Archive for April 5th, 2006

2006.04.05

1st Language Creation Conference

In my searching for tools to use for worldbuilding recently I stumbled upon this announcement: “The Conference is a set of talks and panel discussions about various issues related to language creation, from several different perspectives.”

Wow. There are other people that do this that actually want to meet? Too freaking cool!

Development of conlangs (constructed languages) has quite a history. My interest, like many others in the past 40 years or so, started after I read JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings with its various languages for elves, dwarves, and men. Tolkien was a linguist and loved language. I’ve heard it said that he wrote his stories simply to house the languages he created. Another perhaps generally more famous language is Esperanto. It hasn’t garnered the use and reputation that was it’s goal, but Esperanto is still a popular auxiliary language.

Writers of science fiction and fantasy often develop, if only in rudimentary forms, languages for the cultures their characters are from or interact with. Some of them are amazingly complex and have others studying them for their intrinsic qualities.

The process of creating a language is intellectually stimulating and challenging. I’ve learned more about phonetics, grammar and perspective of cultural influences on language by working on my own conlang. There’s no right or wrong way to go about it (though some are definitely easier than others!). I’ve been idly working on my conlang for years now and I’ve only developed a general framework; phonetics (and meanings for sounds), some basic grammar and a few words. I’m hoping this conference helps to inspire me to further the language along.

If you’re interested in attending the Conference, here is the registration page. If you have questions there’s a contact page as well. Hope to see you there!