I'm going to start looking into making my own languages.

The period of Murel's (whose name will probably change once I have a new language) history I'm working on ATM is from shortly before the flood to soon after the flood. There are only two languages in all Murel. One of the languages is the language that has been around since the creation.

What should one do differently when he is making a language that doesn't have a previous language to draw back on (i.e. there have been no other languages from which to borrow words/grammar structure)?

God bless,
Suiauthon

Best way is to make it extremely complicated, as a language which has gradually evolved with lots of grammar patches would be

No, just because it's the first in your world doesn't mean it can't have a real-world equivalent. Maybe base it off of Latin?

*is not being helpful *

eru

But the language hasn't had time to evolve. It might have evolved a little, but if so, the change has been very little from it's beginning.

I don't know Latin...

*chuckles* You are being helpful, you just aren't answering the question.

I'd suggest something simple, direct-- rather like using the "true name" of things. You might not even have to make up the vocabulary, or make it a limited vocabulary and structure (for who can create perfection, or a word that perfectly captures the essence of things?). Just indicate that such-and-such said the true name of this-and-this. Or some variation on the "true names" idea.

I think I understand what you're talking about. I'd want to do something like that (especially since the language is given by the angels) except, if at all possible, I'll want to fully develop the language.

Hmmmmm... that's harder then, of course, Sui. *puts on thinking cap* I don't know whether this is something other people can help with or not...

I'd suggest starting with vowel sounds. They're usually the backbone of the language. If you're thinking of using sounds outside of the English range, then you'd need pronunciations and notations and such. If you make the vowels organized say, into seven (or some other Biblically significant number) that could be interesting. Or do three. Less is more

Then (this is only suggestions, mind) I'd move to consonant sounds. My idea would be to organize the possible sounds into a chart, with vowels forming the rows and consonants the columns. That's more the technical/organizational side, though, I guess. So, observe the world. See the beauty as they would have seen it. Look at nature and see the sounds in it. Then try to represent those forms and colors, shapes and images as sounds. Hard and soft, rough and smooth, velvet and honey.

Very practical, yes But you'll be most satisfied with your own imagination, I think, in the end!

Akp! This is complicated.

I'm going to need to do some research...

Mark, use this link:

http://www.zompist.com/kit.html

Memorize it and recite it in your sleep. It's really the most useful resource I've found for conlanging

eru

Nice. I'm going to see if I can copy and paste it so I can take it with me on my computer during vacation.

I actually have many words in common with another made-up language in Holy Worlds! My language, Zeldon, and the language Skrac have a lot of similarities

Cool.

Yeah! So I guess that would be my predecessor...

Not really. Though I do intend to make the language separate from any Earth language, I was talking about not having a predecessor in an endocosmic sense.

In your case, Skrac might be your language's predecessor. It depends on if you based your language off of Skrac or not.

Well, I didn't really "base it" off of Skrac. If you go to one of the Zeldon threads in the Scriptorium, I have placed a parragraph explaining its similarities with Skrac.

If you just happened to have similarities, that doesn't mean your language is a predecessor, it mean you suffer at the hands of a coincidence.

No, it is not a coincidence. We developed our languages together, but Skrac came first.

Ah.