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The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building?
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I highly recommend this book. It's very accessible and covers all the basics you need to know about creating an original language by someone who has done it for Hollywood a few times.
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Language-Invention-Horse-Lords-World-Building/dp/0143126466
Here's a book resource for you:
Amazon link: The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building by David J. Peterson
As weird as it may sound, getting things wrong and pissing people off is kinda part of the learning process.
You wanna know who the most talented learners in the world are? Babies! Those babbling, tumbling, pooping monsters who keep putting stuff in their mouths. They're babbling because they're imitating their mother and honing control over their mouths for when they too can talk. They're tumbling because they're building their leg muscles and improving their balance for when they start walking. They're putting things in their mouth to learn taste and texture. They are really curious little creatures and have no sense of embarrassment whatsoever, which is both super annoying and super important.
But, we're adults. We still have a brain capable to learn anything, but self-image is important. Here are my totally unprofessional but still pretty good (ime) tips to learning linguistics:
- Accept the fact that you can learn this stuff. Avoid self handicapping, and understand that linguistics is not your enemy. Whether it was by God or by natural selection, our brains are designed to learn anything.
- Find a learning community: a group of people who you can talk to about stuff. You can learn a lot by yourself, but you can learn even more in the company of other learners. Literally, surround yourself with people whose ling knowledge intimidates you and become friends with them. Eventually, stuff will start to click.
- Read. Read a lot. Read everything you can get your hands on. If something you're reading is going over your head, then put it to the side and read something else! Invest in an introduction to linguistics textbook (you can get some for pretty cheap if you know where to look), or for something specifically geared toward conlanging, try <em>The Art of Language Invention</em> and/or <em>The Language Construction Kit</em>. Right now, I'm reading a really big Grammar of Cherokee, which is so far pretty accessible, I think. No, it hasn't anything do with conlanging, per se, but the information is really interesting and inspiring to me nonetheless. Being familiar with natlangs is pretty helpful when conlanging!
- Conlang anyway. The only way I learned was by applying some of what I was learning in my conlangs. Yeah, I changed them around a lot and I've abandoned more than a few, but that's okay! Again, part of the process.
- Conquer the fear of making mistakes. To be honest, I don't know how to do this very well. But, it's helpful to know that the fear exists and it's trying to stop you (and me). It's really helpful to have a back-up plan: figure out ahead of time how you want to respond to failure and dreadful feeling that comes after it. Are you gonna curl up in a corner and cry for three hours, or are you gonna shake it off, talk it out, and grow from it?
So yeah. That was a really long response, so I'm gonna end off with this: I was there too. Sometimes, I still feel like I'm there even after two years of independent study. As the comments have already confirmed, you are not alone. Adopt a mindset that linguistics is something you can and should learn. Before you know it, you'll be the one getting pissed off.
Happy Conlanging!
My first piece of advice is to get off of Biblaridion. He's an okay resource, but sometimes get's his facts wrong and has the tendency to make his opinions sound like universal consensus. As for other resources, I would highly recommend picking up some books (which are better than YT videos in every way) such as David J. Peterson's The Art of Language Invention. I'd also encourage you to find an intro to linguistics textbook and also find some good language grammars (you can find a lot online for free), as these can give you infinite ideas for your conlangs.
As for what you've shared... I'll be entirely honest, there's nothing very interesting to me about this grammar. Your vowels are pretty neat, though, and I like the idea of lengthening a vowel to indicate distant past. Your verbs seem fairly cookie-cutter - not that it's unnaturalistic, just not interesting. Also, if your goal is naturalism, I would strongly encourage introducing some irregularity to your verbal and nominal morphology, as well as your syntax. E.g., is your word order always VSO? Or are there instances where it switches to SVO or OSV?
I also strongly encourage taking a few days to think about what all these things mean. For example, what does the "simple" verb do? How do the speakers use it? It what contexts would it be appropriate or inappropriate? Same with the future tense - does it only apply to actions the speaker is sure will happen, or can it be applied if the speaker is unsure? What's the difference between habitual and continuous?
Also, check out your parts of speech as well. How are adjectives and adverbs formed? Are they derived from other words? Should they even exist (because some languages don't have one or the other or either.)? What prepositions are there and how are they used (essentially no two languages are alike with preposition usage.)? How do you mark possessor and/or possessee, if at all?
I'm bombarding you with questions here, but there's no pressure to answer them all right away. Just some things to make you think. The big takeaways here is to expand your pool of resources beyond Biblaridion and to ask yourself what each element of your language really is and how it's used by the speakers of the language.
David made all the languages in Dune! Nabili ko rin ung libro n'ya sa Big Bad Wolf, so nakita ko na rin ung sample ng iba n'yang conlangs.
You could use awkwords.
Though if you want to do it well, I'd recommend, as others have, visiting r/conlangs. Also, check out the work of seasoned conlangers, like the Language Construction Kit, or David J. Peterson's The Art of Language Invention. I used David's book mostly, and found it really helpful. He's also super responsive to emails and has a supplementary video series on his youtube.
David Peterson, who develops conlangs for TV shows like Game of Thrones, has a youtube series that I find really interesting and helpful. It's made as a companion to his book. I haven't read the book yet, but if it's anything like the video series, I'm sure it's worth a buy.
/r/conlangs !!!
Here's a good podcast.
Second part of the LCK. Highly optional
After you're done with either the podcast or the fist LCK, you might as well get into the grammar of other languages instead of using language construction things.
Don't do auxlangs, though.
Edit: There's also a planet construction kit in case you want to get straight into world building as well
>i wanna make one based on Finnish, Hungarian and ice/Greenlandic with Slavic influences
Greenlandic and Icelandic are very very different, Icelandic is a north germanic language which is more closely related to Slavic languages than it is baltic or Inuit languages. You're looking at merging three language families.
also, you'd best learn a tonne about conlanging before making a conlang, I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Language-Invention-Horse-Lords-World-Building/dp/0143126466
and/or these youtube channels: https://www.youtube.com/user/Artifexian
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgJSf-fmdfUsSlcr7A92-aA
also, check out the resources on the side bar.
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