How I Created a Language From Scratch and What I Learned in the Process
Includes an immersive voice over version
Latest update on Spirit-Girl #1: We are in the same holding pattern regarding the production of the comic. We have received shipment of some of the inks but several others are still pending arrival. In the meantime I’m working on the Spirit-Girl #2 script and layouts. I’m also doing some world building that will affect Spirit-Girl #3 and beyond. This article is about that world building project. It is for paid subscribers only but free subscribers will have access to it in 3 months.
If you do not already have a free subscription to this newsletter, please consider subscribing now. You can also take out a paid subscription to support me. You will get early access to some content and special perks to be announced in the future.
Oh-heuk’alba!
This is how you greet a friend in the language of the K’al people. It means: It is good for us to be together and of common ancestry. More on this at the end of the article.
First Steps
When I was a little boy I would sometimes zone out and pretend I was speaking another language. My Dad once overheard me doing this and, impressed, he remarked that he could even make out the different characters in the gibberish. A bit embarrassed, I stopped doing this sort of play.
I was often drawn into the zone like this as a child. Now I know this is a phenomenon called “immersion”. It’s one of my favourite things about comics; the high potential for immersion. Think about how few obstacles there are between the imagination of a person and a comic book page. Unlike movies or video games comics have no budget limitations. There is also no committee to appease (hopefully). Whatever you imagine can flow through the pencil and pour onto the page.
I remember reading Tintin. I would spend hours looking over each page, hearing the scrnch scrnch of footsteps in snow under the whistling wind, feeling the cold biting my cheeks.
Though I prefer comics to movies, video games or Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs) whenever I do engage with those media, it is the immersion which interests me the most.
For video games it’s Skyrim I like. The expansive open experience, deeply fleshed out world, hidden locations and stories, a soulful and haunting soundtrack (which I’m listening to while writing this article) all make for an immersive experience. In Skyrim, you can talk to people and they will tell you a little story. You can read books about cosmology, history, politics or more low brow subject matter. When playing video games I quickly get bored of fight mechanics and I end up just grinding through quests so I can get to the next bits of story and lore.
When I played TTRPGs what was of interest to me was the promise of inhabiting a story. To the patient frustration of others at the table, I tended to be more interested in the lore books than the rule books. I also liked make puns with friends. I have good memories of that. But it turns out my calling was not to play stories but instead to create them.
Worldbuilding
The detail work that goes into making a world feel real and alive is called Worldbuilding. One of the masters of this art is J. R. R. Tolkien. As an example: In The Lord of the Rings the elves aren’t just humans with long ears. They have an entire culture that is revealed in pieces as the reader explores the narrative. The elves - and other races - even have a language all their own, with multiple dialects! Being a philologist, Tolkien made the languages up from scratch. Elvish has its own phonemes, vocabulary and grammar. Most readers will breeze by the elvish passages in the books or be thankful for subtitles in the movies. But the care and time put into making elvish sound distinct and believable is an important feature that enhances the immersion. When the inscription appears on the ring of power for the first time, it evokes the sense of a larger world. This opens up the imagination to possibility. I believe that putting in the work to try and achieve some of that in my comics is worth the effort. So I decided to try my hand at making a language.
About Conlangs
Made up languages are called conlangs (Con-structed Lang-uages). Conlangs are divided into three subtypes:
Artlangs: Artistic languages. Artlangs are conlangs that are designed for fictional purposes, for personal use or just for fun. The most popular artlang is Klingon, a language spoken by a warrior race in Star Trek. According to Mark Okrand, its creator, Klingon is spoken by up to 30 000 real world speakers earning it an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Auxlangs: These are made up languages that are used in non-fictional situations where two sets of people need a bridge language. Esperanto is the most famous of these.
Engelangs: These languages are not meant for general use. They are engineered to test linguistic theories. Lojban is one of these. It’s meant to be based exclusively in logic and reason and tests the theory that languages place strictures on the thinking of those who speak it. Another experimental language is Ithkuil, an engelang designed to be maximally precise. Lojban has a handful of fans who speak the language but no one speaks Ithkuil.
Our area of interest is Artlanging. Here is what I learned in making one from scratch.
How I Made A Language From Scratch
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Comic Book Odyssey to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.