As we have seen in the previous articles, the strength of a conlang depends on how well it marshalls the features of real world languages in a fantastic context. In a natural language all of its parts coexist in a tightly bound webwork of interrelated meanings. The task of the conlanger is to recreate that internal coherence in order to communicate the story of a language’s speakers.
Now, I don’t want to give the impression with this that a conlang should aim to perfectly imitate a natlang. After all, a conlang is a piece of art; and like any art, it’s subjective. A real world language might have 20,000 words, at minimum. A conlanger would be thrilled to have a 1000-word lexicon. One must blend objective decisions with aesthetic choices--and balance everything against practical necessity: It’s just not possible to simulate a real language perfectly. The most perfect map would be identical to the territory--and then what would even be the point? Just learn Latin or something.
In what follows I will give a (very) non-scientific breakdown of the different constituents of language, and how each of these can be manipulated within a conlang to tell the story of a fantasy world.
A language--any language whether English, or Mandarin, or Klingon, or Arabic--is at root a combination of two things:
1) It is a communication system governed by sociolinguistic principles for social engagement among homolingual speakers,
2) it is a mathematical-logical system whereby smaller meaningful elements are combined into larger ones according to precise rules.
Note that these two parts of language correspond broadly to the questions that a fantasy language prompts.
The first part of the definition corresponds to the question who speaks it? while the second part of the definition corresponds to the question what does it mean? These two parts can be divided into a number of subparts, for example:
Language as Contact/Communication (Who Speaks it)
Vocabulary
The list of words corresponding to the speakers’ world-experience. The vocabulary is the most important part of a conlang. A good starting vocabulary should have at least 400 words. You want this many, obviously, to be able to talk about a variety of things, but also its around the 400-word mark where you have to start being careful that there are no duplicate words. This will give you a general idea both of the sound pattern of the language and its word-formation process. Different languages will encode similar concepts differently, for example, a Thieves Cant might not have a word for “steal” separate from a word for “take,” since it usually amounts to the same thing for thieves. In another example, my Draconic language has three words:Gradh-gyik
Thrash-a-mosh
Kusk-kum
Whose meaning is roughly
i. to attack from the skies
ii. To overwhelm with fire from above
iii. To overwhelm with wing blasts
As you can see Draconic accomplishes in a single word what it takes English a whole paraphrase to do. The vocabulary of a people will reflect their social, political, environmental situation. In the case of Draconic, the Dragon Mharoti empire is devoted to a politic of conquest , and so would favor the development of a vocabulary rich in warfaring terminology. A people will use words and phrases that have relevance to things they encounter. Keep your eye out for such opportunities.
Idioms and insults
The basic definition of an idiom is “An expression whose meaning is not transparent in the combination of its parts” The Southern expression The devil is beating his wife, used when the sun is shining during a downpour, is an example of a maximally opaque idiom. The proper interpretation of an idiom therefore is only available to in-group speakers. Idioms and insults are fun because they’re untranslatable--I mean, you can translate them, but they won’t make a whole lot of sense outside of their linguistic context. Take Lae’zel from Baldur’s Gate’s favorite insult: isstik. In-game clues lead the player to conclude that this is a slur for non-githyankis. However, one could imagine a scenario where a tiefling PC, for example, might think that isstik was just a general term of contempt, and might, in an attempt to integrate with Githyanki companions, use the term to refer to a gith. Such a usage would, I imagine, occasion considerable laughter, because in order for the word to have its proper meaning, it needs to be used by a githyanki to a non-githyanki. Idioms in Conlanging are an opportunity to worldbuild, to develop the culture of the speakers.
Social norms
Who gets to speak to who, and under what circumstances is an ever present feature in languages real and imaginary. This is one of those aspects of the communicative system that is rich with possibilities. Social norms can be tied in with the logical systems in language in interesting ways. For example, as you might have heard, French, German, Spanish, Italian---a buncha languages--have a distinction between formal and informal “you.” The word you use changes depending on who you’re speaking to. Japanese and Q'anjob'al as well have elaborate grammatical systems that change depending on speaker and interlocutor identity. A conlang, taking inspiration from primary world languages, can encode maddeningly complex social hierarchies, using only few pieces of grammar.
History and contact
The age of the language as well as its geographical proximity to other languages are relevant features of its identity. Cultures come into contact with each other. And such contact results in mutual linguistic changes. The scope of the linguistics changes corresponds to the degree and kind of contact between the two cultures.
For instance, an empire bursting forward in conquest would impose its language on the subjugated populaces. This activity could produce at leat four possible linguistic situations in response: 1. A creole language comprising a combination between the superstratum and the substratum languages 2. A situation of substratum bilingualism, where the subjugated population retains their native language and acquires the superstratum language 3. A situation of assimilation where the subjugated population accepts the conquering language 4. A reversed influence situation, where the superstratum language borrows from the substratum. This is just one example, but if you’re writing a story abut peoples in contact, there is no better way to show the scope and nature of that contact than through their languages.Culture
Language expresses culture which in turn informs language. My own efficient, money-driven American culture generates a number of expressions and metaphors to reflect its obsession. Time is Money; to invest time in something; to spend precious time;to live on borrowed time. Another culture would characterize the world differently. Of course, if you’re paying attention to all the previous elements of a language, you should have a pretty good idea of what kind of culture speaks your conlang.Orthography (as social practice)
The Choice to write language down is always prompted by some social/political necessity. Asking questions about how and why a script was developed are essential to convincing world-building. Is the orthography original? Or was it borrowed from another people’s language? If it was borrowed, what aspects of it were borrowed? Are the languages close enough in sound that the same symbol could be used to represent equivalent elements in both languages, like what happened with the latin alphabet for the romance languages? Or are the languages so dissimilar in sound that the same symbol is not transparent across languages, like what happened to the latin alphabet with Cherokee?Accents and dialects
“A Language is a dialect with an army and a Navy,” As Noam Chomsy reminds us. Basically, the choice to call something a “language” instead of a “dialect” is a power move. It’s folks saying “our way of speaking is the language--all y’all just chirping dialects” Everyone has an accent, Johnny. Now, accents are fun to design, but the main point of an accent in a conlang is to have different characters comment on it, to have an attitude about it. Speakers’ identities often strong connect to their manner of speaking. What are speakers’ attitudes towards linguistic difference? Do they tolerate it? Enjoy it? Censure it? Mock it? Why and how?
Since this post is getting rather long, I will divide it into two parts I will consider Language as a System in a later post. Do feel free to comment below how you have deployed, or could deploy these recommendations in your own writing.
Fascinating.