This guide and its subpages will describe the basics of creating a Constructed Language and aid in creating them.

ReasonsEdit

There are actually quite a few reasons why a one might want to create one's own constructed language. These reasons follow.

EntertainmentEdit

Creating a conlang is actually very fun to most people, as it is their own work. Most people believe having a small project to work on in free time is a good thing to do when bored, or just for the plain fun of creating your own language.

Conlangs can also factor into larger creative projects such as worldbuilding, or can add extra flavour to a book, television series, movie, video game, etc.

EducationEdit

Creating a language gives one insight on how languages work and it can give one knowledge on how one's own language is structured, as well as other languages that are similar to your own. In can often make it easier to learn a second language as you will known most of the linguistic terms used in describing and teaching languages.

PrivacyEdit

With your own conlang, you can earn privacy between close friends who may want to learn your language. It may take some work but no one who doesn't know the language will be able to eavesdrop on your conversations.

MisconceptionsEdit

There are plenty of misconceptions when ordinary people think about constructed languages, a few of them are listed below.

Replacing wordsEdit

Constructed languages are not codes of each other--with this, you haven't created a conlang but just an encryption as it is just a matter of finding the meanings of words and changing them to English. The grammar also varies greatly in languages.

DifficultyEdit

Constructed languages are actually not very easy to construct contrary to some beliefs, although a language similar to your native tongue can be simpler to learn and create for you, it may not be so for others. It takes time and patience to create a conlang that works correctly and sounds like a language. However, the end product is often a wonder.

Anything goesEdit

Technically speaking, it is true, though most humans have some basic apparent sets on how a language shouldn't be like. Linguistic Universals are important and should be followed, unless you are creating a completely unique language.

CreationEdit

Some guides on creating your language follow.

• Sounds: A crash course on sounds and the international phonetic alphabet. It is strongly recommended to read this guide first.
• Phonotactics: Useful information about phonotactics and consonant clusters. Recommended to be read second.
• Orthography: Information on the orthography representing sounds or words in a language.
• Grammar guides. Recommended to be read after the above guides.
  • The head: About whether a language is head first or head final entirely or predominantly one over the other.
  • Word order: About the order of words including pre/post positions, arguments, adverbs and adjectives.
  • Alignment: A guide to morphosyntactic alignment and the three core arguments.