Hi I’m LOVIS.
Five years ago when I worked on my own serial novels (High fantasy, unfinished), I was inspired by J. R.R. Tolkien and it occurred to me the idea of inventing a language for my own novel. From then on I kept on this research until now and today I have created several languages and their respective writing system on my own.
To achieve this goal I have learned French independently and tried to understand about ten languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Germany, Greek, Irish, Czech, Hungarian, Finnish, Russian, etc. Plus my mother tongue Chinese and the required one, English. Besides, in some specific courses, I also learned one of language of Berber people and the language of Aztec. All this includes all kinds of linguistic forms including inflecting, agglutinating and isolating, almost includes all kinds of International Phonetic Alphabet and the forms of the chain of pronunciation.
My perspective on language creation:
To me, it’s not just creating a language, but,
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Creating a natural language, which means there is nothing artificially arbitrary. It has its own history of transformation and tendency, its own spoken form and literary form, its informal expression and formal style and its own dialect continuum.
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It should be closely related to the target race’s culture. In terms of the audio sensitivity, this new language should embody the characteristics of the cultural life and the pronouncing organs. In terms of the expressional forms, it should embrace the cultural and historical memories of the race.
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The writing system. If this race has nothing to do with terrestrial races, any kind of influence or transformation of Latin or other writing systems should be forbidden. The writing system should be closely related to its cultural background.
Description of my theory of language creation
During the creation of the language for my novel, I began to write Notion de Création des Langues Imaginaires (Concept of Creating Imaginary Languages) based on my own experience.
It includes:
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Phonetic aesthetics: A research on the phone and the phone in the chain of pronunciation. According to this theory we can create different languages of different audio sensitivity. For example, the relativity between the beautiful and the ugly, the ancient and the modern, the savage and the elegant.
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Natural phonetics: based on Pysiological Phonetics, Social Linguistics and Historical Linguistics, how to make the constructed languages more natural without any artificial traits.
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The collection of phonetic shift: the phonetic migration in the human history.
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Theory of creating the grammar and word: based on the universal grammar, syntax, and cognitive linguistics, how to construct words, etymons, syntax, how to imitate the natural language perfectly.
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Theory of creating the writing system: Basic principle of aesthetics of characters and some approaches towards creating characters.
Due to the experience of having created four languages and their word systems, I believe that I can create a language independently. Besides, thanks to my mother tongue, I believe that I can invent Tone language and Ideogram, which is the most difficult task.
In the following parts I will explain how to create a language for you.
- I will begin from the phonology system since every language has its own phonology system. Based on the phonetic aesthetics and the theory of natural phonetics mentioned above, I will choose the phone and their relationships in the chain of pronunciation according to the racial background to reach a particular effect of audio sensitivity.
I will provide several recordings of different audio modes as soon as possible for you to choose according to your personal interests.
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Then, through the background knowledge of the target race’s culture, the words and syntax will be formed in terms of the cognitive linguistics.
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Through the recognition of the cultural background, formal and informal languages will be formed.
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If necessary, creating the writing system through the background knowledge of the target race’s culture. Or transcription by Latin system.
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If necessary, according to the virtual geography, migration history and political environment, some dialects, dialect continuum or idiolect will be formed.
To achieve the best effect when creating a language, you had better provide the following materials.
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Your idea about this language. For example, how should it sound like? Elegant or savage? Loud or soft? In the language of the fantasy, the target race, is it the Elf or Orc? Or merciless Dark Elf?
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A language is the manifestation of a culture. Therefore, do inform me as best as you can about the cultural background, the customs, the technological level of the race who use the language. The language of an underdeveloped people is quite different from that of a developed people, from pronunciation, word usage and syntax. And their customs will strongly influence the formation of all these elements.
Thank you
LOVIS
12 Jan. 2012 in Paris
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