Conlang: How to Make Good Words

Some thoughts about how to make words in conlangs.
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Reddit: Lichen000
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Here are some further resources:

[XxCastlegirl_xX]

As a kid I made “imaginary languages” and “secret language” now I do the same thing, just a fancier word. I love conlangs.

[lowencraft]

In my opinion, my favourite easter egg in any conlang, is that the Klingon word for "fish" is "Ghoti" (you know where that came from)

[Double-Negative]

Another interesting way to generate words: try acting as if other languages borrowed your words, then reanalyze the results
This is how "anime" came to be. Japanese took "animation" shortened it to "anime" and that word was reincorporated into english.
Another example: karaoke. Japanese took "orchestra" turned it onto "oke" and put "empty" (kara) in front. Then the word was taken back into english with the pronunciation changed drastically once more

[ichbinben.]

What I like to do is write down a normal, everyday conversation between people who speak my conlang, and then translate it into said conlang. Maybe two neigbours talking about current events, or someone buying food from a market and having a little convo with a vendor, or maybe a family having a discussion at the dinner table. It helps flesh out both the world and the language at the same time. I once wrote a series of very horny love letters between a noblewoman and her secret lover, which was fun, because I got very creative with euphemisms for genitals XD

[eduardoo]

An interesting cross language reanalysis example: in portuguese it's common to call a burger a "xis" (aka the name of letter x), and then attach a word representing the type of burger to the ending, like x-ovo (burger with an egg) or x-frango (chicken burger). The funny thing is that xis comes from the english cheese, as in cheeseburger.

[seattlesalt]

I know that fire sound effect is meant to be like sitting by a fire while you tell us about conlangs, but I interpreted it as more like you're recording in a house that's burning down...
Great video by the way! I'm currently making my first conlang and these tips definitely helped me to have a clear way to create it.

[notoriouswhitemoth]

@16:00 'you're the burglar, go burgle something' - Tolkien was first and foremost a linguist. I'm sure he was well aware of what he was doing there

[davigurgel]

16:24 I love the hamburguer example because we reanalized again in portuguese. The word "cheese" sound a lot like the name we give the letter X, /ʃis/ so in brazil, we turned cheeseburger into X-burguer. And then we replaced "burguer" with the flavor. X-bacon, x-salada, or my favorite X-tudo (everything burguer)

[lostinnowhere]

7:19 a good example of exactly this is Korean; "to die" is 죽다, "to kill" is 죽이다

[jimeatscorn]

The word for "cat" in my language is modeled after gibberish I would say to my cat.

[flirora]

Some more tips I have are:

* avoid single-word definitions; in fact, have both a field for a more detailed definition as well as one for how that word might be translated into the metalanguage
* more controversially, always role-mark arguments of a verb; for instance, the definition for *triłit* in Ŋarâþ Crîþ v9 is ‘(S) recommends (I) to do (O)’. In fact, I even do this for some nouns, such as *nalda*, which has the definitions ‘the boundary between the interior and exterior of (GEN)’ and ‘a bound on the quantity of (GEN)’.
* whenever you coin a word, look up the definition of the metalanguage equivalent in the dictionary to get a feel for the senses in which it can be used

[thibistharkuk]

Ah yes, my personal nemesis : creating a lexicon which goes further than allowing me to say "I see a man"

Edit : love how every once and there I have a random translation into a conlang sent to me here

[miwiarts]

And when we needed him the most, he comes back in splendiferous glory! :D

[johnterpack]

Another thing to think about if you really want to complicate matters... synonyms aren't always synonymous. I've had this argument several times. My favorite example is "damp" and "moist". Ostensibly, they both mean "slightly wet". And they do have overlapping usage. But there is a difference in connotation. You will NEVER hear a chef brag about how "damp" his cake is.

[adjermany]

I like to use onomatopoeia for inspiration. In iallasaani a lot of nouns also double as sound words:

'Bappo' both means apple, and the sound of something small and round hitting something

'Pillip' means fish and the sound of something wet flailing around

'Gashguchi' means eel, and a general slimy sound

[sully]

16:10 Banana > Banan-er > to banan

[reglissh]

fun fact about french:

"connaître" is built from "co" and "naître", first being a prefix for stuff done together, and "naître" meaning "being born". "connaître", in the beginning, therefore meant "copulate". When you know that fact it's very fun to say you know a bunch of people, because then you have that fact in the back of your brain all the time

[AgmaSchwa]

As we saw from our Conlang Census, people think Lexicon and Evolution are the hardest parts of conlanging... Awesome video!

[sully]

8:20 I always use The Hobbit as a translation-task (or the UN Charter Of Human Rights for certain conlangs)

[lipamanka]

for wordlists: you can use toki pona's content words as a base for words you need, it's a great set of basic words. toki pona was designed to have the most simple and elementary words.