Creating a Fantasy Language: creating an alphabet

(Creating a fantasy language: (Lesson 1, Rationale, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Choosing words, Creating an Alphabet)

I mentioned in my last "Creating a fictional language" post that I enjoy creating symbols when coming up with words. But there are a few ways to do that.

There are two essential ways to create an alphabet: Start with a set of sounds, or start with a set of "letters."

If you start with your sets of sounds, you simply draw a character for each sound. If you have a system that combines consonant and verb sounds, it may help to arrange your sounds in a chart. Then draw a character that will stand for each sound.

possible words: "bahteelo"; "saybolay"

You can also start with the symbols and assign them sounds. This works especially well if you have an alphabet-style language, which combines letters into words.

Combine characters to make words: "kosnowch"; "groy"

In each case, you'll want to decide if the sounds are analogous to English, especially verb sounds--do you have a single "o" letter for both "for" and "both"? Is "aw" different from "apple" or "apricot"? If you have multiple forms of a vowel, you may consider having different symbols for each pronunciation. 

You might also decide the reverse, giving multiple pronunciations to a single character based on context. If so, I suggest holding off on deciding the rule until the end of establishing your alphabet (but you will need a rule.)

You may also have letters that "interrupt" or "add on" to sounds, especially if you have verb-consonant characters.

"traton" would be "ta" in a box + "to" + "-n"
And just ignore the "L" at the top I forgot to delete...

In the example above, adding a box around a triangle would be pronounced "pray"; a box around vertical line would be "tro." Meanwhile, a dot above a triangle would be "pays" and above a horizontal line would be "tays" (like "taze"). I usually make modification sounds their own column.

(This example also has a couple of irregular letters in the "p" column: "pled" and "peel." Just because you follow a pattern doesn't mean your letters all play by the rules.)

If you've waited this long to create your language, you probably already have a good idea what major sounds your language uses. I typically also try to keep each letter to 1-4 strokes when writing it, with most being simple--after all, an inconvenient language takes longer to write.

Assigning a scribble to each letter doesn't take terribly long. It's memorizing the combinations that gets hard. Keeping each letter distinct can be tricky, and you may end up with a system like a vertical line for all "ah" sounds with different scribble variations denoting which consonant.

And of course, a 6-consonant language is pretty hard to work with. I've found that single-letter alphabets are shorter to work with, while consonant-vowel combos take more characters to make a complete alphabet. The more sounds that go into a single character, the more characters you'll need to express your entire language.

After you've put together your alphabet, consider if you want any characters to have special rules ("paw" never goes beside "tae"; "pled" never gets an "-n" added to it; "bay" when combined with "-ed" sounds like "blade"; etc). If you've started with a language and have a list of rules, add these rules to your list; they're just as important.

Then it's just practice. Write a couple of words in the language (if you have a vocabulary list, try a few already on it. Then try a sentence or two.)

As a final step, think about punctuation. How do you denote sentence stops and sentence beginnings? Or do you? I find it a lot easier to have the basics period and comma, at the very least. Or if not a period, then a sign that new sentence is beginning.

(Creating a fantasy language: (Lesson 1, Rationale, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Choosing words, Creating an Alphabet)

Creating a Fantasy Language: Choosing words

You may remember the posts I've done on creating your own fantasy language a while back. Recently someone asked me an interesting question that I thought I'd share with you.

(Creating a fantasy language: (Lesson 1, Rationale, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Choosing words, Creating an Alphabet)

How do I choose my words?

For this language, it uses a basic English alphabet, so I chose random short letter combinations as word roots. Some I just nab parts off words I see around me; others I pull out of nowhere. I rarely run out of ideas since there's so many basic combinations, but being random can be harder if you like working with a system. It's fun, though, because if you end up with two similar words you can start making puns in your language, and sometimes I do things with it like say the words are considered associated in the culture (so if "hoskon" also meant "colorful," I might say having lots of furniture is considered a sign of being a cheerful person).

It was actually easier in a language I made with a character alphabet that had 56 characters, each either a single letter or a pair of letters (similar to Japanese hiragana). The first 50 characters I each assigned to be a word on their own, and I chose a set of fundamental concepts that I thought would be most important to an evolving society --“ti”=life; “so”=I/self; “fa”=water; “ku”=eat; “da”=first; “sho”=after; etc. Then, whenever I needed a new word, I chose which of those 50 concepts it was most related to and combined the characters. So, “sotifa” would be “blood” and so on. The last 6 concepts I used for conjugating verbs, making plurals, making adjectives, etc.

