What languages do you guys speak?

[Darnoc]

I'm impressed by your creation of some languages. To what extent are they developed? Are we going to see websites going up in the near future giving us a simple twelve-week course that will guarantee you will learn Merlirian or your money back, or extensive apendices detailing the grammar and pronunciation of each syllable? 

 

Seriously though, how did you do it? I've always wondered how Tolkien, or anyone else for that matter, could create a language.

 

Well, some of them are quite well developed, some of them only fragmential. And you won't see any of them or any learning course. I only invented them for my book. Tolkien invented the books for the languages, I sometimes think. At least the Silmarillion, as he himself stated (he created the Silmarillion to give an explenation for the different elvish languages). My languages only give me the necessary background for my world and I use them to create new words and sentences in my book. So most of my languages do not have a fully developed vocabulary, but only a developed structure, grammar and style. Based on those I can create new words.

 

Now to the "how". Well, do some linguistics, study different languages, their structure especially. Tolkien, for example, was professor for Anglistics and he had knowlegde of nordic languages, altough I am not sure which ones exactly. Certainly Anglosaxon.

 

If you understand the structure of languages, what different kinds of languages exist, you can begin to develop the structure of your own language. You can even begin to play around and do some things which normally don't exist. For example I intenved a language in which the nouns are set into tenses, not the verbs and all the verbs are bound to certain nouns.

 

The next part, after you invented the basic structure and grammar of your language, is vocabulary. Again, it helps if you know different languages. Then you will notice that languages follow a certain style in their vocabulary, certain combinations of sounds. Listen to different languages, the way they are pronounced. Then try to define a style for your own language and try to keep this style when creating the vocabulary.

 

Then you can even begin to create different dialects or related languages. Compare related languages that exist, like English and German. You will notice certain patterns in sound shift. Try to create dialects and related languages through sound-shifting-patterns. Or create a mixed language (English, for example, is a mixed language of French and Anglosaxon).

[Maquissar]

My native language is Italian, but I also speak English, French and Spanish rather fluently. I am currently trying to learn Japanese, Romanian and Polish. Learning German and Russian would be great too, but I am not even a beginner in those languages.

[Argoren]

Tolkien, for example, was professor for Anglistics and he had knowlegde of nordic languages, altough I am not sure which ones exactly. Certainly Anglosaxon.

 

It was said that Tolkien was quite impressed by Finnish and used a lot of it, mainly for Quenya I think.

[Mojlnir]

English is my mother tongue. I am fluent in German and I have a smattering of Russian and Arabic.

[wraithguard01]

I speak English, French, and a language I made up for a game I made up... We did have a site, but it went away :cry2:

[CLB1110]

Sadly I only speak English :cry2:. I took a Spanish class for 4 years and I still cant speak it. I would really like to learn Japanese though....

[CrazyGilbert]

English,german and some french

 

I am 6.70611 geek....whew that took long

[draighox]

I speak Lithuanian best, then English, a bit German and I could make a sentence or two in Quenya.

Oh, and a few sentences in Russian.

[CrazyGilbert]

Have you checked out the geek test yet,draighox?

[draighox]

Can you enlighten me how I can test myself?