I was thinking a bit about fantasy languages today, and one of the things that irks me about made-up languages is that the scope is very limited. They are invented for a particular fantasy world and are only useful in books and applications related to that world. Even if you write a huge series in your world, that's still a pretty limited scope. People who learn your language can only use it for your books. I'm not saying it isn't worth it, but since building a fantasy language takes so much effort, wouldn't it be nice to be able to use the knowledge elsewhere?

And thus, a thought occurred to me... Why don't authors borrow each other's languages more? Instead of inventing all our races' tongues from scratch, why don't we exchange languages and use each other's creations?

In my fantasy world Erde, I am inventing one language for the exercise of it. I don't have time or desire to invent any more languages right now, so I'm using real-world languages for the rest of my races. However, I could use someone else's invented language for flavor without needing to do a lot of extra work.

Think of it as cross-promotion... I would credit you as the inventor of the language and link to your world. Anyone who read my book and was interested in learning more about the language would go to your site and discover your world in the process.

Thoughts? Anyone possibly interested in doing this?

That sounds really cool. Kind of like merging worlds. I don't know if I'm interested yet or not, but that's a very good idea.

Ooh, good idea!

I'd be interested in this (from both sides!), but I'm afraid the one language I've played at developing isn't anywhere near ready (or, I suspect, original) enough .

On the other hand, I really like your strategy of using real-world languages for Erde.

I suspect that one reason fantasy languages don't get shared much is that they're (ideally) connected to the rest of the worldbuilding, and it's rare for an author to let other authors "play in her sandbox."

Thanks, Aemi!

I agree, kingjon. The development of my fantasy language is tied to my world-building. However, once the rules of the language are set, I think it's fine to give that language to another, totally unrelated race - maybe even give it a different history, if necessary. Could be quite fun. If someone borrows my language, they don't need to use my world-building; they just need to use the linguistic aspects and credit me for that.

If you're interested in possibly swapping languages, drop me a PM. For my world, I'm mostly using the language to name objects, so I might be able to get by with just some vocabulary.

Interesting thought... I don't use Languages in a Tolkien fashion, so I would be of little use in this discussion, but it is still an interesting concept.

Yes, this is a good idea! I'm not good at languages, and the few I've made up are entirely random rather than well-developed, so I doubt anyone would want to use them.

Great idea!

I like your idea Aubrey! I was just beginning to write my languages, although it is quite a few only.

This sounds awesome!