Another method, if you want to sound similar to a certain language without being that language, is to find a word in the target language that means the same and changing it to sound similar to the words you already have (if you have a language without o’s, for example, and you want to create something vaguely close to german, the word for week might be “vak” instead of “Woche”; and you don’t want it to be too close, so “bahn” for train might be “bina”).

If you don't have a language you want to sound like, and you're not interested in creating a system of characters, you can still use a system to create thematic words. Choose what sounds your language uses and make a chart lining them up along the top. With this method, I write 4-5 "words" for each starting letter, using different verbs for each. These words are associated with basic concepts.

In general, short words will be your basic concepts. So choose 2-4 letters from your sound system to form a large set of basic concepts (I'd go with at least 40-50, including numbers, some basic time/space prepositions, concepts of self, affirmations and negations, and survival-related words like eating, water, fire, home, love, etc). I usually try to make opposing concepts (fire and water, for example) to sound as diametrically opposite each other as possible (sosa and bitu might be a good pair, with different consonants that have very different sounds, and different vowels), but you might prefer to make them similar or inverses.

Then, as with root words, you can use these concepts to combine into new words, or form words that sound similar to existing concepts.


Choosing the basic concepts for my societies is one of the most influential pieces in coming up with the culture. After all, what we say reflects how we think. So it tells me what that society considers most important.

How do you choose words for your languages?

Creating a Fantasy Language: Lesson 4

Lesson 4: New concepts in grammar
(Creating a fantasy language: (Lesson 1, Rationale, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Choosing words, Creating an Alphabet)

In our last lesson for creating a fantasy language, we built on rules we already had by adding more of the same.

Now let’s try something entirely new:

It gave her a flower for her hair.

New concepts:

two objects (her, a flower)

possessive case (her hair)

Grammar-lovers will know that her in it gave her is a dative-case noun. Everyone else knows that her is another noun in the sentence, the person to whom the flower is given.

In my language, dative pronouns gain the suffix –s (or –es to nouns that it’s otherwise hard to add an –s to).

We’ll put the person to whom something is given after the thing that is given.

It gave for her hair a flower to her.

Now possessive case: I’ll add a –p suffix to create possession. In nouns ending with a consonant where that isn’t easily spoken, it will be –ip, -op, or -ap.

ot (it)

itis (her, dative)

a (ne)

laksh (to give)

Merin (flower)

fle (for)

Stiton (hair)

itop (her, possessive, for neuter noun)

(What)(to whom)(for what purpose/other prepositional phrases)(verb)(thing given)

It (to) her for her hair gave a flower.

ot itis laksho fle itop Stiton ne Merim.

Try another, just to get the hang them.

Charlie gave his mother a flower.

laksh (to give)

ne (a)

Merin (flower)

mother (chenin)

Charlie (to) his mother gave a flower.

Charlie atip Cheninis laksha ne Merin.

I (female) stole an apple from my father.

iko (I, female)

bork (to steal)

ne (a/an)

Munoch (apple)

du (from)

ikap (my, for masculine noun)

Chanan (father)

I from my father stole an apple.

iko du ikap Chananos borki ne Munoch.

Now combine with another rule, using phrases you’ve used before:

He under the table stole an apple from his father.

at (he)

uz (under)

ke (the)

hoskon (table)

bork (to steal)

ne (a)

Munoch (apple)

du (from)

at-p (his)

Chanan (father)

He under the table, from his father stole an apple.

at a’uz ke aHoskon, du atop Chananos borka ne Munoch.

And use new phrases with the same concepts:

The dog (neuter) with a tail accepted from you (masc) its collar.

ke (the)

ne (a)

du (from)

you (ut)

wufon (dog)

ot-p (its)

Donparlan (collar)

vesh (with)

sota (tail)

drigoh (to accept [as in, to allow to be given])

The dog with a tail, from you accepted its collar.

ke wufon ovesh ne oSota, du utas drigoho otap Donparlan.

By now, you should have vocabulary for all your pronouns. I still haven’t addressed me or my. Let me fix that:

ikop/akop/okop: my

ikos/akos/okos: me (dative case, such as “he gave me a dog” or “he stole from me an apple”)

ikon/akon/okon: me (objective case, such as “my father handed me to my aunt”)

And of course, I want to practice.

