Chit-Chat: The DCCverse: The Multiverse Lounge

colours said:
As a quick note, but generally speaking, I'd love to explore a world which has a made-up language. As interesting a language as Latin is (and this is not to imply anything negative about any existing region which uses Latin!!), I feel like sometimes it can be a bit on the forced side, while either having a made-up language mixed in with another, existing language can provide an interesting spin and can actually give a particular world a really deep cultural spin to it.

I mean, think about it! There does exist native tribes in this world who use their own language; and while I do agree that it is extensive work for the most part, I don't think it's terribly exhaustive. I wouldn't go so far as to reinvent the alphabet altogether; I would say coming up with simple words and/or terms here and there in your own language would be sufficient enough, for culture's sake.
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A made-up language is one of my favorite features of any fantasy world. Especially if they are as well-thought out and huge as something like Tolkien's elvish.
 
I love love love the idea of made up languages etc but as someone who has never managed to figure out even a real language beyond scattered vocabulary it's super difficult.

I like building a culture up from the ground though! Fleshing out the history and environmental/societal impacts on its development, backtracking to why exactly things became what they are. I think it builds a lot more layers of depth into a world if you even just have it built, because there will be points where you reference that history that makes it feel even more real!
 
I see a lot of people go the word-for-word replacement route, at least initially. At some point, grammar and colloquialisms start coming in, based on existing speech patterns and phrases modified to fit things deemed important to the culture. I think the best way to go from there is start using it, like honestly using it to journal and write with it, see if it flows and figure out what types of pronunciation you want. Read out loud, try different intonations. It's a hell of a lot if effort ahah. And! Study how language works! All different kinds! Oh and like. Think about the culture. What was their civilization based on? What was important to them, back when the language was becoming established? What has been important over the course of history? How would they interpret new technology with their old words? So many things to consider ahah.

It takes a lot of development just to get the language off the ground. So much work yikes
 
Aquacorde said:
I see a lot of people go the word-for-word replacement route, at least initially. At some point, grammar and colloquialisms start coming in, based on existing speech patterns and phrases modified to fit things deemed important to the culture. I think the best way to go from there is start using it, like honestly using it to journal and write with it, see if it flows and figure out what types of pronunciation you want. Read out loud, try different intonations. It's a hell of a lot if effort ahah. And! Study how language works! All different kinds! Oh and like. Think about the culture. What was their civilization based on? What was important to them, back when the language was becoming established? What has been important over the course of history? How would they interpret new technology with their old words? So many things to consider ahah.

It takes a lot of development just to get the language off the ground. So much work yikes
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As much as I love worldbuilding I might save that for when I've got nothing left lmao
 
It's definitely something you want to do with a super developed world that you're going to be sticking with for a long time. I would totally do a language or two for a world I was planning to set like 50 books in a la Discworld or Shannara but damn I cant even write one novel let alone fifty yikes
 
I could never do that – language creation. Tolkien pulled it off brilliantly and that's because he was a philologist and knew all the technical workings of language. I would probably at best go for word-for-word replacement but to create an alphabet, grammar and syntax rules, et cetera I doubt I could execute it. It's just too large scale and scary a project to undertake XD;;

Closest thing I've ever done is essentially gibberish. Since I have a world whereby spellcasting is done through music, vocals are more focused on evoking emotion rather than making lyrical sense. (I was inspired by Yuki Kajiura's approach to composing tracks with vocals.)
 
gimmepie said:
How does one even begin to create an entire language I wonder?
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I'd say that grammar is very important, just like learning a new language in the real world. Vocabulary isn't unimportant, you do need some basic words, but knowing how to structure words is important. So, like, does a sentence start with a subject then a vowel then an object (SOV) like English or is the order different? Like, if you reorder the order of words in English you can sort of be understood, but sound like Yoda you will. But I guess if you're making your own you want to get a style, a feel, like is it heavy on the consonants or does it have lots of vowels? How common are certain sounds? And then I guess you just add in rules and stuff as you build it up. The human mouth and tongue and lips can make all kinds of sounds, but people are only used to making certain ones in their native language and others they find difficult. Like how we know the word "tsunami" but we probably don't pronounce the "t" part because English doesn't start words with "ts" sounds.
 
I think for my region, I'll just present a few words and phrases, names of places and stuff that they used before the modern people settled there (: Inventing a new language is a whole project of its own, as the rest of you are saying too haha.
 
The most I've done is add some alien language text to the species names. English (Roman alphabet) is Earth's main language, so I took some liberty and added some alien-esque text to show examples of their languages.
 
gimmepie said:
How does one even begin to create an entire language I wonder?
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I once tried to create a new one, but soon I thought it should owe some of its words to another language. For example, some words in my made-up country's language are derived from Greek.

Or, you can try using an already existing language. That works too.
 
I see basically everybody focusing on non-pokemon worlds. Anybody else feeling like making a custom region? (:
 
I had an idea for a Pokemon region from when I had plans for a fanfic, but Lorithane is something I've fiddled with for close to two years now. Once I get decently far with my first project I may start up another one, maybe even that Pokemon idea, but right now I want to focus on putting some of the ideas I had to test finally.
 
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