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selenicseasI’ve been thinking about how I’ve approached making conlangs in the past and how I’m approaching it in my current story project. My process has changed over the years as I’ve gained more experience, and I’ve learned what I should and shouldn’t prioritize. That hasn’t stopped me from “over-conlanging”, but it has helped me focus on what I think is most important.
The three points below are what I’ve decided to focus on for the time being. I am hoping that sticking to them will keep me on track with my writing, instead of being sidetracked with conlanging.
1. If there is more than one conlang present, those conlangs should be easily distinguishable.
The most obvious way to distinguish a conlang from another – especially a naming language – is visually. What’s your orthography going to be like? What letter(s) are you going to use to represent a single phoneme? What about diphthongs or affricates? Vowel length? Syllable stress?
Latin indicates long vowels with macrons (ā ē ī ō ū), while Finnish doubles the letter (aa ää ee ii oo öö uu yy). French uses <ch> to represent /ʃ/, which English uses <sh> and Nahuatl uses <x>.
What about syllable structure? Does your conlang allow consonant clusters? English does – strengths /stɹɛŋkθs/ has three at the beginning of the syllable and four at the end – while languages like Japanese and Hawaiian don’t really permit any.
This means I’d never have any conlangs that are as similar as Spanish and Italian – or Spanish and Portuguese. Unless, of course, the similarity is the point and both conlangs are part of the same language family. But even then, I ensure that those conlangs can be easily visually distinguished.
2. The conlang should be easy for the author to type.
Once upon a time (2012), I wrote a novel with names that included the letter š. I don’t have a keyboard that can type š by default. Even changing my keyboard layout to US-International (which I have used for over a decade at this point) did not allow me to type š. I had to either copy-paste it (in both upper and lowercase form) or turn on Number Lock and type Alt+0154. It was annoying.
You might want your conlang to have a specific aesthetic; I know I usually do. But ask yourself this: is it worth being annoyed while you’re writing it? If you can handle that, go ahead and use š or any other difficult-to-type letters. If you can’t, you ought to look into changing your orthography a little. Or getting a new keyboard.
3. Do the minimum amount of work possible.
First, you’ll need to identify just how much of the conlang you want in your story. Are you exclusively using the conlang to name things? Do you plan on writing full passages in it? Once you’ve made a decision, do just enough work to accomplish that goal. That means strictly sticking to creating a naming language and nothing more if all you need is names. There’s no reason to flesh out the grammar even if you really want to. That takes up time that can be spent on other things, like actually writing your story.
The three points below are what I’ve decided to focus on for the time being. I am hoping that sticking to them will keep me on track with my writing, instead of being sidetracked with conlanging.
1. If there is more than one conlang present, those conlangs should be easily distinguishable.
The most obvious way to distinguish a conlang from another – especially a naming language – is visually. What’s your orthography going to be like? What letter(s) are you going to use to represent a single phoneme? What about diphthongs or affricates? Vowel length? Syllable stress?
Latin indicates long vowels with macrons (ā ē ī ō ū), while Finnish doubles the letter (aa ää ee ii oo öö uu yy). French uses <ch> to represent /ʃ/, which English uses <sh> and Nahuatl uses <x>.
What about syllable structure? Does your conlang allow consonant clusters? English does – strengths /stɹɛŋkθs/ has three at the beginning of the syllable and four at the end – while languages like Japanese and Hawaiian don’t really permit any.
This means I’d never have any conlangs that are as similar as Spanish and Italian – or Spanish and Portuguese. Unless, of course, the similarity is the point and both conlangs are part of the same language family. But even then, I ensure that those conlangs can be easily visually distinguished.
2. The conlang should be easy for the author to type.
Once upon a time (2012), I wrote a novel with names that included the letter š. I don’t have a keyboard that can type š by default. Even changing my keyboard layout to US-International (which I have used for over a decade at this point) did not allow me to type š. I had to either copy-paste it (in both upper and lowercase form) or turn on Number Lock and type Alt+0154. It was annoying.
You might want your conlang to have a specific aesthetic; I know I usually do. But ask yourself this: is it worth being annoyed while you’re writing it? If you can handle that, go ahead and use š or any other difficult-to-type letters. If you can’t, you ought to look into changing your orthography a little. Or getting a new keyboard.
3. Do the minimum amount of work possible.
First, you’ll need to identify just how much of the conlang you want in your story. Are you exclusively using the conlang to name things? Do you plan on writing full passages in it? Once you’ve made a decision, do just enough work to accomplish that goal. That means strictly sticking to creating a naming language and nothing more if all you need is names. There’s no reason to flesh out the grammar even if you really want to. That takes up time that can be spent on other things, like actually writing your story.
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