forum Need assistance writing alien language
Started by @ThatOneWeirdLostFleetFan
tune

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@ThatOneWeirdLostFleetFan

I've got some basics down and require some opinions, suggestions and the sort and this is what I have down at the moment:

Reousq – Go
Reousqlok – Going
Reousql’orer – Going here
Lieqpl’orer – Come here
Lieqplok – Coming
Lieqp – Come
Kirth – Death
Kirthlok – Dying
Kirthlokl’orer – Dying here
Kri – I
Kri’liq – I am
Krliq – I’m
Vop – You
Vop’col – You are
Vocol – You’re
Jeum – He
Jeum’se – He is
Jeuse – He’s
Dret – She
Dret’se – She is
Drese – She’s
Brekt – They
Brekt’col – They are
Brekcol – They’re
Jeura – Sir
Deytura – Ma’am
Qapka – Ensign
Merka – Lieutenant
Yeruka – Commander
Harika – Captain
Zropka – Admiral
Tricot – Rank
Triqapka – Rank, Ensign
Trimerka – Rank, Lieutenant
Triyeruka – Rank, Commander
Triharika – Rank, Captain
Trizropka – Rank, Admiral
Korokov – Jump
Korok’Jarova – Jump space
Jarova – Space
Marop – War
Zarq – And
Brischt – Time
Jarov zarq brischt – Space and time

(Got 3 other words at home and I've been writing these for two days.)

Have I messed anything up at all in writing or is this fine?

@Sugar-Lover

This looks amazing! After I read the first word I could tell you put so much thought into this. Keep up with your good work. I'm like seriously amazed by this. I could never come up with something half as good as this.

@ThatOneWeirdLostFleetFan

Thank you!! I worked on it a little more since then and placed most of it into separate sections and starting on doing untranslatable words but otherwise, I'm glad it's alright to at least one person!!

@Sugar-Lover

Honestly, it’s amazing!! After you have enough words you may want to think about sentence structure. Like order subject, verb and so on. But other than that, keep going!! Your work is really good so far!

@ThatOneWeirdLostFleetFan

I've done a rough 'draft' of what a sentence could be so I've done this. Any opinions? I will supply the words used since I've done a load before. But I take a few letters off from each word even when there's only two of them because I don't want to look like I'm copy pasting and stating "there's a sentence" and such.

Vrrs’reous’je’ilopl’orer – What’s going on around here

@Riorlyne pets

Hi! I can tell you've put a lot of work into creating words for your language - it's looking really good. :) What you probably want to have as well are some grammar rules so that your language isn't just a code of English. For example, French has different grammar rules from English, so just "replacing" each word in order with the French equivalent doesn't work.

E.g., "My mother's friend turned forty last month."
Word-for-word replacement that doesn't work –> "Ma mère amie tourna quarante dernier mois"
Actual, correct translation –> "L'amie de ma mère a eu quarante ans le mois dernier."
Word-for-word replacement of the actual French back into English –> "The friend of my mother has had forty years the month last."

Think about ways the structure of your language will differ from English. Maybe, like French, it will put adjectives after the noun, so "cat blue" instead of "blue cat". Maybe, like Hebrew, it will start with the verb instead of the subject, so "Ate the cat the mouse" instead of "The cat ate the mouse". Maybe, like Chinese, it won't have past and present forms of verbs, so "I eat (yesterday)" instead of "I ate". Maybe, like Finnish, it will have one word for both he and she, so "they are my friend" instead of "he is my friend". There are countless ways that you can spice it up. :)

Of course, if you want to do a word-for-word replacement of English, that's fine too! It's your language. :) You haven't messed anything up with your existing words, but you could be making more work for yourself if you have different words for am, is are and be, when they're essentially all the same verb - English just has radically different versions of the verb "to be" depending which pronoun it's used with. :) Another thing I'd suggest is making sure the contractions in your language are still something its speakers can pronounce. "Vrrs'reous" looks like a mouthful to me!

If you're interested in some language creation resources, these are some that I have found extremely helpful:

More advanced resources:

@Sugar-Lover

The only problem with taking away letters from the end of each word is that you have to make sure the the beginning of each word has a different enough beginning that you can tell what the word is without the ending letters.
And as for having all your words strung together in one line might be a little confusing. The words might change depending on where you split the letters. (I don’t know if that makes sense but an example could be racesand. You don’t know if it’s races and or race sand.) If you wanted to have the words to connect you could do that with connecting words so that they connect to the other side words. (ie. And, to, in, the, with, on etc.) That way there is some form of spacing between the words. Or maybe you separate the words another way.
The only other thing I have to say is what Riorlyne covered, with the changing up the word order. But then again it’s your language and you get the final say, that’s just my advice. Your language is still really good!