How to make a Conlang

Conlang (meaning: constructed language) is an artificial language that isn’t natively spoken by people, such as Esperanto, Klingon, High Valyrian, Ithkuil, Toki Pona, Riasian, and many, many more. It is usually created for the purpose of fiction and/or coding. Some conlangs are very easy to learn (Toki Pona), whereas some are ridiculously tough to learn (Ithkuil). But you want to create your own Conlang? You’re going to have to reach down into the depths of your soul to ponder this question “who or what will speak this language?” Maybe the people who speak this language are humans, but they live on an isolated island. Or maybe they’re like goblins, with key words in your conlang like “grime”, “kill”, “dark”, “sword”, and “eat”. Your characters could be deep space aliens, with yellow skin, enlarged craniums, and enhanced eyesight. Your conlang would probably be more futuristic, with more vowels, and words meaning multiple things. Or if your aliens aren’t quite as advanced in technology, it could be similar to the way humans speak. Your imagination is the language.

Make your conlang as dissimilar to English (or your native language) as you can.

It may seem strange to make your conlang as different from the language many people speak, but if it was too similar people might loose interest. Plus English is a hard language for non native speakers, with common words like ‘the’ being harder to pronounce, and the phonology sometimes doesn’t make sense ‘receipt’ sounds like rek-e-ipt. In English ‘ng’ is used to ends words ‘sing’, ‘ring’, ‘fulfilling’, but in some languages ‘ng’ is used to start words. Here is a hard to pronounce word: ngpfthxer (pronounced: ng-fy-th-x-er)

Is your conlang SVO, OVS, VSO, VOS, OSV, or SOV?

If you’re scratching your head you’e not alone. But here’s a quick look. English is mostly SVO (there are exceptions) meaning: Subject Verb Object. Take a look at this sentence, “I drank water”. ‘I’ is the subject, ‘drank’ is the verb (drank is the past tense for drink), and ‘water’ is the object. So in an OVS language the word order would be different “Water drank I”. In English this makes it sound like the water is drinking the speaker, but to the speaker is makes perfect sense (in fact to them “I drank water” sounds like ludicrous). Sometimes the Noun works like a verb, and vice-versa. Here is an example in my conlang Riasian “Pousitia ziamupa t’mati” that was a piece of Riasian poetry meaning “protecting blessed life”, “Pousitia” means “life”, “mupa” means “protect” whereas the prefix “Zia” means “ing” (Something is in progress. One way of using –ing is to show the progressive aspect of something – that means something is going on, has been going on, or will be happening.) and “mati” means “bless” (also “thanks”), with the prefix t’ or tia meaning past tense. So it literally translates to “Life protecting blessed” Riasian is a OSV language. Translated to English is sounds nice, but to the Renlles (Riasian native speakers) it is a sad line because the past tense word t’mati means it already happened, so the life was blessed but it isn’t now. But the word “ziamupa’ is an ongoing action, so they’re still trying to protect the life that was once blessed.

Adjective: it’s a word or phrase naming an attribute to a person or thing (a nice man)

Noun: is a thing (the dog)

Verb: is an action (A man pets a dog)

Object: is a person or thing affected by the verb (the dog bit the man who was petting him)

Do you need ‘indefinite article’ and ‘definite article’?

What are those? They are the common words ‘a’ and ‘the’, respectively. It may sound weird to speak English without those two words but some languages don’t have a translation word for them. “I am going to the supermarket” would sound like “I am going to supermarket” or your language can have many words for them

The (single) The (plural)

A / Some

Each can have it own word.

What is the gender rules for your language?

Yes! Some words have a gender (think of French, Spanish, and other languages) meaning that words change when you’re referring to different gender. Example: “Le garçon” is French for “the boy” and “La fille” is French for “the girl”. Le/La both mean ‘the’ but they change when you’re referring to gender, ‘les’ is the French word for ‘the’ but in plural “Les Garçons / Les Filles”, it has no gender rule. Most words in French have a different gender ‘dog’ is masculine whereas ‘pizza’ is feminine. English has a bit of gender rule in it “he/she”, “his/her” and others.

Here are a few gender rules some languages have:

Masculine/Feminine

Common/Uncommon

Animate/Inanimate

Single/Plural

Or you can make up your own:

Godlike/UnGodlike

Dragon/Human

Animal/Man

Fiction/Nonfiction

Me/You

And some languages can have several at once

Masculine/Feminine/Animate/Inanimate/Plural

Common/Uncommon/Godlike

Me/You/Animate/Dragon/masculine (very random)

And some languages don’t have a grammatical gender “he” could refer to both “he” and “she”.

Last few tips:

Don’t make your language too hard to pronounce (If you can’t pronounce it, then it’s too hard).

Don’t make all the words too long (common words should be shorter, and uncommon words should be longer).

Don’t make words that are too random from each other (write down the vowels you want to use. Example: “a e i o u à í ô ā”. The diphthongs you want to use (combined vowels) “ee ia ou æ ea iu” and the consonants “b c č d f g h k l m q r s š t v w x z ch sh th” and stick to them). Tip: the best sounding consonants are “l m n s r q z” but remember to add ‘stopping’ sounds like “t x k p b”. And don’t forget about trills!

Make your conlang reflect the society the speakers live in.

Some conlangs ‘sound’ different due to different societies. Harsher sounding consonants are great for ‘warlike’ societies, softer consonants are best for ‘peaceful’ or ‘tranquil’ lands (trills are also a great add), half soft and half harsh consonants are also great for an ‘advanced’ kingdom, and a lot of vowels and trills also sounds great.

Practice talking to yourself in front of the mirror using your new conlang.

The average conlang needs about 1000-2000 words to work properly, but you can use even less! Some conlangs have less than 100 words. And some words can mean many different stuff.

Not all English words work the same in other conlangs. The word ‘like’ can have multiple meanings, “you are like a pig! You eat so much”. “I like you”. Or the word ‘left’. “How much is left?”. Or “you can turn left here”. Don’t be afraid to have the same word in your conlang mean different stuff in English. Also some conlang words can mean something that English doesn't even have!

Once you start making your conlang it may feel like a mountainous task, but it’s rewarding.

(Note: I love making conlangs! And I’ll be more than happy to make some, just leave a comment).