One conlang or multiple conlangs?

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KaiTheHomoSapien
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One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

Some users here seem to churn out new conlangs on the daily--what do you personally prefer (for yourself)? Do you put "all your eggs in one basket" and focus primarily on one or two conlangs?

Or do you find yourself creating new ones more often? If you create multiple ones often, how often do you abandon them?

(I've really only put work into one and have hardly considered creating another one--not saying that's the best method, but it's the only one for me at the moment).
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Ahzoh
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by Ahzoh »

All of them.

Seriously, however, I prefer putting my eggs in one basket with regards to conlanging.
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by sangi39 »

I've got a handful of conlangs within one conworld that I'm working on (or rather should be working on).

The main idea is that there are three or four main conlangs I can work on, moving from one to the other, so that I get a break, but still end up working on a single project. I've not touched it at all, though, properly, in a few months, so it's clearly a good idea [:P]
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by masako »

I have one main project that I try to work on daily and a few side projects that I neglect daily.
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by Egerius »

I have two conlangs I work on fairly regularly, which belong to the same (con-)world, and one that didn't move for quite a while now.

The thing is: The conlangs I make are, almost always, supposed to be spoken in a world among many other languages, which influence each other.
So I move on from one (Roedentèrran) conlang to another when it's time to influence an existing one (for the needed phonology and a few sample words) and cycling my way through the languages to make them more and more usable.
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

Thanks for the answers. I have a conworld too, but so far I've only made place names and talked about the other conlangs in it, rather than actually tried to create them. I think if I do create another one, I'll want it to have a lot of features that my main conlang doesn't have, that way I can have some variety.
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by Ælfwine »

One at a time, lest I never get anything done.
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

I'm currently "working" on all the languages in my sig... with energy directed to them in the order they are listed. But, those last ones I have't really thought about in a while. I will hold myself to those languages for a good while, because I am dedicated to not giving up on them and scrapping like I usually do. (Though the last one is starting to fall out of favor with me, so that may be a problem. However, I am thinking about relegating it to "naming language" status which takes off some of the pressure to dump it since I won't have to work on it really.)
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by DesEsseintes »

I can only really concentrate on one conlang at a time, but like others have noted, it's nice to have side projects to work on from time to time.

That's what I'm doing now with my Híí language family; I focus mainly on Híí proper, and then I've got a closely related dialect and some sister languages that serve as dumpsters for ideas I reject in Híí along with helping me flesh out the protolanguage.
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by Curlyjimsam »

I have lots and lots of conlangs. This is partly because I want my languages to have history, and there's lots of languages in my main setting, and they borrow from each other and everything, and partly because it lets me try out different things. Also, I write science fiction and fantasy not set in my main conworld, and I like to have some idea of the basics of the languages in those settings, so whenever I start a new story there's a good chance I'll start a new language (or several!) to go with it.

That said, I work on different languages to vastly differing degrees. There's one I've done lots on and continue to work on in spite of it already being my oldest and most detailed language (Viksen), and others I've done quite a bit on, and others that are little more than a phoneme inventory and a few words.
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by WeepingElf »

I have one main project, but it is in a family of side projects, and then I have a few ideas for yet other conlangs. I just can't put all my ideas in one single conlang as i) it would result in an ugly kitchen-sink conlang and ii) some of these ideas are incompatible with some others.
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by Lambuzhao »

IMHO many conlangers miss an opportunity, or mistake it as a big roadblock, the ability for a conlang to bud and make sister/daughterlangs.

A conlanger will invest a lot of time and effort into a conlang, and then want to add a whole lot of changes that maybe don't fit. Then they get frustrated and either their conlang or they themselves implode.

This is a great opportunity for a sisterlang to share that mountain of changes one would want to heap into the conlang they're currently working on.

Early on (1980s) , I was fascinated with linguistic family trees. even though I made two or three conlangs to start, very very soon afterward in my journals and conworld-specific dalliances, I began to refer to related tribes, and languages related to the conlangs I had made.
Soon it hit me: Well, what the heck do those conlangs sound like? And thus, even more work began. But it was good, because now I had other outlets to diffuse all these interesting language traits I was learning about as I read about more and more different natlangs.

I cannot tell you the last time I made an actual ground--up conlang (mebbe 1990s??). More often than not, I have been tweaking and adding to the conlangs I have already begun.

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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by Khemehekis »

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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by shimobaatar »

I have tons of ideas, but 99% of them are for my conworld. I also have some a posteriori ideas that I'm mostly not working on, except one that I'm currently calling Visigothic.

I have one conworld, which I call Bwana. I want to eventually flesh it out with dozens of languages, which will then be developed into dozens of language families. I'm currently working on Project Jade, Project Steppe, Project Silk, and Project Orchid. I'm also trying to work on Project Ypsilon, but since it's my main project, I often go long periods of time without touching it because I worry too much about how it's going to turn out. That's something I'm going to have to get over, and hopefully I'll get over it soon. Anyway, I don't want to work on more than 5 or so languages at a time, because then I fear they'll all start looking the same and I won't be able to keep my ideas for them straight. At the moment, Project Steppe is getting the majority of my attention, but that could change within as little as an hour, honestly.

Sometimes I wish I could focus on just one conlang and have that be it, but I like having multiple languages and an entire world to work with. Making language families and having groups of speakers interact is really fun for me.
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by qwed117 »

I'm (or rather was) juggling three conceptlangs that were supposed to be short sketches, and two language (families) that I wanted to complete. Unfortunately the conceptlangs took over my life. [:(]
Spoiler:
My minicity is [http://zyphrazia.myminicity.com/xml]Zyphrazia and [http://novland.myminicity.com/xml]Novland.

Minicity has fallen :(
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by shimobaatar »

How would you define a "conceptlang"?
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by qwed117 »

shimobaatar wrote:How would you define a "conceptlang"?
A sketchlang, just less developed, and seeking to emphasize a certain trait.
Last edited by qwed117 on 13 Jul 2016 20:23, edited 1 time in total.
Spoiler:
My minicity is [http://zyphrazia.myminicity.com/xml]Zyphrazia and [http://novland.myminicity.com/xml]Novland.

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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by shimobaatar »

qwed117 wrote:
shimobaatar wrote:How would you define a "conceptlang"?
A sketchlang, just leased developed, and seeking to emphasize a certain trait.
Ahh, got it. Thank you!
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

qwed117 wrote:
shimobaatar wrote:How would you define a "conceptlang"?
A sketchlang, just less developed, and seeking to emphasize a certain trait.
I designed a language just to emphasize the use of the Linear B alphabet (basically my imagination of what language Linear B was originally created for, because it wasn't Greek). I guess maybe that would count?
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Re: One conlang or multiple conlangs?

Post by k1234567890y »

I tend to have multiple conlangs...I am more a person who works on the quantity than the quality, I think.
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