Hi all.
I’m making great progress on a language I’m constructing, and it occurred to me that I should build a sort of fictional world, for the language to “grow” in, if that makes sense. I have the name of the language, the name of the “country”, the flag design… but I’m having trouble with everything else haha. Any help appreciated!
If I was approaching something from a language-first style, I’d probably try to figure out what kind of cultural and geographic features would influence the language in it’s current form. Just some mind vomit without giving hardly any thought to it:
- language slow and sing songy could indicate a more leisure focused society, and that would mean either nearby natural resources, or a robust engineering that handles base needs
- Or it could be a culture that tries to embrace peace and uses song and dance to put guests at ease
- guttural or short language could be a battlng society, where info needs to be communicated efficiently
- Or it could be a culture that uses spoken language as only part of their method of communication.
Just spitballing here. Hope there’s a nugget of something in there.
Along those lines, this language might have some loan words that don’t really fit in. What would’ve caused that to happen? Did some king get an arrow through the eye like Harold II and the language got loan words from the conquerors? Taking inspiration from historical events worked pretty well for GRRM.
Yes I’m trying to do that but I don’t know where to start. My strengths are linguistics and music, not storytelling. It’s a skill I have to find a way to develop. Maybe it just takes time.
Okay. So start smaller. What’s the coolest aspect of the language? Or the part that you’re most proud of?
Well it avoids any technical/hairsplitty nuance. It’s intentionally vague, in a way that’s actually very expressive. The base vocab is unique to the language (“evolved” that way), and the more nitpicky the words get, the more they resemble pidgin English/German/French/Spanish/Italian. Then it seemlessly fades into English/whatever for technical jargon. It’s a sort of “intimate” language, meant for close personal relationships rather than to speak to millions of people.
I had a sort of fantasy idea for the backstory, but I don’t know if it’s stupid or not. I had the idea of the original Atlantis population survived in some way, a few people maybe. They have bred among themselves and other populations, lived among us in obscurity, hiding in plain sight, for many many years. So this language is their sort of creole, developed as they had to assimilate and learn other languages. The language has become anglified for broad communication (through necessity), but the intimate aspects are still true to their original language.
I’m not good at this stuff. Is that something of a starting point?
Edit: it’s also very melodic, and not gutteral. It doesn’t have the sounds th, j, r, sh, ks kh (like ch in loch), z, or ae as in cAt). So it sounds kinda like English, Latin, Esperanto, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, Nordic, Irish, Russian, Japanese, Turkish… without really sounding like any of them.
Goddamn I remember when I thought like this. So many big ideas and entire worlds just floating around in my conciseness.
Yes, this is a starting point. Actually, it’s a lot of starting points.
Go sentence by sentence. Why is it vague? Sounds to me like this is an old language. An old language, from before the current state of things. It’s evolved as it needed, while still being private. Figure out why it started vague, and go from there. Figure out why it’s private. You’ve got a lot to work with here.
Just break it down. Assume you need to back up every statement you make.
It’s vague now because the modern world has become too precise, too complicated. So my language “evolved” to discuss things in a more Zen kind of way. The old language (as I imagine it) was very gutteral and full of sounds most modern day people couldn’t pronounce. It evolved to a more modern day sound inventory to assimilate with the modern, technocratic population. It became private because the non-Atlandeans wouldn’t approve. Esperanto speakers were executed by the Soviets AND the Nazis, for example. It’s a way of keeping hold of their “Zen” lost world, and they don’t want it interfered with. So it’s not a terribly straightforward process to translate any of it unless you know it fairly well.
Assume you need to back up every statement you make.
Ooh, that’s a good one!
Actually, this has all been very helpful. As we say in my language: spaqi! (thanks!).
I cannot give a general advice, but what worked for me is to put ‘my’ world’s history in a chronological order using a time line. What started when, which incidence is the root cause for the other and so on. Climbing this ladder year by year was and still is great fun. And If you ask for a software, I’d straight away would answer ‘Obsidian’. It’s link/ backlink feature is just awesome to keep your ideas structured. Have fun and good luck!
