I have been trying to write a fantasy novel for a while, and one of the steps I took was the creation of my own language. Whenever I tell people this, they are surprised and act like this is some big achievement, but it really wasn't that hard.
Anyway, I'm posting this to see if anyone else has done anything similar to what I did. Not necessarily for a book, of course, but has anyone else here ever created their own language?
Well, I've always had a love for languages (even English, despite the awkwardness that defines it). I enjoy making alphabets, and several months ago started developing a language. I'm not very far into it, but I guess I shall share. I'm going to put this in a spoiler due to length
My language is called Vaisra, and so far I have the basic grammatical structure created, the alphabet, and an okay size list of words (Around 150 verbs, 200 nouns, 50 adjectives, and a list of exactly 71 roots). I will also give examples of the writing using poor art skills.
Alphabet - Toji
The alphabet for Vaisra, called Toji, resembles hiragana or katakana in Japanese. It contains 7 singular vowels, A I Ih U E Eh O (pronounced ɔ i ɪ u e ɛ o in IPA, respectively). After this there are 79 consonant-vowel unions. Finally, there are 7 singular consonants and 1 auxiliary character. This character is used to extend the length that one holds a vowel or consonant, similar to the small tsu or duplicate vowel used in hiragana. If the auxiliary character is small, it affects the consonant while large effects the vowel.
When a Y character is decreased in size, it can then be used to "blend" with a normal consonant-vowel pair. The pair in question must be in the I column, and the Y character's vowel overrules the I. For example, if you wanted the sound Nya, you would place a Ni and a small ya together.
As you may have noticed, all of the letters are connected together via a line at the top. I refer to this as a rail. The rail serves to link letters into a word, and is used to modify sounds. There are 5 different starts to the rail. Seen above is the basic word start, which is used for generic words, and usually anything can use this, although writing more specific kinds are preferred. There is also a start for question words, pronouns, names of living beings, and names of inanimate objects.
The rail may also have marks at the top which control pronunciation. There are 2 basic marks, which tell either to use additional emphasis or less emphasis on certain vowels. After this there are 3 marks which change the consonant, similar to Tenten or Maru in hiragana. Consonant changing marks and emphasis marks may be combined.
The consonant sets are as followed. These are ordered by default, mark 1, mark 2, mark 3.
K, G, Ch | S, Z, Sh, St | T, D, Ts, Tz | Ð, Th, Pf | Sr | N | M | H, B, P | R, L | V | Jh, J, Ps, F | Y, W
Here is the chart.
Blank Spots mean that the character doesn't exist in the alphabet. Also, Neh is the coolkid who doesn't need to follow the rail. Deal with it.
Grammar - Nettsem
Vaisra follows a Object Verb Subject word order. English has an SVO word order, so an example of translating from SVO to OVS would be "I ate an apple" to "An apple ate I".
Vaisra uses particles to mark information in a sentence. Currently, Vaisra has 21 particles. Each particle has its own unique character.
I will be making frequent edits to this.
"Civilitey/ Liberby. Reason. Efidication. Civilty. Rationality. Learning, Jutstice. Libersty. Hornor. Elucidution.. Civlity. Raison... This are the virshues which emboby the magnificence that is Can Town."
Glad to see I am not alone in the creation of languages. Yours is about as complex as mine, too. I do like the Toji script, though.... I never spent much time with alphabets, mine never looked that good or were even that well suited for the actual language
I have been trying to write a fantasy novel for a while, and one of the steps I took was the creation of my own language. Whenever I tell people this, they are surprised and act like this is some big achievement, but it really wasn't that hard.
Anyway, I'm posting this to see if anyone else has done anything similar to what I did. Not necessarily for a book, of course, but has anyone else here ever created their own language?
I'm more interested in the novel.When your done can you post it?
Well, I've always had a love for languages (even English, despite the awkwardness that defines it). I enjoy making alphabets, and several months ago started developing a language. I'm not very far into it, but I guess I shall share. I'm going to put this in a spoiler due to length
My language is called Vaisra, and so far I have the basic grammatical structure created, the alphabet, and an okay size list of words (Around 150 verbs, 200 nouns, 50 adjectives, and a list of exactly 71 roots). I will also give examples of the writing using poor art skills.
Alphabet - Toji
The alphabet for Vaisra, called Toji, resembles hiragana or katakana in Japanese. It contains 7 singular vowels, A I Ih U E Eh O (pronounced ɔ i ɪ u e ɛ o in IPA, respectively). After this there are 79 consonant-vowel unions. Finally, there are 7 singular consonants and 1 auxiliary character. This character is used to extend the length that one holds a vowel or consonant, similar to the small tsu or duplicate vowel used in hiragana. If the auxiliary character is small, it affects the consonant while large effects the vowel.
When a Y character is decreased in size, it can then be used to "blend" with a normal consonant-vowel pair. The pair in question must be in the I column, and the Y character's vowel overrules the I. For example, if you wanted the sound Nya, you would place a Ni and a small ya together.
As you may have noticed, all of the letters are connected together via a line at the top. I refer to this as a rail. The rail serves to link letters into a word, and is used to modify sounds. There are 5 different starts to the rail. Seen above is the basic word start, which is used for generic words, and usually anything can use this, although writing more specific kinds are preferred. There is also a start for question words, pronouns, names of living beings, and names of inanimate objects.
The rail may also have marks at the top which control pronunciation. There are 2 basic marks, which tell either to use additional emphasis or less emphasis on certain vowels. After this there are 3 marks which change the consonant, similar to Tenten or Maru in hiragana. Consonant changing marks and emphasis marks may be combined.
