Reddit Reddit reviews The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building

We found 19 Reddit comments about The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building
The Art of Language Invention From Horse Lords to Dark Elves the Words Behind World Building
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19 Reddit comments about The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building:

u/BlueSatoshi · 68 pointsr/Vive

Here's a couple books to get you started:
The Language Construction Kit, by Mark Rosenfelder
The Art of Language Invention, by David J. Peterson (aka the guy who made Dothraki)
He's made some vids that elaborate on the stuff he covers.

u/upallday_allen · 21 pointsr/conlangs

My first piece of advice is to get off of Biblaridion. He's an okay resource, but sometimes get's his facts wrong and has the tendency to make his opinions sound like universal consensus. As for other resources, I would highly recommend picking up some books (which are better than YT videos in every way) such as David J. Peterson's The Art of Language Invention. I'd also encourage you to find an intro to linguistics textbook and also find some good language grammars (you can find a lot online for free), as these can give you infinite ideas for your conlangs.

As for what you've shared... I'll be entirely honest, there's nothing very interesting to me about this grammar. Your vowels are pretty neat, though, and I like the idea of lengthening a vowel to indicate distant past. Your verbs seem fairly cookie-cutter - not that it's unnaturalistic, just not interesting. Also, if your goal is naturalism, I would strongly encourage introducing some irregularity to your verbal and nominal morphology, as well as your syntax. E.g., is your word order always VSO? Or are there instances where it switches to SVO or OSV?

I also strongly encourage taking a few days to think about what all these things mean. For example, what does the "simple" verb do? How do the speakers use it? It what contexts would it be appropriate or inappropriate? Same with the future tense - does it only apply to actions the speaker is sure will happen, or can it be applied if the speaker is unsure? What's the difference between habitual and continuous?

Also, check out your parts of speech as well. How are adjectives and adverbs formed? Are they derived from other words? Should they even exist (because some languages don't have one or the other or either.)? What prepositions are there and how are they used (essentially no two languages are alike with preposition usage.)? How do you mark possessor and/or possessee, if at all?

I'm bombarding you with questions here, but there's no pressure to answer them all right away. Just some things to make you think. The big takeaways here is to expand your pool of resources beyond Biblaridion and to ask yourself what each element of your language really is and how it's used by the speakers of the language.

u/Gluyb · 19 pointsr/conlangs

Start off reading about linguistics and some things which interest you in language.

Learn the international phonetic alphabet ^optional ^but ^it ^makes ^things ^much ^easier

Super useful videos for learning it

In that playlist there are also videos on how to actually start your language, DON'T DO THEM YET.

First you need to decide what your language will be for

Now use either the artifexian video in the earlier playlist or this video which is a bit more in depth to start making a phonetic inventory for your language.

The next things you need develop are:

  • Phonotactic rules
  • A writing system
  • A grammar system
  • A vocabulary

    You can find resources for those yourself

    I would highly recommend getting a book like the art of language invention or the language construction kit. I can't speak for the latter but the former was an excellent guide for me through parts of linguistics which I was totally unaware of and how to use them in a language ^the ^author's ^youtube ^channel ^is ^not ^a ^substitute ^for ^the ^book ^more ^an ^expansion

    I hope that helps
u/Kate_Pansy · 6 pointsr/linguistics

My friend got me The Art of Language Invention by the guy that invented Dothraki. It's all about inventing constructed languages. It's written for nonlinguists so some parts are boring to me, but I still really like it.

Would she be interested in a more kitschy gift? I've always liked loose lips make bilabial trills in whatever item she might need. Maybe a crocheted wug?

u/kabiman · 5 pointsr/conlangs

The easiest way: read the language construction kit, or this book. It will give you the basics.