The dog without a tail gave me a flower.

veshra (without)

sota (tail)

wufon (dog)

ke (the)

Merin (flower)

ne (a)

laksh (to give)

ikos (me, dative)

The dog without a tail (to) me gave a flower.

ke wufon oveshra ne oSota, ikos laksho ne Merin.

What new concepts did you create for your language this go-around? Post a sentence and translation!

Vocabulary so far:

Verbs
san: to drop	nansan: to put down	nansanko: to lie down	ko: self	koma: self-aware
uzko: to be sick	kopalli: to self-reprimand	palli: to reprimand	del: to create	laksh: to give
borr: to roll	syl: to cast magic	der: to cause	bork: to steal	dragoh: to accept
Prepositions
uz: under	tep: on	elti: into	el: in	ti: to
du: from	vesh: with	veshra: without
Nouns
sylpana: the magic source	pana: lake	cortan: ball	hoskon: table	fodratan: anger
witkin: chair	bason: floor	fodrishin: hostility	dupon: bowl	Merin: flower
stiton: hair	chenin: mother	chanan: father	munoch: apple	wufon: dog
donparlan: collar
Pronouns
ut: you (subject)	ot: it (subject)	ako: I (male)	iko: I (female)	utu: you (object)
ata: him	iti: her	oto: it (obj)	at: he	it: she
ikop/akop/okop: my	ikos/akos/okos: me (dat.)	ikon/akon/okon: me (obj.)
Articles
ke: the	ne: a
Adjectives
fodrish: hostile
Numbers
kes: one	des: two	tres: three	fes: four	res: five
ses: six	pes: seven	les: eight	nes: nine	doc: ten

Creating a fantasy language: Lesson 3

Part 3: Making it more complex.
(Creating a fantasy language: (Lesson 1, Rationale, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Choosing words, Creating an Alphabet)

In part one of writing a fantasy language, you made root words and began to make vocabulary. In part two, you created the basic sentence structure. The next logical step is to get more complex: begin making more complicated sentences by adding more of what you already have.

Now that you’re getting more than a few words, you’ll want to start reading your sentences aloud (or whispering them to yourself at your desk, whichever). Not only will this help avoid writing things that can’t be spoken, it will also start hinting to you where you need punctuation.

Start with a review, something that you can already do:

You put a ball down on the floor.

ut (you) (male)

Cortan (ball)

nansan (to put down)

ne (a)

ke (the)

bason (floor)

tep (on)

You on the floor put down a ball.

ut tep ke Bason nansanla ne Cortan.

Remember, our basic sentence structure is

(Who) (where) (what happens) (what)

Or, more grammatically: (subject)(preposition)(verb)(object)

This leads to a question, what if it’s the subject to which the preposition applies? For example, let’s say we’re talking about a person on a chair.

at (he)

Witkin(chair)

New rule: when the preposition applies to the subject, each word in the prepositional phrase gains a prefix of the same gender as the subject (in this case, a- for male).

He, on the chair, puts a ball down.

He (the one on the chair) puts down a ball.

at atep ake aWitkin nansanda ne Cortan.

Okay: PROBLEM. I just tried to read that aloud. (Go on, try it.) See what I mean? It’s hard to say. People try to avoid speech patterns that are difficult to say.

So let’s alter this rule.

Revised rule: When the preposition applies to the subject, the preposition and the object of the preposition gain a prefix of the same gender as the subject.

He (the one on the chair) puts down a ball.

at atep ke aWitkin nansanda ne Cortan.

Now read that aloud. For me, this was much easier – and only a one-letter change!

Now let’s see how this combines with a preposition that applies to the object as well.

it (she)

(who)(where who is)(where object goes)(what happens)(to what)

(subject)(subject’s prepositional phrase)(object’s prepositional phrase)(verb)(object)

She on the chair puts a ball down on the floor.

She on the chair on the floor puts down a ball.

it itep ke iWitkin tep ke Bason nansanda ne Cortan.

Now read it aloud.

I don’t know about you, but I had to pause for breath between the prepositional phrases. That’s usually a sign that a comma will be used. Let’s add some punctuation to that:

New rule: put a comma after prepositional phrases applying to the subject.

She on the chair, on the floor puts down a ball.

it itep ke iWitkin, tep ke Bason nansanda ne Cortan.

Now for a little practice:

She on the floor drops a ball on a table.

Cortan (ball)

san (to drop)

ne (a)

ke (the)

bason (floor)

tep (on)

it (she)

Witkin (table)

She on the floor, on a chair drops a ball.

it itep ke iBason, tep ne Witkin sani ne Cortan.

