Fantasy language creation?

[RefractedAhav]

Does any one know of any good sites to teach the basics of designing agood fantasy language?

[Staci]

I just did a quick search on Google and here are the better links I perused (for Elvish):

http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/

http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/movie_elvish.htm

http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_ldev0.html

Some other Fantasy/Sci-Fi series also have their own languages, not just Tolkien's work. I would suggest Klingon from Star Trek (even though I don't watch it) for something less sing-songy compared to the Tolkien counterparts.

Robert Jordan - author of The Wheel of Time - has a language in his book series called "The Old Tongue". Here's the best compliation of said language for more examples:

http://www.angelfire.com/tx/jcs97b/otd.html

One, looking at the basic structers of what the creators did will give one an idea of what they want/don't want to do. Sadly, there aren't any sites that allow you to input a word so it becomes gibberish but coherent enough to be thought of as a word in a seperate tongue. Creativity is key.

Two, study the sentence structures and roots of words from other languages. English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian... Plenty to choose from and they all have variances in how sentences are composed.

Three, the uber-cool thing about designing your own language is that it's just that - your own. Do anything you wish with it, there are no rules when it comes to one's imagination. Oh, and have fun!

[shooraijin]

I can't find my original post now, but Klingon was actually a derivative of an Amazon basin language called Hixkaryana, and creator Marc Okrand liked the language's unusual grammar and word order.

Here's a neat article on multiple kinds of fantasy languages, including Klingon and Quenya.

http://www.geocities.com/judith_hh/scripdef.htm

[andyroo]

Klingon looks more like Gaelic to me. The difference is that in Gaelic you wouldn't sound as Eastern European as the Klingons do. I need to find some links. There are few sites that have some of the Abh language.

[Bobtheduck]

I didn't think abh was actually a language as much as it was a cypher, but I could be wrong of course... I am making a language in my book. It's called 'Vinkan'. I'm basing it off of Japanese, English, and hebrew... Of course, all the words are original but I'm talking syntax and pronunciation... I've actually got an alphabet for it, if anyone wants it... To use it you need to be able to say devoiced hard r's (like in Japanese, only devoiced)... It takes some practice, like those clicks, but it's actually a consonant in Fijian... That's where I got the idea for that, and I'm going to have all five varieties of "r" I'll have english type r (which is a half vowel) a Japanese type r and a devoiced japanese type r, a rolled r, and a devoiced rolled r. I love stuff like this! The only consonants I haven't figured out are the reverse english r (like in danish) and the clicking... Well, unless there are more I don't know about... Then of course, the like 9 vowels in french, I sorta have u down...

Wanna hear something in Vinkan?

T'kiritin Larris (the best of man, is it good?)

the ' in that is pronounced like ih. It's the sixth vowel in vinkan. No diphthongs (like when we say "I" in english, that's a diphthong "ah" and "ee" meaning there are two vowel sounds in one syllable) and all of the vowels are pronounced like spanish, except for the "ih" vowel. it's like Tih-kee-ree-tee-n lah-rrees(voiced rolled r) T'kiritin is from the root T'kira for human. T'kiritin is the Good part of humanity. Larris is a question word meaning "Is it good" and it is actually a name. All of the vinkan names in my book will have special meanings to them. They will be important to the characters and who they are.

All the stuff I've learned about french, latin (and spanish), sorta about hebrew, and now Japanese will help me develop a passable language.

Also, what exactly is "Westernese"?

EDIT: At least no one is commenting on my shameless self promotion, hehe...

[shooraijin]

Dude, your self-promotion is shameless to the point of gnarlyness.

[Azier the Swordsman]

I'm actually considering creating my own language someday... Just for the heck of it. I've already got ideas for a writing system... Sometimes the amount of free time I have scares me.

[Bobtheduck]

Dude, your self-promotion is shameless to the point of gnarlyness.

Thank you, shoo... Um... what exactly does Gnarlyness mean anyhow?

[Bobtheduck]

I checked out that klingon website, and I noticed something:

Our own image about our own group is more detailed and diverse than the image of other groups. The people from other groups are not as well known as our own people, so that’s why stereotypes are used. Almost everyone has heard of the story from the man, who dislikes all Moroccans (or Spaniards or any other group), except for his own Moroccan neighbour; that is really a nice person. This man thinks he knows how the other group is, but when he meets someone and communicates with him on a more interpersonal level, he feels awkward. He wants to get rid of this feeling, so he has to change either his view about the whole group or make an exception for this one person. Almost every time people make an exception instead of maybe changing the view of the whole group. This process of seeing your own group as individuals and seeing the differences between the members of others groups as little as possible, is called the "emphasizing effect". The same goes for the group of Klingon speakers. Many outsiders see the members of this group as nerds, as geeks, and as long as we do not know the entire group, we will not change this idea.

Does anyone else get what I got out of this? How this sorta applies to anime as well... I can't believe how many people I've talked to and seen that said "Anime is sick... I love 'Cowboy Bebop' (or spirited away or grave of the fireflies) and I know about pokemon but most of that anime is porn." or "...most anime is just too weird"

People will make exceptions on things because they don't want to get rid of their stereotypes... Hmm...