Other than that, lurk on this sub and read some wikipedia.

u/ameliabedelia7 · 3 pointsr/casualiama
u/DearKC · 3 pointsr/writing

David J Peterson used GRRM's basics of Dothraki to create the language we see in the show, complete with syntax, tense variation, etc. etc. He wrote a book called The Art of Language Invention. He had an interview with Trevor Noah not to long ago where he gives a very brief interview.

u/ShabtaiBenOron · 3 pointsr/france

La culture, probablement pas (il me faudrait peut-être des détails sur quels aspects de cette culture vous avez en tête), mais les matériaux à disposition oui. Prenez les runes germaniques, scandinaves ou anglo-saxonnes, elles ont des tracés anguleux car on les écrivait surtout en les gravant dans du bois ou de la pierre, graver des courbes est plus dur.
En revanche, les écritures d'Asie du Sud comme le cinghalais, le birman ou le javanais sont souvent très rondes car elles s'écrivaient traditionnellement avec un stylet sur des feuilles de palmier, que des lettres anguleuses risquaient de percer.

Des livres, je ne saurais pas trop dire, car j'avoue que mes sources sont surtout des articles universitaires sur Internet ou des sites comme Omniglot. Si vous préférez les livres quand même, The World's writing systems est une sorte d'encyclopédie des alphabets anciens et modernes, il y a donc pas mal d'informations historiques dedans.
Pour inventer une écriture, je peux vous recommander The art of language invention de David J. Peterson (le créateur du dothraki de Game of Thrones), qui possède un chapitre bien fourni sur l'histoire de l'écriture, ses différents types et comment en inventer.

u/thestickystickman · 3 pointsr/neoliberal

You could read his book if you're actually interested in conlanging. There's also /r/conlangs

u/neotropic9 · 3 pointsr/writing

It depends on your goals with the project. It is okay to do literally nothing for creating a fictional language, beyond saying that some people in your world speak it; or you can go all out and design a language according to linguistic principles. There is a real art to this. This book is a pretty cool entry point into the art of conlangs (constructed languages).

If it's something you're interested in, definitely do some more reading on conlangs, but recognize that it is a huge time commitment to do it well. For most stories, you can get away with a superficial gloss of constructed languages. But once you have signaled to your reader that you are taking it seriously, they will expect you to do it well.

From the perspective of overall story execution, this is an issue of managing reader expectations. Readers will not expect writers to craft full functional languages with their own linguistic rules and etymological history. But if you promise them that you are going to--by presenting your book in such a way that gives rise to this expectation--then you either deliver or you disappoint.

u/creepyeyes · 2 pointsr/conlangs

For the most realistic results, I would reccomend purchasing these two books:

The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder and The Art of Language Invention by David J Peterson

u/GondorLibrarian · 2 pointsr/conlangs

David Peterson, who makes the conlangs for Game of Thrones and a number of other movies and TV shows, just published a really great book called The Art of Language Invention – it's really entertaining, and a great introduction to how to start making a conlang. Also, he has a tumblr.

u/EasternNumbers · 1 pointr/conlangs

David Peterson, who develops conlangs for TV shows like Game of Thrones, has a youtube series that I find really interesting and helpful. It's made as a companion to his book. I haven't read the book yet, but if it's anything like the video series, I'm sure it's worth a buy.

u/pygmyrhino990 · 1 pointr/neography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Peterson

The dude made High Valerian for GoT, as well as a bunch of languages for Syfy's Defiance, the 100, and a whole heap others. If you enjoy conlanging i highly recommend his book The art of language invention

u/AProtozoanNamedSlim · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

You could use awkwords.

Though if you want to do it well, I'd recommend, as others have, visiting r/conlangs. Also, check out the work of seasoned conlangers, like the Language Construction Kit, or David J. Peterson's The Art of Language Invention. I used David's book mostly, and found it really helpful. He's also super responsive to emails and has a supplementary video series on his youtube.

u/Strobro3 · 1 pointr/conlangs

>i wanna make one based on Finnish, Hungarian and ice/Greenlandic with Slavic influences


Greenlandic and Icelandic are very very different, Icelandic is a north germanic language which is more closely related to Slavic languages than it is baltic or Inuit languages. You're looking at merging three language families.

also, you'd best learn a tonne about conlanging before making a conlang, I recommend this book:
https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Language-Invention-Horse-Lords-World-Building/dp/0143126466


and/or these youtube channels:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Artifexian

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgJSf-fmdfUsSlcr7A92-aA

also, check out the resources on the side bar.