New CBB

So I've been aware of conlangs for a very long time and have wanted to make my own for almost as long, but I keep getting stuck at what most conlang resources suggest ought to be the first step, which is phonology and particularly phonotactics. I have all these great ideas for syntax and morphology and all that stuff, but then I realize that I ought to have some sort of idea of how my words have to sound, and then I end up falling down a very deep rabbit hole and getting frustrated and not implementing any of my brilliant ideas.

I feel like I might be able to enjoy creating a phonology for my language, but only after I've gotten some of the other stuff figured out. I kind of just want to skip this first step, and I suppose I could manage it in a couple of different ways:
1. Just forget about creating any kind of structure or rules and just use the sounds I want, and then figure out the rules I've intuitively created
2. Just forget about creating any kind of structure or rules and just use the sounds I want, then create a set of rules that somewhat fits those that I've intuitively created, then go back and revise everything to follow those rules
3. Steal the phonology of a natural language, maybe modifying it slightly
4. Suck it up and create my own phonology, but a really easy, boring one, and if I want to do something interesting with it I can do it later

The first two options are probably likely to give me a headache in the long run, and may result in a phonology that's embarrassingly noobish or Englishy. The second two options feel like cheating, and are more likely to give me a language that doesn't sound the way I wanted it to. Any suggestions, encouragements, or admonitions? Thanks.

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death to vowels
/ / / /

I like making phonologies, and have a few extra rolling around if you want them.

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

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I would go with option 4.
A "simple" phonology is perfectly acceptable, especially if it's syntax you're interested in.

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grammaire du jrawélien - textes - lexique - miscellanées

I tried skipping the "first step" with Hra'anh, but it wound up being a horrible-sounding English relex. It wasn't until I started listening to Conlangery (and this week's episode has Hra'anh at the top of the show) that I started fixing things, and I pretty much rebuilt it from the ground up. My wordlist is currently just over 200 items, but I know a lot about how the structure works, so all I really have to do is plug things in at this point.

I suppose it's possible to take a phrase list or translation and derive structure from it (doesn't Txtana do something like this?), but that's not as easy. Creating a translation and vocaublary before your structure could result in inconsistencies, lest it relex English. Sure, you could get some irregularity going that way, but you don't want every structure to be irregular. If you want to go for not defining the structure, then I suggest writing down, "This is how you do this. This is how you do that. This is how you do the other." I know from experience that without this, you could easily wind up relexing something you already know, and even then, it could get ugly.

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Hra'anh, Ponese

A simple phonology isn't necisserily (wow that looks so spelled wrong) but it doesn't have to be "boring" for that. Dothraki only have 4 vowels and 20 consonants and it still sounds totally awesome to me. And the more you work with your language the more you can get a feel om what you like and don't like, those things you can normally change as you feel them. Maybe you first thought that you wanted a W-glide but halfway said "screw it!" and tooke it away, that is okey. it may take a little time to replace all W's with someting else but as long as you feel it's better in the long run then it is worth it

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Sadanjatås = I wished we had survived, too bad we didn't


Talar svenska flytande (eller ja, typ skånska)
Speaking english, but dammit it's hard to spell!
Mi komencas paroli esperanton
Wo bu xihuan shou hanyu
Deutsche? Danke, aber nein

Maybe let someone else make the phono for you?

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(native)
(learning)

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Języki sztuczne i lingwistyka, po polsku.

For Hra'anh, I discovered ejectives and added them spontaneously for the demonstrative "zek" (this). Now they are fairly prevalent throughout the language. And my other languages. *must...not...use ejectives for Kuti *

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Hra'anh, Ponese

Option 4 is something I used to use all the time when I wanted to mess with a quick experiment that I didn't plan to develop into a larger lang.

Here's the phonology I used:

/p t k b d g f s v z m n r l w j/
/a e i o u/

No consonant clusters, no vowel-initial words, no syllable codas, no vowel hiatus. (CV structure).


However, there's a 5th option that works way better: Just design in terms of glosses and completely ignore the native form. Who says you can't just "translate" like this: dog-NOM man-ACC bite-PST? You'll have to build the translation this way at one point anyway until you reach fluency, so why not just skip the second step?

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♀♥Ø

I use a quite simple and uninspiring phonology for UEL. I have not much of allophony worked out, no weird phonemes and no real stress rules. My main goal with that language is to experiment with morphology and syntax.

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constructedlanguages.net

I'm a big user of option 2, mainly because I get carried away with phonologies.

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초보

This is my recommendation. Phonologies are not my favorite thing either; I tend to be much more interested in morphosyntax. So most of my projects start their lives purely in gloss form—that way I get to dive in and just work on the morphosyntax that interests me. Then, when I hit a lull on that front, I can tinker with phonology until my inspiration comes back.

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

I do not like phono', so I created language using logography and after all done adding sound (result is so exotic even for me...)

I try to think about it in terms of style/feeling and less in terms of rules and such. Basically I form an approximate idea of what the 'style' of the language is, and then make words and such based on that. As long as it seems right I'll keep going, eventually incorporate it in a steadily updated phonology, and this way it's always open enough to allow for later additions and adjustments.

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КЕРВЕНСКИЙ

I like to start with the most interesting parts first; so I like basically to go in the opposite order to that mentioned in Zompist's "Language Construction Kit".
Start with biclausal and multiclausal sentences; then syntax; then morphology; then phonology.

If you want your 'lang to look real, you need to have a "set of rules". But natlang's "sets of rules" were deduced after the fact, by linguists who studied them. So do the same thing; make up a corpus for yourself of several short conversations or short paragraphs, give each either a translation or a phrase-structure (an unlabeled phrase-tree-diagram), and then decide what the rules are by seeing what fits what you have. That's options 1 and/or 2.

OTOH you can get part of your language to be a realistic and naturalistic looking-and-sounding part, by "stealing" that part from an actual natlang; whether that's the phonology, or the morphology, or the syntax, or whatever. That's simple to do, and the results are naturalistic and realistic, though they may sound "newbishly English-like" (or newbishly whatever-language-like). So that's option 3.

And, if your purpose in designing the language is to investigate one particular feature, or to investigate how two (or even three) particular features interact with each other, it makes sense to keep all the other features of your 'lang as "average" and "plain vanilla" as possible. So that's option 4.

I'll bet there are other options too.

So, what's best for any particular conlang depends on your design goals for that particular 'lang.

Some goals, though, are incompatible with other goals. You seem to have three goals, each of which is attainable, but no two of which are attainable simultaneously:

• Look naturalistic and realistic
• Not look newbishly uncreative
• Not give a newbie a headache

I'd be glad to learn that anyone has proven any two of these can be attained simultaneously; but I'll bet not all three together can.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

Of course: Failing the third requirement is a prerequisite for fulfilling the first two.

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♀♥Ø

I'd say make a simple phonology and stick with it. If you pick, say, 20 sounds and go with an easy syllable structure like (C)V or (C)V(C), you can get your phonology done to levels which are quite adequate for your other purposes in under five minutes.

Don't worry too much about being "exotic" or "interesting" in your phonology, either. These things can be overrated.

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Twitter: @jsbaker750

In fact you may keep almost-the-same phonology for your first few or several conlangs; just say that they're all related, or that it's an areal phenomenon, or even skip the explanation.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.