bought a monkey.”)

Obviously nothing particularly deep or special, it was just something I came up with while working on a comic script I’m in the process of writing. The characters live in Graven, where you can get monkeys at the market. There’s a lot of the grammar missing, and while I have quite a few vocabulary words I have to not only keep building new ones, I also have to create “glyphs” for them. It’s going to be awhile before I can write anything longer than a single short sentence or two in the full script. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I’ll have some sketches with single words or short phrases in them, as signs and such. I’d really like to get some environment sketches done, complete with signs advertising fresh vegetables.

Now, just as a note, I was looking for some good SteamPunk reference for one of the districts in Graven, and came across this *absolutely amazingly fantastic* looking new game that I am just drooling over. I think I might die of dehydration, but be that as it may, here’s the press release about CLOCKWORK EMPIRES. I don’t even dare try to explain how awesome this game looks. Just read the article and see for yourself. I think one hint is all I need to give you – procedural generation of buildings. How cool is that? (If you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say “procedural generation”, basically you get to not only build a city by placing buildings – think Age of Empires series, but you can also edit individual buildings).

 

Word Building

I’ve finally finished drafting the grammar for the constructed (fictional) language of Graven, currently called Mijanu. I have a handful of words I created earlier, with the original possible sounds (a whole lot of them), but today I’m reducing the number of allowed sounds and reworking the vocabulary a little. Most of the words I already have will remain, although I will edit them a bit to fit the reduced number of sounds. For those interested, I’m using the Risus Monkey: Fantasy Language Cypher Generator to generate words that sound like a combination of Japanese and French. Just input sample text you like the sound of, type or copy in a text you’d like to “translate”, and the generator “translates” the text into a ‘faux-language’ modeled on the sample text. You can use any text as a model, as long as it’s in the Latin alphabet. The easiest way to get samples, especially of languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet, is to go to Omniglot.com, and go to the “Babel Text” page. Omniglot offers hundreds of translations of the passage from the Bible talking about the tower of Babel, and all but one of the samples I looked at had at least one transliteration (French has several, from various Bibles; Chinese has several different styles of pinyin transliteration).

I’m currently working on creating a word list by “translating” Japanese vocabulary words (romanized) into the “faux-language” the Risus Monkey generator creates, and then editing the words as I like. I’m working on a page that shows what I’m doing, with the sample text I’m using. Once I’ve edited the grammar and have a short sample text translated, I’ll post both to show you the full language.