You (the guy under the chair) drop the table to the floor.

You under the chair drop the table to the floor.

ut (you)

uz (under)

ne (a)

ke (the)

Witkin (chair)

tep (on)

Hoskon (table)

Bason (floor)

ti (to)

You under the chair, on the floor drop the table.

ut a’uz ke aWitkin, ti ke Bason sanla Hoskon.

What new rules did you create for your language? Or try writing a sentence using these rules, and share your results in the comments!

Vocabulary so far:

san: to drop	nansan: to put down	nansanko: to lie down	ko: self	koma: self-aware
uzko: to be sick	kopalli: to self-reprimand	palli: to reprimand	uz: under	syl: to cast magic
sylpana: the magic source	pana: lake	ako: I (male)	iko: I (female)	utu: you (object)
ata: him	iti: her	oto: it (obj)	at: he	it: she
ut: you	ot: it (subject)	der: to cause	ne: the	kes: one
des: two	tres: three	fes: four	res: five	ses: six
pes: seven	les: eight	nes: nine	doc: ten	cortan: ball
hoskon: table	elti: into	el: in	fodratan: anger	fodrishin: hostility
fodrish: hostile	del: to create	witkin: chair	bason: floor	borr: to roll
dupon: bowl	tep: on	laksh: to give	Merin: flower	Stiton: hair

Creating a fantasy language: basic sentences

Lesson 2
With a little vocabulary under your belt, it’s time to begin constructing grammar. Start simple: How to construct a basic sentence.

(Creating a fantasy language: (Lesson 1, Rationale, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Choosing words, Creating an Alphabet)

Chances are, as you created vocabulary, you created patterns in your words. For me, most nouns end with –an, -in, or –on. Adjectives had no endings, and verbs in infinitive form had no endings because they took endings when conjugated.

Let’s start with verbs.

Your first rule is to decide how to conjugate your verbs. When I was learning German, we looked at 6 present-tense ways to conjugate a verb:

to walk:

I walk

you walk

he/she/it walks

they walk

you all walk

(formal) you walk

In this language, I’ve decided gender is important. So I’m going to be more specific:

san (to drop):

I male: sana

I female: sani

you m: sanla

you f: sanli

he: sanda

she: sandi

it: sando

they: sandia

you all: sanlia

you formal: sanla si/sanli si

Now let’s make a sentence. I want to say, “I drop a ball.” The speaker is feminine.

Relevant vocabulary:

iko (I, female)

san (to drop)

a (ne)

cortan (ball)

My sentence is:

iko sani ne Cortan.

Note that I’m not capitalizing the sentence at this point. If you plan on using capital letters (say, capitalizing all direct objects and objects of prepositions), then that is a grammar rule to begin working on here. Therefore, I am not capitalizing the beginning of my sentence to avoid confusion.

Let’s try another sentence.

She makes him angry.

Or, literally, “she causes anger in him.”

it (she)

der (to cause)

ata (him)

el (in)

fodratan (anger)

it el Ata deri Fodratan.

she in him causes anger.

Because I once decided that prepositions go before the verb in complex verbs, I’m following that up by placing the prepositional phrase before the verb in the sentence. This means the adjective gets pushed back to the end of the sentence.

This basic structure can become a rule:

(Who) (where) (what happens) (what)

He falls into a lake.

at (he)

sanko (to fall)

elti (into)

pana (lake)

ne (a)

at elti ne Pana sankoa.

he into a lake falls

You all lie down under a table.

utia (you all)

nansanko (lie down)

uz (under)

ne (a)

hoskon (table)

utia uz ne Hoskon nansankolia.

y’all under a table lie down

What's the basic sentence structure of your language? What rules (or patterns if they're not strict) do you have so far?

Vocabulary so far:

san: to drop	nansan: to put down	nansanko: to lie down	ko: self	koma: self-aware
uzko: to be sick	kopalli: to self-reprimand	palli: to reprimand	uz: under	syl: to cast magic
sylpana: the magic source	pana: lake	ako: I (male)	iko: I (female)	utu: you (object)
ata: him	iti: her	oto: it (obj)	at: he	it: she
ut: you	ot: it (subject)	der: to cause	ne: the	kes: one
des: two	tres: three	fes: four	res: five	ses: six
pes: seven	les: eight	nes: nine	doc: ten	cortan: ball
hoskon: table	elti: into	el: in	fodratan: anger	fodrishin: hostility
fodrish: hostile	del: to create

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Why write a fantasy language?

