I've Created My Own Language But I'm Out of Ideas Now

[Mari More]

I've created my own language that is inspired by ancient/pre-historic Tagalog language but it's hard to search for specific words and phrases from that era because Google would either redirect me to Spanish colonialism or give me the Filipino term of the words I was searching for. What I need is the Tagalog word and not the Filipino term so if you ever know the literal word or any Tagalog word that can apply to these phrases, please comment it down below.

And I also want to know how people in your world say these phrases.

1. Good morning
2. Good afternoon
3. Good evening
4. Thank you
5. You're welcome
6. Hi/Hello
7. Bye/Good bye
8. How are you?
9. May you rest in peace
10. and the most important, how do your denizens say the equivalent of "May the Force be with you"?

And if you have other phrases used in daily basis, feel free to comment it down below too

 

[Miles Lacey]

Try Google Play Store. They have English-Tagalog translation apps. As I have no knowledge of Tagalog I wouldn't know how reliable those apps are so I can't say how good or reliable they are.

 

[Maker of Things Not Kings]

Have you searched for anything from the dictionary of the Jesuit missionary Pablo Cain? I believe it was the first written dictionary (early 18th century) of the Tagalog language. I'm not sure where one would find credible information or anything written that predates it however.

Oh, This site:

vandu.co.uk

Provides interpreting for rare languages so you might contact them or read anything they may have posted in their blog about Tagalog if you haven't already. Best of luck!

 

[Mari More]

Try Google Play Store. They have English-Tagalog translation apps. As I have no knowledge of Tagalog I wouldn't know how reliable those apps are so I can't say how good or reliable they are.

Sadly, the Tagalog translations are Filipino and not real Tagalog. for example, when you try to translate chair into Tagalog, Google Translate would translate it as upuan and not salumpuwet

 

[Mari More]

Have you searched for anything from the dictionary of the Jesuit missionary Pablo Cain? I believe it was the first written dictionary (early 18th century) of the Tagalog language. I'm not sure where one would find credible information or anything written that predates it however.

Oh, This site:

vandu.co.uk

Provides interpreting for rare languages so you might contact them or read anything they may have posted in their blog about Tagalog if you haven't already. Best of luck!

as far as i remember, that book should be bought in Amazon and other sites but I can't afford to buy it. although i'll try your link

 

[Miles Lacey]

Yandex translate has Tagalog. Or so it claims. I used the phrase "Good Morning" and it came up with Magandang Araw Sa Iyo. Does this sound like Tagalog? When I checked the Filipino translation of Good Morning on Bing Translate it came up with Magandang umaga.

I'm wondering if Filipino may have incorporated Tagalog words over time or vice versa.

 

[Mari More]

Yandex translate has Tagalog. Or so it claims. I used the phrase "Good Morning" and it came up with Magandang Araw Sa Iyo. Does this sound like Tagalog? When I checked the Filipino translation of Good Morning on Bing Translate it came up with Magandang umaga.

I'm wondering if Filipino may have incorporated Tagalog words over time or vice versa.

Magandang araw sa iyo means good day to you while magandang umaga means good morning but both are not "ancient" Tagalog, they're Filipino (the languahe Filipino is full of borrowed words or hiram na salita. almost all Filipino words aren't pure Tagalog. most are from Spanish language since we were colonized by them for a long time)
Anyways, thank you!

 

[Maria Heath]

How important to you is it that you find actual Old Tagalog words to use? If you're having trouble finding old versions of words in a modern language (which is often difficult if there's not a lot of written material from that era), you could instead take modern Tagalog words and apply general principals of language change to them, but in reverse. Sort of make up your own version of what Old Tagalog might have sounded like based on Modern Tagalog. Historical linguists do this kind of thing all the time to try and figure out what languages would have sounded like from before that language had a standard writing system. I suppose it depends on what your goal is by using Old Tagalog, but if what you're looking to do is to pay tribute to Tagalog but you don't feel the need to be perfectly faithful (I did notice that you said "inspired by"), this could be an option. Just an idea, if you're low on resources!

 

[Creed]

A 1904 English-Tagalog Dictionary, including Spanish loanwords as well as native. Seems like it tries to give options.

1917, Tagalog texts with grammatical analysis.

If you can find a full version of this book, he is on this one page comparing ancient and modern Tagalog.

If they don't quite work, keep using the Internet Archive, it's your friend!
Also, this thread belongs in World Building or Research, not Writing Questions.

 

[Mari More]

A 1904 English-Tagalog Dictionary, including Spanish loanwords as well as native. Seems like it tries to give options.

1917, Tagalog texts with grammatical analysis.

If you can find a full version of this book, he is on this one page comparing ancient and modern Tagalog.

If they don't quite work, keep using the Internet Archive, it's your friend!
Also, this thread belongs in World Building or Research, not Writing Questions.

Thank you!
Really? I've debated whether I should put it here or World Building but i decided to put it here instead and not in world building (still can't post in Research yet back then because there's a minimum) because for me, it doesn't really affect my "world" and i've seen similar posts here in Writing Questions

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Just going to toss this in here in case you don't have it. Excellent resource for conlangers. I love it, and I don't create conlangs... yet.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Language-Invention-Horse-Lords-World-Building-ebook/dp/B00TY3ZMVG/

 

[Kittie Brandybuck]

Have you tried using different languages too? If too languages have similar grammar, syntax, etc. Then you could mix them together, set up a new language etc. This probably won't help you much though, so my second piece of advice is this: don't give up, even if you can't find anything to help you. There's always something out there!