So, I've been trying to invent my own language to use in my books for.. At least three years now. I've been to countless language generators, all of them not coming out or not working. I need help creating languages for three different species (lots of work) both written and spoken. Help?????
I can help! But it'd help on what species' you are doing?
I’m in the same boat as @Twitchy. I’s be more useful if I knew which species ;)
Yeah I mean, if it's a lizard-based humanoid, I'd expect a quite whispy voiced language. So lots of 'haaahhh' (breathy) and 'ssss' like noises in the language. So, thrown together I'd expect 'Shashs haayash friah' type of words haha.
After we know the species it'd be a lot easier. Also are you wanting help with the text too? And how simple of a language do you want? The Dothraki have words missing from their language that the english text has which make it far more simple, while spain has at least three versions of for example, an action, (I do, you do, we do, it do etc.)
There's some bird/human hybrids, elf sort of people and if possible I want to try and figure out a general language for magic speakers??
For the elves, I might look up Gaelic words. (One of my friends is telling me to tell you to look up Lord of the Rings but you dont have to) For the bird/human hybrids, I might insert random different languages into English, just cause birds hear everything, right? They can fly over anywhere at this point. I dont have anything for the overall magic, just cause JK Rowling already did the Latin idea, so….
Magic? I'd pick words that sound similar to the result. If it's a long process after like growing a plant, I'd go for light sounds, and make the spell last a while. Or you could use general words, maybe from other languages, and change them slightly, like rapido means fast in spanish, so Rapiado could be a spell to speed something up.
Bird humanoids, I'd go with a quick worded language. Bird's tweets are fast and often high pitched. Thinking about it, every letter in the alphabet goes in a pattern of high and low. ^A>B^C>D So I'd collect all of the high sounding letters and make words?
Saying that, it'd take time making your language up like that, so if you want it done quicker, you could try chirps in a code. If you look at morse code, and say that short shirps are the . and long or high chirps are the - , you've got a language. If you make your own code and do it that way, it would be easy, but I'm not sure how you would write the dialogue.
Elf people, I would agree with @TurtleOfFreedom. It's a mystical like language, that many would associate with nature. If not, I'd look into other elven languages already made and see how they have done it. If you want an original idea, I would look at their personalities. Are they snobbish? or are they peacefully kind? Talk like you would if you was a elf talking to a human, and you get the tone of the language, and you could try to build off that using other languages as a template?
This is extremely helpful! I will work on the languages now and hopefully get stuff that works
No problem haha, if you want any more help I'm on here a lot so just put a question here and at least one of us will answer :P
Heck maybe you could help me create the actual language. I could use a heck of a lot of help lol
Sure, which species?
Perhaps the elven one? That one I think will give me the most trouble
For the text, I'd go fancy. If you look at hiragana, I'd mix that style with gaelic text. It makes yours a little more original that others, and it makes creating the text a lot easier!
For the language, again I'd look at gaelic words, but in honesty the viking's had a very beautiful language too. If you watch the vikings show, this can be seen more clearly. It can be very rough and loud sounding, and elves are often calm but fearsome creatures. More of the patient type, but I'm being very generic here, so it depends on your species. Either way, normal words like door, or bag, I'd make more gaelic, while words like war or death more… crap where are they from- one sec.
OLD NORSE! Boom.
So, War is Swedish (a descendant of Old Norse) is Krig (according to google translate). Get a box of biscuits, stuff your mouth and say Krig. I got Craig. screw it lets add another step: reverse it. Giarc. Since they're elves, I'd say it like (Gee-Arse). Sounds funny cause arse (I swear I'm mature) but if you say it slightly angrily like you're annoyed, but like a high lord, it sounds pretty cool. Saying it like (Gee-ar-rhk) also sounds really cool. But it's something easy to play with.
It's pretty simple but bad for your diet haha. If you want a breakdown to try it:
English word -> translated to irish or swedish -> stuff your mouth -> Say the word -> Reverse the word -> play with it a bit.