The consonant sets are as followed. These are ordered by default, mark 1, mark 2, mark 3.
K, G, Ch | S, Z, Sh, St | T, D, Ts, Tz | Ð, Th, Pf | Sr | N | M | H, B, P | R, L | V | Jh, J, Ps, F | Y, W
Here is the chart.
Blank Spots mean that the character doesn't exist in the alphabet. Also, Neh is the coolkid who doesn't need to follow the rail. Deal with it.
Grammar - Nettsem
Vaisra follows a Object Verb Subject word order. English has an SVO word order, so an example of translating from SVO to OVS would be "I ate an apple" to "An apple ate I".
Vaisra uses particles to mark information in a sentence. Currently, Vaisra has 21 particles. Each particle has its own unique character.
I will be making frequent edits to this.
Well, here are a few more alphabets I've created. I haven't yet made languages to go along with them.
This first one I've been calling Jæshke. My base inspiration was from Daedric. I created this a few days ago.
This second one I've called Nensaa. I was first inspired by the Armenian that TheEvanCat posted, and then I decided I would create an alphabet using changes in one base character.
I have another one which I made a few months ago. I will try to make it on the computer and post it here, but as it is a 490 letter alphabet, I will probably have issues.
"Civilitey/ Liberby. Reason. Efidication. Civilty. Rationality. Learning, Jutstice. Libersty. Hornor. Elucidution.. Civlity. Raison... This are the virshues which emboby the magnificence that is Can Town."
Closest thing I ever did to a real language was a code, replaced all English characters with that of my own design, and made all words written in reverse. I think I was 10 at the time, perhaps I should give it another try... It worked well for keeping secrets secret from those I didn't want seeing my secrets, even though it would be easy to decode and was an absolute pain to write anything more than one page in. Maybe if I unlocked my mind from English habits somehow, I could actually do something original.
Anyway, I'm posting this to see if anyone else has done anything similar to what I did. Not necessarily for a book, of course, but has anyone else here ever created their own language?
I'm going to put this in a spoiler due to length
My language is called Vaisra, and so far I have the basic grammatical structure created, the alphabet, and an okay size list of words (Around 150 verbs, 200 nouns, 50 adjectives, and a list of exactly 71 roots). I will also give examples of the writing using poor art skills.
Alphabet - Toji
The alphabet for Vaisra, called Toji, resembles hiragana or katakana in Japanese. It contains 7 singular vowels, A I Ih U E Eh O (pronounced ɔ i ɪ u e ɛ o in IPA, respectively). After this there are 79 consonant-vowel unions. Finally, there are 7 singular consonants and 1 auxiliary character. This character is used to extend the length that one holds a vowel or consonant, similar to the small tsu or duplicate vowel used in hiragana. If the auxiliary character is small, it affects the consonant while large effects the vowel.
When a Y character is decreased in size, it can then be used to "blend" with a normal consonant-vowel pair. The pair in question must be in the I column, and the Y character's vowel overrules the I. For example, if you wanted the sound Nya, you would place a Ni and a small ya together.
As you may have noticed, all of the letters are connected together via a line at the top. I refer to this as a rail. The rail serves to link letters into a word, and is used to modify sounds. There are 5 different starts to the rail. Seen above is the basic word start, which is used for generic words, and usually anything can use this, although writing more specific kinds are preferred. There is also a start for question words, pronouns, names of living beings, and names of inanimate objects.
The rail may also have marks at the top which control pronunciation. There are 2 basic marks, which tell either to use additional emphasis or less emphasis on certain vowels. After this there are 3 marks which change the consonant, similar to Tenten or Maru in hiragana. Consonant changing marks and emphasis marks may be combined.
The consonant sets are as followed. These are ordered by default, mark 1, mark 2, mark 3.
K, G, Ch | S, Z, Sh, St | T, D, Ts, Tz | Ð, Th, Pf | Sr | N | M | H, B, P | R, L | V | Jh, J, Ps, F | Y, W
Here is the chart.
Blank Spots mean that the character doesn't exist in the alphabet. Also, Neh is the coolkid who doesn't need to follow the rail. Deal with it.
Grammar - Nettsem
Vaisra follows a Object Verb Subject word order. English has an SVO word order, so an example of translating from SVO to OVS would be "I ate an apple" to "An apple ate I".
Vaisra uses particles to mark information in a sentence. Currently, Vaisra has 21 particles. Each particle has its own unique character.
I will be making frequent edits to this.
I'm a linguistics nerd.
Maybe I should get the full alphabet going.
It is called Doirdric and obviously, the Ancient Doirds spoke it!
The alphabet is the latin one with an extra thorn character.
Hello: Haell
Goodbye: Schive
Why: Edon
Under: Lindalþ (Lindalth)
Above: Pardalþ
Left: Krean
Right: Borþ
Shirt: Cripten
Trousers: Barreþ
Pants: Barlindalþ
Knot: Gresein
Fruit: Kwyn
River: Doone
Stream: Mardoon
Small: Marþ
Large: Freiþ
I'm more interested in the novel.When your done can you post it?
That's epic!
My Survival Journal
Squiggles.
Սա սննդի զզվելի:
This first one I've been calling Jæshke. My base inspiration was from Daedric. I created this a few days ago.
This second one I've called Nensaa. I was first inspired by the Armenian that TheEvanCat posted, and then I decided I would create an alphabet using changes in one base character.
I have another one which I made a few months ago. I will try to make it on the computer and post it here, but as it is a 490 letter alphabet, I will probably have issues.