As a result of summer research, I officially decided to invent a language. It'll help me in my world-building for the Wynna and Thibault storires as well and give me a better grip on linguistics. I'm excited and daunted at the same time. I'll be working on this on my own time until I actually enroll in my senior English capstone, where I'll do it for a grade and not just for pleasure. So here is the first post in a series of many that will mark my progress. Hopefully you'll be amused or informed and not utterly disgusted. Let me know if you have any tips.
Constructed Language (Conlang) Post #1: The Workstation
Let me introduce my tools from left to right.
TOP ROW
J.R.R. Tolkien: a Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter: for inspiration. Tolkien was a genius linguist.
The Study of Language by George Yule: for reference, one of my old textbooks.
iPod: to look up the longest consonant cluster in Russian
Cat stickies: to make notes in a borrowed book
V8 juice: to give health to my bones while I sit in one place for long periods of time
IPA charts: to help me decide what sounds are the yummiest in the world so I can claim them
Cup: to keep hydrated
BOTTOM ROW
Sketchbook: to play with the shape of words
Languages of the World by Asya Perelstvaig: to keep my language from becoming English in disguise
After reading through The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder and In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent this summer, conlanging was starting to look overwhelming. But my linguistics professor alleviated my fears by telling me that 1) I don't have to tackle it all at once, but bit by little bit and 2) I can always change anything I end up not liking or that doesn't work.
So, here I go. My first assignment is to develop a sound system, syllable rules, and produce a list of 20 nouns and 20 verbs.
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| This is who is making scary shadows at the top of the other picture. |
This is Karen- wahhhhhh!! i had no idea that's what you are up to when you sit down doing your stuff!!!!!!! Gracious, it sure sounds daunting and like a task that would make me never want to wake early, never stay up late, always think of things I "should" do so i can avoid the task! But I suppose it's yummy fun for you? You are so funny that you all the way show us who those shadows are! And how you even have such specific things on your table like V8 juice for your bones! ha!
ReplyDeleteKaren again- That's good Dr. Brad finally came into existence and gave you some inspirin!
ReplyDeleteHaha! I just saw your comment. Yup, this is part of what I'm trying to make time for! Some parts of conlanging make me want to tear out my hair and other parts are yummly fun, like we were talking about today.
ReplyDeleteHeehee, I thought the creepy, pointy shadows deserved an explanation.
Yup, finally getting to talk to Dr. Brad about my project, getting it taken seriously by him and him saying that he would want to invent a language too gave me great inspiration!