Hallo. ^.^ I've been thinking about one particular story lately, my Master Creation, which is still in the works. (well...Master Creation on the standards of me. Which may not be so masterful to the rest of the world when all is said in done. But it is a rather monstrous project. ) This story deals with several different countries and several different cultures over the span of many different years, stretching over several books worth. The overarching plot itself revolves around these different countries and cultures, their histories, etc.

That being said, it would be quite unrealistic of me to have every culture throughout all time and space to all speak the same. Exact. Language.

So I've finally decided to hunker down and make up a few. Not full fledged ones, just partially developed languages, as I probably won't need a fully developed language. Just enough for foreigners to speak it, make a up a few phrases, a poem or riddle or two, add a plot twist - that sort of thing.

I've no idea where to start. Absolutely no idea. I've never invented a language before, so I need your help!

How do you invent your languages? What are the steps you go through? If you have any advice at all, I'll take it.

Thank ye kindly in advance. I apologize if the above post has any typos, it's hard to type properly when one is using a tiny netbook keyboard and one has a cat curled up and sleeping upon one's lap. >.O

At least your cat sleeps on your lap, mine just growls and hisses when ever I pick it up

What I'll do instead of coming up with a language is pick one place that will be where the story is based, making those people speak english.

Then I'll describe what the other languages sound like to the MCs. they can be gutteral, sing-song, monotone as in not raising the pitch of the voice when asking questions, slow and ponderous, chattering like monkeys.

To aid in the conversations, I generally have one character who can speak that language. Relying mainly upon them to do the talking. Then you can write what is being said from their point of view in english, clearly stating that the others "Watched in wonder as the rough voice of (Insert name here) suddenly changed pitch and began to spurt out the chattering language of the (Indigenous peoples)"

My two cents.

I personally have no problem keeping basically one language for a world (no tower of babel as of yet ) but since you didn't ask for my little technicalities I'll see what I can say that's potentially helpful.

Decide on what style your language is. Will it be a more Latin or Germanic style, a tonal language like those of the orient, or the diverse tongue of Africa which has every sound from grunts to whistles?

Make a few words up. Find a word you think sounds good for a specific meaning and take note of it somewhere.

Once you have a few words down, decide on what makes those words fit into a sentence (i.e. the difference between noun and verb or subject and object). This section usually involves the most work what with endings and whatnot if you choose to delve into a European style language (perhaps others too but I only know European languages well).

Start making up more words or adding them together to make different ones. Studying etymology can give you a good basis for combining words to create a deeper language.

If you've ever heard of writing pansters... I'm one when it comes to languages.

What Whackem said about making one people speak English makes sense. Even Tolkien, who knew Latin, Hebrew, English, Germanic languages, you-name-it, had just about everybody speak English. We don't need to outdo him, and that probably isn't your goal anyway.

What you probably need is a "naming language." Part of what makes LOTR so cool is that everywhere is called by some cool name like "Mordor" instead of its translation, "Black Land," or "Black Realm." Make a naming language. If you want a name for "the woodchuck swimming hole" make up a word for "woodchuck," and a name for "swimming hole." If your word for woodchuck is "lethrin" and your word for swimming hole is "othobar" then Place of The Woodchuck Swimming hole is now "Lethrinothobar." Maybe make a contracted form, "Lethrinobar." It sounds like it belongs on some Middle-earth coastline.

To make your langauge awesome, though, make it self dependent. Maybe instead of having a word for "swimming hole" as one thing you have a word of "swim" and "pond." You can make the word for "swim" be "othob" and the word for "pond" be "ar." Now thing look pretty neat.

To be even more awesome, make up a different root for swim. Instead of calling it just "swim" maybe it is a compound word of "water" and "move." Maybe your word for water is "oth" and your word for move is "ob." Now you can still call it "Lethrinobar" but now it appears ridiculously complicated, while its not.

One important note though: always keep track of what means what. The best way to do this is probably to keep two lists, each in alphabetical order. One uses the "new language" words in alphabetical order with their English equivalents next to them, and the other goes from English to new language.

Another quick tip: make up your suffixes and prefixes. In my fantasy language, I replaced "th" (as in fouTH, fifTH, sixTH, etc.) with "-ihi." I replaced -ness (goodness, playfulness) with -oo. Combining this with roots as above can make everything so much simpler.

Hope that helps!

Thanks, it really does help. I'll take a few of these ideas and use them.