Conlang Guide

Introduction
A constructed language, or a conlang for short, is any language that has been created not by natural processes of evolution, but deliberately by an individual or group. The reasons for creating a language are many, and conlangs are often classified according to their purpose. There are three main types of conlangs. International Auxiliary Languages, sometimes referred to as auxlangs, are the most famous and probably most useful type of conlangs. These languages are created to ease communication between people of different nationalities. Probably the most famous conlang of all is Esperanto, a language constructed from Romance, Germanic and Slavic roots which was invented in the 19th century to facilitate communication in the international community, especially in Europe and the Americas. Auxlangs are useful in and of themselves because they are easy to learn by people from a wide range of backgrounds. Moreover, it’s been observed that students with experience in Esperanto have an easier time learning natural foreign languages. Auxlangs often feature highly regular and predictable grammar, which is supposed to make the languages easier both to learn and to understand.

Artistic languages, or simply artlangs, are languages created not to ease communication but to explore language as an art form. Fictional languages are a type of artlang used in works of fiction, including novels, television shows and film, to give more depth to fantastical characters. Some famous languages of this type include the Klingon and Vulcan languages of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek and the languages of the elves in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series.

Engineered languages have been created not to flesh out a fictional society but to explore the limits of language itself. Some engineered languages are designed to condense the largest possible amount of information into the fewest possible syllables. An example of this type of language is Ithkuil, the name of which translates roughly to “an ideal of a complete and useful system of words.” However, some engineered languages are created with the exact opposite purpose. Toki Pona is a language which is intended to explore the Daoist philosophy of minimalism – to that end, the language contains only 123 words.

A Few Preliminary Considerations
The first step to creating your very own language is to decide what it’s for, how it will work, and how you would like it to sound.

It may be useful to consider the grammars and phonologies of a wide range of languages and then zero in on the features that seem most appropriate for your purpose. This approach will ensure that your language doesn’t end up being nothing more than a word-for-word translation of English (or whatever your native language might be) and that its phonology isn’t too similar to that of English.

Natural languages may be categorized according to their grammar in many different ways – in fact, categorizing languages is its own field of study, referred to as typology or typological linguistics. It will be useful to determine exactly where you want your language to fit into the puzzle before you begin your work.

Constituent Order
Also referred to as word order, the constituent order is the arrangement of the various elements of a sentence or phrase. The first arrangement to consider is that of the subject, object and verb.

SOV – the most common constituent order, SOV is used in languages all over the world, including Japanese, Korean and Latin. Consider the following examples of the phrase “I eat meat” in Japanese and Latin.

Japanese:

私は肉を食べる.

Watashi wa niku o taberu.

Latin:

Ego carnem edō

SVO – the second most common order. SVO is the word order of most European languages, including English, Spanish and French.