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Making a language

Keseberg

New Member
I don't know if this is the right place to post this but anyway I'm slacking off on actual worldbuilding and making a language for one of my nonexistent peoples instead. This is taking a while and conjugation killed my grandma but here's a sentence or two.

Frajanth jien leð am [house] sor [hill]. Han o ulkeiter un haner autu mosja.
(My brother lives in a [house] on a [hill]. He has sheep and they are ugly.)

Brother is fraje, but similarly to Italian you have to say "the my brother" or frajanth jien. -anth is a suffix that serves as the definite article. There isn't an indefinite article at all; rather the absence of a definite article implies the indefinite. If that makes sense. Also, fun fact, fraje is a word only meant to be used by men for other men. The brother of a woman would be hølie (the ø here is a substitute for the [general american] o in stop, I know that's not what that character is for but it doesn't really matter because I'm working on an alphabet to fit this language better and Latin characters won't be used at all once that's finished), the sister of a man would be ønie, and the sister of a woman would be seje.
I know it's really romance/germanic and not really fantasy-like but that's alright because this isn't a very serious project and I'm just having fun (also I only just started high school and I don't know jack about linguistics) (hopefully I'm allowed to be here because the sign-up page just said I had to be 13 or above which I definitely am)

Anyways, if you bothered to read this, you should totally give me some random words to put into the language. (as in, English words to be translated). Also feel free to ask questions.
 

Sleerash

New Member
Hi, Keseberg,
For what it's worth, here's my recommendation:
Unless you're doing it just for fun and you have a background in linguistics (or you want to dive deep into the subject), I highly recommend using AI to generate languages. I've tested it with ten languages for my fantasy world (I asked it to create conlangs based on real-world languages, altering their features, mixing them, etc.), and it works like a charm.
I entered your sentence and its translation into Gemini, and here are the results:
Of course, here is the analysis of your conlang's phrase in English.


General Analysis​


Based on the two sentences, your language appears to have an SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) structure, similar to English. The morphology uses suffixes to indicate possession and plural number, and the syntax is quite straightforward.


Morphology (Word Formation)​


  • Possessives: The possessive pronoun "my" seems to attach to the noun as a suffix. In $Frajanth$ ("My brother"), it's possible that the root is $Fraja$ (brother) and the possessive suffix is $-nth$ (my).
  • Plurals: The suffix $-er$ appears to mark the plural. This is seen in the pronoun $haner$ ("they"), which derives from $Han$ ("he"), and also in the noun $ulkeiter$ ("sheep").
  • Verbs: Verbs are conjugated according to person and number.
    • $jien$ ("lives"): third-person singular.
    • $o$ ("has"): third-person singular.
    • $autu$ ("are"): third-person plural.


Syntax (Sentence Structure)​


  • Word Order: The order is consistently Subject - Verb - Complement.
    • $Frajanth$ (S) $jien$ (V)...
    • $Han$ (S) $o$ (V) $ulkeiter$ (O).
    • $haner$ (S) $autu$ (V) $mosja$ (Adjective).
  • Prepositions: Prepositions are used and they come before the noun, such as $leð$ ("in") and $sor$ ("on").
  • Articles: There is an indefinite article, $am$ ("a/an"). Its use seems selective. It is used in $leð am [house]$ ("in a house"), but it does not appear in $sor [hill]$ ("on a hill") or with $ulkeiter$ ("sheep"). This might mean that articles are only used with certain nouns or in specific contexts.
  • Adjectives: The adjective $mosja$ ("ugly") comes after the copular verb ("to be"), similar to English. It does not seem to change to agree in number with the plural subject ($haner$), which suggests that adjectives might be invariable.


Lexicon (Vocabulary)​


Here is the breakdown of the identified vocabulary:
  • Nouns:
    • $Frajanth$: My brother
    • $ulkeiter$: sheep
  • Pronouns:
    • $Han$: he
    • $haner$: they
  • Verbs:
    • $jien$: lives
    • $o$: has
    • $autu$: are
  • Adjectives:
    • $mosja$: ugly
  • Other:
    • $leð$: in
    • $sor$: on
    • $am$: a/an (indefinite article)
    • $un$: and (conjunction)
 
I don't know if this is the right place to post this but anyway I'm slacking off on actual worldbuilding and making a language for one of my nonexistent peoples instead. This is taking a while and conjugation killed my grandma but here's a sentence or two.

Frajanth jien leð am [house] sor [hill]. Han o ulkeiter un haner autu mosja.
(My brother lives in a [house] on a [hill]. He has sheep and they are ugly.)

Brother is fraje, but similarly to Italian you have to say "the my brother" or frajanth jien. -anth is a suffix that serves as the definite article. There isn't an indefinite article at all; rather the absence of a definite article implies the indefinite. If that makes sense. Also, fun fact, fraje is a word only meant to be used by men for other men. The brother of a woman would be hølie (the ø here is a substitute for the [general american] o in stop, I know that's not what that character is for but it doesn't really matter because I'm working on an alphabet to fit this language better and Latin characters won't be used at all once that's finished), the sister of a man would be ønie, and the sister of a woman would be seje.
I know it's really romance/germanic and not really fantasy-like but that's alright because this isn't a very serious project and I'm just having fun (also I only just started high school and I don't know jack about linguistics) (hopefully I'm allowed to be here because the sign-up page just said I had to be 13 or above which I definitely am)

Anyways, if you bothered to read this, you should totally give me some random words to put into the language. (as in, English words to be translated). Also feel free to ask questions.
For someone so young, I am impressed that you have come up with ideas like gender delineated language. Japanese has some good examples of this you may want to consider. It will make it easier for you to develop if there are common ways the female language differs from the male language. It would also be interesting to see how the culture evolves in that language group around gay, trans, and non-binary people, or neuters (golems, for example), if they exist in that world. But that may be way beyond where you intend to take the project.
Anyway, good for you for tackling that kind of project. You seem to be something of a polyglot. Do you live in a multi-lingual household, or just have a real fascination with languages?
 

Ned Marcus

Maester
Inventing a language is interesting, but it seems like a lot of work. I think it took Tolkien a lifetime, to develop his languages. For me, it takes enough time just to learn a couple of existing ones. Still, let us know how this develops.
 
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