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Edgar here and welcome to Artifexian
Here you will learn everything you ever wanted to know about worldbuilding
And then some
There are arguably 6 steps one must go through in order to create a constructed language
Or conlang for short
1) Select the sounds your language uses
2) Create a lexicon
3) Create grammar
4) Design an alphabet
5) Modify it for handwriting
And finally
6) Begin writing and translating text in your language
Notice step 1 does not state - chuck a whole load of letters on a page
Sprinkle in some apostrophes and diacritic marks
Set a pronunciation and boom
Language complete
Despite what you may have read in some fantasy novels and comic books this right here is
utter nonsense
Forget about letters and alphabets
In the beginning there are only sounds
Broadly speaking, sounds or phones exist in two forms
Consonants and vowels
The IPA or international phonetic alphabet is a collection of all the possible sounds
humans can produce
With each unique sound represent by a unique symbol
People in cliques tend to circlejerk.
The english letter [c] as in clique and [c] as in circlejerk representing two totally
different sounds
In IPA we have a separate symbol for each of these sounds
Throughout these videos I’ll put english words and the english representation of certain
sounds in quotes and the IPA symbols in square brackets
Anyways back to the IPA chart
Consonants are here, vowels are here
Diacritics or sound modifiers are here
Suprasegmentals like length, stress, intonation and rhythm indicators go here
Good con-langers will select a set of sounds from this chart to use in their language
A phonemic inventory if you will
Having a fixed phonemic inventory that can constantly be referred back to when creating
words will ensure that your language has an strong internal consistency
Now the selection process of what sounds go into your inventory should NOT be a random
If you are writing a novel and you want your readers to be actually able to speak your
language aim for familiarity
Choose sounds that a broad demographic of people will be able to a) recognise and b)
easily produce
So stay away from sounds like Xhosa or Qongqotwane
Same idea perhaps even more so applies when creating auxiliary languages like, esperanto
and Interlingua
Maximum familiarity is key here
For example I dont speak interlingua but I'm pretty sure this text reads
Esseva in le mundo scientific – specialmente le branca medical –
Que interlingua vermente se monstrava utile post su apparition in 1951
And even if I'm pronouncing it entirely incorrectly
I'm still getting a feel for what is being conveyed
Something about the use of interlingua after 1951 in the scientific world, especially in
medicine
Another way for making a conlang seem familiar yet sufficiently different is to modify existing
phonologies
Imagine english without a [b] or [l] sound
Or german with a [cya] and [gya] sound
I'm a staunch advocate of less is more when it comes to sounds so in terms of adding to
or subtracting from existing phonologies
The removal of features always trumps the addition of features
Why?
Well sound is very much like color
Using all possible colors in a single painting will lead to characterless sludgy mess
By limited his color palate a painter imposes upon himself creative restraints which can
lead to greater clarity and beauty
Language is no different
Less is more
That said !Xóõ spoken in parts of Botswana may depending on how you're counting
Feature up to 141 distinct phonemes
Whereas Central Rotokas and Piraha feature as few as wait for it 11 distinct phonemes
Granted this is an oversimplified statement but it does demonstrate the varying scope
of phonemic inventories
Another factor determining what sounds your phonemic inventory can contain is biology
If your speaker is human then this isn't a huge concern
Things change when it comes to aliens though
Perhaps your language will be spoken by an alien race that have no lips so can't produce
sounds like ba, wa or pa
Or no teeth so sounds like da and ta are out
Or maybe they can't produce nasal sounds because they lack a nose
On the other hand they may have two or more vocal tracts and can produce sounds unfathomable
to us earthlings
Perhaps their mouths are shaped in such a way as to allow for more places of articulation
Or maybe their airstream is different
High velocity airflow could produce high pitched sounds and emphatic consonants
Again I would advise less is more
Your earthling readers aren't going to dedicate time to evolving a second vocal tract just
to be able to speak your language
None the less this all needs to be considered
So regardless of why and for who
The creation of a internally consistent language starts with some solid sound selection
With that in mind the next few videos will take you through most if not all the sounds
a human can produce
So you can make an informed choice as to which sounds are in and which are out
Stay tuned!
Good morning interweb
I hope you enjoyed the first Artifexian video ever to deal with linguistics
This is some seriously uncharted territory for me so any would be much appreciated
Let me know what you think about all of this in the comments
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Thank you all so much for watching
Edgar out!