.png)
"To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world."
Hello again, writing nation and welcome back to G.E.M With a Pen!
Today, I bring you the final part on my three-part World- Building segment...language. This post comes as part of a series of post I have been doing leading up to the final day of the 2018 Summer Writing Contest.
Language͢𑁋It's spoken all over the world, and for many writers, that doesn't exclude from their own book, especially if they are writing a fantasy novel, or a book that involves a new world or universe.
Maybe you're one of those writers. Maybe you've been stumbling across your keyboard for months. Maybe you grit your teeth every time you put your pencil to paper, trying to sketch the complex characters for your fictional language. Maybe you're still stuck on where to begin. Maybe you have questions like how to type new, unique characters into your book when they're not even in the 'Insert' tab on Word Document, whether or not you have to draw the characters for your language, where to put the pronunciation guide in your book, and do you have to send the language guide with your book when you query publishers or agents?
Well, fear no more! (Or as they'd say in Sindarin Elvish, Nifred baw more!)
We're going to answer all those questions and more, and even help structure your language!
BUT FIRST, LET'S BEGIN WITH THE BASICS:
Creating Your Language
Languages have been around for thousands of years, and it's no secret that each one is unique.
People could point at different symbols from different languages and more likely be able to tell you "That's Greek!" or "That's Korean!" or "That's Chinese!", even if they have never studied the language before. Because each language is "famous" for something. Whether it be symbols, characters, or even pronunciation. Every language ever is characterized by something.
I think this part is where most writers get lost when they are creating a fictional language. They want their language to "stand out". They want it to be different from languages that already exist. Sometimes writers get so caught up in the idea that their language has to be completely unique that they make it too unique.
Now don't get me wrong! Have a unique language that really stands out is great! If you have something that stands out, it becomes easily recognizable, and people start to instantly pin that language to your book. They want to learn to speak it, write it, and that gives your book a great self-promotion. But sometimes, writers over-complicate their language. It just becomes to confusing and jumbled up, and then no one understands it, and even start to question why the language is in the book in the first place.
Some writers make their languages to simple, and then they become just like every other language out there (but this can have its advantages, too).
The key to remember here is structure.
Structure is the most important thing about any language. It's what holds it together and makes it different from any other language. It's what creates the grammar rules of that language, how sentences are formed, and how words are pronounced.
If you are going to create a language, it's going to need a structure.
If you are going to create a language, it is going to need a structure.
But how exactly do you devise one for your language?
It all depends on what you want.
You remember those days back in middle school when you and your friends used to come up with secret languages only you could speak and codes for passing notes? That exactly what your language has to be𑁋your own.
Essentially, your language can be however you want to be, but it's also meant to grasp the reader further into the world, realm, or culture of your world.
START THINKING
You probably already have some basic ideas about what you want your language to look like and sound like. But if not, here are some questions to ask yourself:
.
Does your language use its own unique set of characters (such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean), or does it have more of an alphabet (Greek, English, Norse Symbols)?
.How similar is your language to English? (EX: Latin, Spanish, French)
.Does your language have accents? How are they displayed, what do they look like, and how do they affect the letter's sound?
.How many letters or characters does your language have?
. What sounds are included in your language? (Sh, Ch, OO, tion)
.Does your language have a different word for everything, or is it more along the lines of Egyptian hieroglyphs?
Remember, this is all about what you want, but there are many things to consider while making a language. Jot down any ideas you have in a notebook, and draw any symbols you picture in your head and what they mean. Now let's get down to some things that may help you in the actual design process of your language:
TIPS FOR CREATING YOUR LANGUAGE
1. RESEARCH OTHER LANGUAGES
As I said above, most people could look at a sentence in another language and be able to tell you whether its Greek, or Spanish, or Chinese, or whatever the language may be. That's because we associate certain symbols, characters, and sounds with certain languages.
