How to Invent a Language

Hi!

Have you ever wondered how a language is created?

Most languages, such as English, are created from years of mixing different dialects, innovation and other methods we have of coming up with new words. Shakespeare, for example, invented many new words for the British language.

The following article is about the fenomenon of new languages, but not the type you may think:

How do you invent a language?

More than 5m people now hear a few words in Dothraki or Valyrian, the fabricated languages spoken in the television series “Game of Thrones”, each week—more than the number who hear Welsh, Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic combined. From the unsung (Babm and Brithenig) to the celebrated (Esperanto and Elvish), constructed languages, in various states of completion, now outnumber the world’s natural tongues. Fantasy literature, science-fiction films and video games have fuelled a demand for otherworldly tongues—and fans increasingly expect them to be usable. So how do you invent a language from scratch?

That depends on its purpose. Those making a brief appearance in a novel (Nadsat in “A Clockwork Orange”, and Newspeak in “1984”) require just a smattering of vocabulary. But those intended to be used more widely need strict grammar rules. Attempts to lift the curse of Babel took off in the 19th century with the first “international auxiliary languages”. Because their aim was to ease communication, their construction was intentionally simplified. François Sudré, a French violinist, invented Solresol. With seven syllables based on the seven notes of the musical scale, it can be written in musical notation, sung and understood by illiterates. Ludwig Zamenhof, a Polish doctor, created Esperanto to be a politically neutral language that would be easy to pick up. Its conjugation patterns are regular and its vocabulary mirrors existing European words. Languages specifically engineered out of some political or theoretical conviction, on the other hand, can be onerous to speak. Kēlen has no verbs. E-Prime, a version of English which excludes the verb “to be”, separates opinion from fact. Láadan is designed to express women’s feelings better (widazhad, for example, means “to be pregnant late in term and eager for the end”). Ithkuil packs as much meaning as possible into as short a space as possible; its fifty-eight distinct sounds make it almost impossible to pronounce.

These days most invented languages are created for artistic or aesthetic purposes, and often borrow features from existing tongues. Although Dothraki, Valyrian, Navi (spoken in “Avatar”) and Klingon (growled in “Star Trek”) are designed to sound alien, they are also meant to seem natural, and imitate the features of real languages. Inventors focus, in turn, on developing the phonology (the sound system), the morphology (rules for creating words), the syntax (the system for creating sentences) and the vocabulary. Some borrow features from natural languages: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin, were influenced by Finnish and Welsh, two languages that Tolkien loved. Navi includes popping-like sounds found in Georgian and Amharic, but few English ones, to enhance its foreignness. Estonian’s negative verb system inspired Dothraki’s. Inventors also insert systematic irregularities into the language by imagining how it might have evolved over hundreds of years. They decide which words should exist and which should not: Dothraki has no word for toilet, for example, but (being the language of horse-riding warriors) more than 20 for horse. Technology can help, generating words or applying sound changes to age the language artificially. But much of the creation process is still human: David Peterson, the inventor of Dothraki and Valyrian, is currently brushing up on his Babylonian grammar.

Esperanto, the most successful invented language, may have as many as 2m speakers. But its eurocentricity has precluded wider use. Most engineered languages, such as Ithkuil, are too exacting; those lacking a grammar or rich lexicon are cumbersome for everyday use. Artistic languages, though, are only as difficult to learn as natural ones. Though guttural Klingon is both arduous to pronounce and heavy on spacecraft jargon, several hundred people are believed to be able speak it fluently. Enthusiasts have created thousands of Wikipedia pages in Volapük, another constructed language from the 19th century. So far, though, only three speakers have mastered Dothraki—and one of them is its inventor.

Vocabulary

Fabricated – o make or build (something).

Unsung – not given attention and praise that is deserved for doing good things.

Outnumbered – to be more than (someone or something) in number.

Fuelled – to give support or strength to (something)

Tongues – synonym of languages.

Smattering – a small amount of something.

Illiterate – not knowing how to read or write.

Onerous – difficult and unpleasant to do or deal with.

Brushing up on – to improve your skill at (something) or increase your knowledge of (something).

Cumbersome – hard to handle or manage because of size or weight.

Guttural – formed or pronounced in the throat.

Arduous – very difficult.