How to Create a Believable Language (Plus Language Generators)
When writing in your beautiful world that you thought up with your blood, sweat, and many tears, there comes to a point where you decide that you need to create a language for your characters. There isn't necessarily a wrong way to do it, but some readers turn away at the point where they realize the language you've created is plain gibberish (if you're fine with that then go for it). If you want to avoid that, follow along.
1. Figure Out the Region/Culture
What this means is if the characters live in the mountains, Look at countries whose peoples have been isolated in the mountains and try to adapt.
Does their food and clothing effect the way they talk? Maybe they are always in a hurry so their language is fast paced.
2. Adding Authenticity
Have unique words specific to the language. Every dialect has some form of slang or untranslatable word.
Here's a link to some exa
mples
.
Add an annoying grammar rule that the 2nd graders of your world will moan over. Learning a foreign language shouldn't be easy, and neither should yours (but don't make it 100% random).
Mess around with Google Translate, and pick a base language. For my fictional language, Vhitzvan, I used the Basque language as a guide. That way, it's sort of familiar but not completely the same.
3. Have Fun With It
If this is a stressful situation, forget tip #1 & #2. The whole point of your writing career is because you enjoy it. Your language doesn't have to be perfect because no language is. That's why languages shift and change constantly. Some words even change their meaning over time!
Again, if you’d prefer your language to be at complete random, go for it! That makes it unique to your book.
Here are the links I promised:
http://www.scriboly.com/Generators/Language
Let me know in the comments if you have any other favorites!
"Signing off,"
R. A. Oke
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