To really see an example of this, take a look at the three sentences below, and try to guess what language they are written in. Skrifa á veginn minn er ógnvekjandi staður fyrir rithöfunda Andika kwenye njia yangu ni mahali pazuri kwa waandishi ʻO ka palapala ma kuʻu alanui he wahi nui ia no nā mea kākau If you said that number one looked "Viking-ish", you are correct. It is written in Icelandic, a language we often associate with "the Vikings" . Maybe you muttered to yourself "The second one looks African". If you did, you're right. It's Swahili. Lastly, you may have thought the third one looked "tropical". Well it should, because it's Hawaiian. My point is, we as humans associate certain sounds with certain things. Use that to your advantage when creating your language. Use sounds and accents that are unique to your language, or maybe if your language involves pre-existing alphabet (like Spanish and English both use the same letters), considering using some sounds from other languages, like -oo, -sh, -ck, -tion, -ick . Play around with sounds, experiment with them, and write down the ones you want to include in your language. Research how other languages work-their structure, their arrangement, their alphabet, and maybe gather some inspiration for yours.
2. THINK ABOUT YOUR ALPHABET
Did you know that the Hawaiian alphabet only consists of 12 letters? Seven of those are consonants, and the other five are vowels.
If your language involves English letters, or if you are coming up with your own new set of symbols to use as an alphabet for your language, you will probably have to think about how that alphabet works.
Does it have upper and lowercase? Does it have vowels and consonants? Do the letters have names that are different from the way they sound? (Like how W has the name double u, but makes the sound wah)?
How exactly is your alphabet arranged? (Like English is arranged ABCD). Why in that order?
Do letters have to be arranged a certain way in words (Like how English words usually have consonants and vowels in them, and you will hardly ever see a word with just consonants or just vowels in it)?
Do the letters in your alphabet have a certain significance, or some are only used for certain words (Like how the Greek letter η (eta) is usually used before the word woman, and ο is usually used before the words boy or man)?
Even if your language involves more characters and symbols than it does letters, the alphabet is still and important thing to consider while creating your language, because it goes right along with structure.
Scroll back up to the first tip and really consider the sounds you want in your language, then be sure to write down the letters that make those sounds. That will help you compose an alphabet from there, and if you are creating a language with characters, you can start doodling from there.
3. CONSIDER COMBINING OTHER LANGUAGES
Languages made by mixing more than one language together are known as "mixed languages."
Every language ever invented is "mixed" to some extent, or similar to another language in one way or another. English is actually just one example of a "mixed language" with about 29% being Latin roots, 29% French, 26% Germanic languages (including old/middle English, old Norse, and Dutch), Greek 6%, and other languages and proper names 10%.
"Mixed" or "borrowed" languages are used all around the world.
If you find two or three languages that really inspire you, consider creating words that are a combination of words from those languages.
This can make the languages in your book easier to read, and give it a nice, polished flow off the tongue as people read it. It will also be easier to type the accents and characters of your languages into your book, considering that most document providers (like Microsoft Word and Google Docs) include an "Insert Symbol" bank with most languages' letters, symbols, and accents in it.
4.KEEP A DICTIONARY
As you start to invent new words in your language, set aside a notebook specifically for jotting down new vocabulary. Decorate the outside with stickers and drawings that remind you of your fictional world, words written in your language, and the word dictionary. If you want, set aside two notebooks, a small one and a big one. Jot down words as they come to mind in the small one, then write them down in alphabetical order with definitions like a real dictionary in the big one. Keep color-coded tabs on pages contain things like names, places, words like to, and, but, and because, and numbers.
Keep it organized how every you like and refer back to it as you like.
Remember, your dictionary doesn't have to stay the same. You can go back and make as many changes as you like. Looking back at new and old words you came up with is a good way to make sure the structure and "rules" of your language or consistent.
5.COME UP WITH "RULES"
More than likely when you were in elementary school, your teacher had you and your classmates recite the "I before E except after C" rule (though when you're a writer you discover that this rule hardly ever applies).
"Rules" are part of every language.
In Spanish you don't just add -s to the end of a word that ends with a consonant, you add -es.
In Greek you don't just use an exclamation mark.
And don't get me started with the rules for Japanese.
Every language has its set grammar rules, and if you want your language to have any structure, then it needs grammar rules, too.
So how do you come up with grammar rules?
This actually pretty simple. All it takes is imagination. In this part, anything goes. This is your language, so you can make it however you want.
All it takes is one basic idea. One little spark to ignite the rest of the candle.
Your idea could be anything from "adjectives have to come before the noun they are describing" to "there have to be two vowels after every consonant".
Once you have that one idea, the rest of the rules start spiraling from there.
Also think about sentence arrangement.
In English, we wouldn't typically say "The fox quick, brown over the dog lazy jumped." We'd say "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."
