Yzabel / September 4, 2005

Surely I’m not the only one dealing with the creation of a whole foreign language in my world of fantasy. Since I’ve started to think of it more closely, there are a few “rules” I’ve been able to isolate, both from my own attempts and from observing the works of other authors. This is still a loose list, in a way, but I feel that it can be interesting and useful to lay it down in full, since I know this whole language matter can become bothersome for the reader if not used properly.These rules sure aren’t carved in stone; feel free to add your own if you need to deal with this. I’m going to begin here with the creation of languages; the second part of the article will be developed in another post due to its global length.

• Know your limits, and don’t try to create a whole language from scratch and in complete detail if you feel it’s too daunting a task. J.R.R. Tolkien managed to do so because he had experience as a linguist, but if it’s not your case (it’s sure not mine), perhaps it’s best to not dive too deeply into the roots of an imaginary language. This could very well cause you to you lose ground at some point.
• Taking existing languages as a basis can save you many headaches, since you’ll already have proper grammar structures to help you craft it. Evidently, it’d be better if you could speak said language at least a little, if not fluently.As an example, one of the languages I mention in my book is heavily inspired from an improbable but nicely sounding combination of Japanese and Spanish (in my opinion, at least). Why? I simply happened to like some of the sounds specific to each of them, and every time I was referring to my imaginary tongue, they’d come to mind (I must admit that I really like hearing Japanese being spoken, too). I never go into grammar rules in length, but being able to refer to existing languages helps a lot when I need to craft a sentence, even if the latter gets cut from the final version of the story.
• Make sure that the invented words can be pronounced. Giving an exotic flavor to your novel is fine, but if you decide to use many words so non-human that simply reading them hurts the eyes, it can be a problem. (Iä iä Cthulhu fhtagn…)
• If a concept exists in our world, use it instead of creating a word for it, else the reader may quickly be confused. Creating new words is best adapted to what doesn’t have a human equivalent. An exception could perhaps be composed words: you could for instance decide to describe an aeroplane by “creating” a name made of two known words hinting at “a flying machine” (this is what I did with the flylands in Et In Arcadia Nos—although I have no idea how I’m going to translate this into French!). As long as the reader can understand without you needing to go to lengths to explain what it is about, it’s fine.
• If you aim at developing a full language, it can be interesting to also take writing into account. Does your civilization know writing, or is their culture mostly oral? What writing materials do they use? Carving letters in stone tables calls for a kind of writing with straight strokes, while the use of pens and parchment leaves room for the development of a curvy calligraphy. Can a straight writing be used for administrative documents and a fine one for literary pieces? These aspects may be worth a thought.
• Last but not least, you may not necessarily have to create a whole, new language—after all, it takes time, and not everyone will feel this useful to their writing. Often, focusing on simple sounds or on speech patterns can already carry the idea of another language. Examples of this could include: plural nouns all ending in “-i”, Yoda-like speech (“Your father, he is”), speech pattern quirks such as always ending a question with the same word… There are many possibilities here, and a clever use of these tricks will contribute to giving flavor to a speech without relying on a complete language.

Tomorrow, I’ll detail observations about actively using new (or simply foreign) languages in a story.Any comments, divergent advice and other information will be welcome.(Read Part 2)fantasy, fiction, language, science+fiction, writing