Rationale
(Creating a fantasy language: (Lesson 1, Rationale, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Choosing words, Creating an Alphabet)

A few weeks back, I did a post on how to begin writing a fantasy language. I'll post lesson #2 eventually. But first, why fantasy languages matter:

You might never include the language in your book. Your characters might never speak it; you might never mention it; your "dictionary" might languish on a shelf in the back of your old bedroom three apartments ago, forgotten.

But words matter. They change how we think. If you have a world different from this one, fundamentally different, your characters will commonly use words that are uncommon in basic English. And you, as an author, will be able to determine some of their values by how you prioritize creating these words, and the grammar that goes with them.

Let's take a look at the vocabulary for magic: Are there different types of magic? Is it classified? Is it separated by gender?

Let's make the word syl: to cast (magic). In this world, all magic comes from the same source, the sylpana. (pana=lake). There is only one type of magic, so everyone who uses it, can do the same things with it.

A woman casting magic might say: iko syli. (I cast.)

A man casting magic might say: ako syli. (I cast.)

What did we just establish? That men and women do not hold the same place in this society, or historically did not hold equivalent roles when the language was first being constructed (I is a fundamental concept!). They differentiate their genders, meaning that "male self" is different from "female self."

This may or may not mean that they were unequal, or that there was oppression at any point. They may have been a tribal society that differentiated the tasks of men and women, but gave equal leadership and value to both genders.

But your characters, male and female, are aware of their role in society as male and female. There will be gender expectations and differentiation, or there will memories of such differentiation. Your protagonist's mother is a smith. She may refer to this ("What do you think this is, the 1100s? I can open a smithy if I want to!") She would therefore be going against a minor social norm - meaning she was a strong influence on your character, and would have been a strong character of her own right, even if she doesn't play a big role in the story.

What's another thing we just learned? Men and women conjugate the verb to cast the same. That means that there is no gender differentiation between verbs (or at least between magic-related verbs). This could mean that historically, both men and women have been mages, and performed the same tasks as mages without gender-specific tasks. Mages never dealt with gender bias.

Maybe, in this world, 1000 years ago there was a strict gender-separation of most tasks. In fairly recent history, an equality movement has eliminated many of the barriers.

Why this matter?

You will have had to create a backstory for not just your characters, but their very world. This will give you a deeper understanding of who they are, and how they react to the environment around them. It may also give rise culture-specific terms, to the sort of insults that are used, and to the kinds of people they will encounter along the way.

Writing prompt of the day: You are writing a female mage in the world we've just described. Tell me one way this background affects her characterization, her story, her actions, or one of her scenes.

Creating a Language: Start at the beginning

Lesson 1
(Creating a fantasy language: (Lesson 1, Rationale, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Choosing words, Creating an Alphabet)

Tolkien created Elvish.

Star Trek has Klingon.

Robert Jordan had the Old Tongue.

So creating a language isn't impossible. Admittedly, in most cases the language makes only smattering appearances in the novel itself, but as a way to further develop a world, sometimes it's nice to create a language.

First choose your phonemes: Will you use all the sounds of the English language? Most? Some? Will you throw in both a rolling r and a soft r? Make an alphabet. For simplicity, I'm going to say we're using the English alphabet, with English letter assortments and sounds.

Once you have your alphabet, it's time to start writing the language.

Where do you start?

At the root, of course. The root words, that is.

Choose a verb, preferably a verb that is made past tense by adding -ed, and create a root for it.

"to drop," let's say, is "san."

Now let's think of things that could be related to dropping:

"to fall" - sanko

What's the difference between dropping and falling? Well, falling is dropping yourself. So "ko" must be a root for "self."

How about "to put down"? Let's say, nansan. Here, "down" is a preposition, nan. And I've decided (quite arbitrarily) that compound preposition verbs should have the preposition in front of the root. Write the rule down on a list of grammar rules and stick to it; consistency is important!

Logically, nansanko would be to lie down, so that's four words. And ko, the root for self, is a powerful root that can lead to lots of new words: koma, self-aware; uzko, to be under oneself (which I think means to be sick, thus birthing an idiomatic phrase!); kopalli, to self-reprimand.

All of these new words, of course, produce more roots. And each root produces more words. Once you have a basic vocabulary, you can move on to stage two: the basic blocks of grammar, such as conjugating verbs and making phrases.

Keep in mind that the most important concepts will probably be short words, and strong verbs and nouns may break the original rules you set down.

Have you ever wanted to create a fictional language? What for?