With translating from your language to English, this may change a bit. But in your language, make sure the people speaking your language in your book could understand it, or at least get the basic idea of what it means (like we can get the basic idea of what Egyptian hieroglyphs say).
Be sure to write the grammar rules of your language down in your dictionary to keep track of them, maybe even tape a piece of paper with them written down on the back of the notebook so that you can easily look back at them.
6. COME UP WITH SYMBOLS, ACCENTS, AND PUNCTUATION
Besides coming up with words for your new language, you also need to come up with punctuation and accents.
Punctuation varies across all languages. For instance, Spanish-speakers use symbols known as chevrons (« ») to convey quotation marks, while English-speakers use regular quotations ("")
To give "E"s that sleek, extravagant -ay sound, the French use something called an aigu accent, and apostrophe-like symbol that points upward and to the right, like in the word marché(which means market).
In Greek, instead of using a question mark, you use a semi-colon to end a question.
You have to decide on these sorts of things for your language. Do you want to keep regular English punctuation, or invent your own way of ending a sentence?
Either way, you should probably keep accents the same unless your language involves characters, that way it easy for people to read, and they will know exactly how the word is supposed to be pronounced.
7. ARE THERE OTHER WAYS TO USE YOUR LANGUAGE?
Almost every language in the world has some form of sign language. What if a character in your book is deaf? How would they use you language? Is your language easy to put on the back of postcards? Does it take a lot of attention to detail to write letters?
These are things to consider, however, unless you are specifically thinking of including a character whose is deaf or has other disabilities that make them unable to read or speak your language, I wouldn't worry about translating your entire language into braille or sign language.
What you should focus on is the letter writing.
If you already have some words written down, try writing a letter in your language. If you find that it takes longer than it would to write your average letter, try to figure out why. Are the words extremely long? Are there too many accents? Are the characters too detailed?
Take another look at your language and see what could be fixed.
But remember this is your language. There is no rule saying it can't have a lot of accents, but consider that it may slow you down while typing if your language is extremely complex.
8. CHARACTERS
By now, you've probably already decided whether you want to stick to the regular English alphabet, or devise your own set of characters, but if you are including unique symbols and characters into your language, then there a few things you need to consider (both upsides and downsides).
But first of all, let's talk about creating characters for your language. Creating characters and symbols for a language can be daunting, and it's easy to feel like you either created something "not original enough" or "too original". But really, every fictional language involving characters and symbols started out with one concept and then a doodle.
If you have an idea, doodle it. Chances are, the rest of your language will evolve from that simple doodle.
The best thing I can recommend here, is to look at other languages with characters, like Thai, Chinese, Hindi, Sindhi, Arabic, and Japanese. Also, look at other fictional languages and how they were invented, especially ones like Atlantean from Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Hylian from Legends of Zelda, and Na'vi from Avatar.
But like I said, there are some ups and downs to creating a language that involves complex characters.
For one, you may be able to draw the characters, but how on earth are you going to type them into a Word document?
For two, how are you going to show dialogue between the characters?
Well, to answer the first question, the simple answer is...you can't. Well, you can, but it would require a lot. Such as experience with digital art, using a stylus, and creating fonts.
The fact is, that most of the time, if your language involves the use of characters and symbols, it will added to your book later by an illustrator, or someone else of experience. Throughout your book, you will have to describe the characters, such ask "he looked at the strange symbol on the page. It looked like a curly H combined with a K." or "The symbol on his pendant looked like a slanted F".
Which moves into the second question, which is how to display dialogue. Well, knowing that we can't type out our amazing, completely-different-and unique language without experience, and that you normally wouldn't so dialogue of someone talking that people can't even read, you include the pronunciation, which mean, yes, you will have to create a pronunciation guide (though you should do that regardless)
But don't let the ups and downs of creating a language with characters discourage you! It is possible! It just means that your original design may not stay the same, and that you will have to wait a little longer before you see your actual language in print.
That's all for now, fellow writers!
I hope you enjoyed our worl-building series, and remember to stay tuned for upcoming posts on fight scenes, including teamwork in your book, and several inspiring Ignite posts. Also be sure to check out the 2018 Write on My Way Summer Writing Contest if you have not already!
Good luck to all my fellow writers, and type on those keyboards and write in those notebooks like wildfire!
Comments