uto aveyalaza
for my students
This is what can be read as one of the first things in Jessie Peterson’s (née Sams) book How to Create a Language: The Conlang Guide. You won’t be able to find the origin of the language in italics in any common resource. You can try putting it into Google Translate and have it detect a language for you, but the translation will most certainly not result in “for my students”. This is because the sentence is not written in any of the languages spoken in the world, but rather one of Peterson’s constructed languages (conlangs).
Conlangs are languages created by people for a variety of reasons, be they aesthetic, for a literary project, a game they like, or maybe like the commonly known Esperanto; a means to help people communicate internationally.
Peterson’s book functions as a meticulous guide to how the reader too may create their own conlang. Although the book is meant to be used in a class, a layperson will still be able to use the book as a reference for the steps needed to create a fully constructed language though they might need a few other resources to fully grasp some of the more intricate linguistic nuances described by Peterson to use in their conlang.
The book is structured in three parts, where each part adds further nuance and complexity to the reader’s conlang. The first part introduces the reader to both the very basics of natural languages and conlangs, making the reader consider what kind of conlang they might want to create. To further aid in this, each of the book’s seventeen chapters feature exercises that are meant to have the reader use what they have learnt in the chapter to further expand their conlang while also having a conlang made specifically for this book, (Squirellish, spoken by squirrels that have acquired a human-like mouth so they may speak like humans,) to be used as an example before applying the concept to the reader’s own conlang.
Plenty of examples for grammatical concepts are also provided, both in many different languages from the world and from conlangs created by other conlangers as well as Peterson showing that conlangs apply grammatical concepts just like natural languages and it makes the reader interested in the expansive world of conlanging.
Peterson also makes the reader aware that a conlang is not just something that exists in a vacuum. It has speakers who may or may not be human, so the reader has to consider the speakers, their word and their way of life when creating the language and how this might influence both how they may speak and what they may speak about. Space octopi will most likely not talk about the weather in Copenhagen, so what will be fitting for them to talk about has to be decided by the reader instead. Even if choosing human speakers they may still have a way of life that does not match the reader’s own and so how their life can also be an important factor in making the language come alive.
Should you, after having read this review, feel inclined to start creating your very own language, How to Create a Language: The Conlang Guide is a great starting point that structurally guides you step by step through the art of conlanging. From just a set of sounds at the very beginning to fully formed sentences and beyond by the time you’ve read the whole book.
niarsgusnobjunjóaijapholaiprleztétamat
niar-sgu-snob-junjó-aij-apho-l-aipr-le-ztéta-mat
give.thanks-1SG,FOR,NPST-1SG,FOR-2COLL,FOR-read.INF-look,SG-LK-leaf,SG-LK-thick.one.SG-DEM.SP
“I thank you all for reading this book review”
In Yabilante, conlang created by reviewer while reading the book
How to Create a Language: The Conlang Guide
Jessie Peterson
Cambridge University Press
M. M. is an active part of SOLIA (Student Organization of Language Invention Aarhus) and Yabilante is their fourth conlang.
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