Author: Tabby

Conlanging 101: How to Create a Language, Part 3

Published by Tabby on April 29, 2021

Hello folks! I’m back with the third installment of Conlanging 101: How to Create a Language. In Part 1, I described how to create the sounds of your language. In Part 2, I talked about creating word roots. Check them out if you have not read them yet, for they have some essential information!

Next, if you’d like to see my method applied in action, check out my series, The Warriors of Bhrea here! Not only will you get to see the fruits of my conlanging, but you’ll get an action-packed story out of the deal as well.

So what’s next when it comes to creating a language? When you have your sounds and have put together a few roots, the next step is to structure the roots to create words and meaning.

Morphology

The next step is morphology. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “morphology”, I think of this:

It seems a bit like a scary and jingoistic word meant for the likes of biologists with Ph.Ds, but all morphology really means is how to build a word. But Tabby, you say, I thought I already created words. I have a whole list right here!

Yes, you did create some words, root words. However, the next step is add some complexity to those words. How will you put together sounds and words to change their meaning based on how you need to use the root word?

Dissecting Morphology (See what I did there?)

So… How does a root transform into a word? This site has a great explanation for how it all works. Check it out to get a basic understanding of the concept, if you are interested.

Words are made of pieces–the root and whatever sounds are affixed to them to create meaning. For example, dogs is made up of dog and -s. Together they mean “more than one dog.”

In Korvet, that is achieved by adding -ei to the end of a root.

Yasjer (dog) + -ei (plural marker) = yasjerei (multiple dogs)

Both dogs and yasjerei are made up of two morphemes–the root for “dog” and the plural marker. In this case, dog and yasjer are free morphemes because they have meaning on their own. The plural markers -s and –ei require something attached in order to mean anything, making them bound morphemes.

For you more visual learners, another way to look at it is like this:

This is a morphology tree for the word “independently”. You can see different morphemes come together to build the entire word, such as the root “depend” and -ly to make it an adverb. “Depend” is a free morpheme because it has meaning on its own, whereas -ly is a bound morpheme, needing to be attached to a verb, adjective, or adverb in order to have meaning.

Inflections

The examples -ei, -s, and -ly above are inflections, or affixes attached to words to adjust their meaning. Some other examples are -ed to make a verb past tense, -est to make adjective a superlative, or un- to indicate the negation/reversal of a verb. Some more inflections in Korvet are adding -m to a noun to make it the object of sentence.

Se (I) + -m [object]= sem (me)

There are several types of languages when it comes to inflections:

Agglutinative – each affix has a fixed meaning (Tagalog, Turkish, Hungarian, Japanese).

Fusional – an affix may have more than one meaning (Spanish, Pashto, German, Irish)

Isolating – there are no affixes, and meanings are modified by using additional words (Mandarin, Yoruba).

Polysynthetic – nouns and other sentence parts are embedded in verbs and often come out as “sentence-words” (Nahuatl, Mohawk, Tiwi).

For most natural languages, they have elements of different types of inflection strategies.

Korvet is overall an agglutinative language–each affix has a fixed meaning. It’s pretty straight forward in that regard for simplicity’s sake–each part of speech has its own affix.

Inflections can come in the form of suffixes: -ed, -ing, and -s to indicate verb tense in English. There are also prefixes: pre-, un-, or dis-. There are even infixes, which are inserted into a root. English doesn’t have any true infixes that I know of, but something that comes close is when someone says, “Abso-fricking-lutely!”

Korvet has all three. To create an adjective, add an a- to the beginning:

a- + sjeret (beauty) = asjeret (beautiful)

To indicate being behind or after something, add -toa:

bret (tree) + –toa (behind) = brettoa (behind the tree)

To indicate being in a multiple of something, add -ei, then -ti:

jen (house) + –ei (plural) + –ti (in) = jeneiti (in the houses)

Putting It All Together

Again, now it is your turn. How do you organize all these morphemes?

Once you decide what kind of morphological structure (i.e. agglutinative, isolating, etc.) your language will follow, write down some affixes and their meaning. You could organize it by parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.), or you could separate by prefix, suffix, and infix.

If you’ve been brave enough to try out Polyglot, that probably has some good ways to organize all the morphemes you’ve created.

This will tie into the next step, which is figuring out the syntax of your language, so keep that in mind! For now, it might be best to just keep notes. Next time, I will lay out the basics of creating a syntax, or grammar structure, for your conlang.

Happy conlanging!

Conlanging 101: How to Create a Language, Part 2

Published by Tabby on February 15, 2021

I’m back, baby!

Now, onto my second installment of How to Create a Language. In Part 1, I went over getting started with the process of creating a language and how to select some foundational sounds that will make up your language.

Creating Words and Roots

Once you have your sounds, you need to start making roots. Roots could be words, but really they are building blocks of language that have meaning. This step is quite simple, but time consuming. I won’t need to regale you with detailed steps of how to create words–it’s really easy once you have your sounds! You just…put sounds together. However, depending on how fleshed out you want your language to be, there are a lot of words. Who would have thought?

Image result for word wall — Even in Kindergarten, it can get overwhelming sometimes.

Back in the day, I used Ogden’s Basic English to create a list of words and make up a corresponding word in Korvet. It took FOREVER, but I managed to create a word for each entry into the lexicon. I kept in mind the setting and took out words that were relevant (such as “train”, since trains do not exist in Bhrea).

I came up with roots like these:

air – juwe

baby – titel

drink – sjal

I – -se

in – -ti

smile – tlamil

to/toward – -jat

watch – sant

You’ll notice how I used sounds from my sounds chart in Part 1, such as tl, sj, etc.

The internet has a wealth of resources for generating words/roots, which you’ll see listed below. As you’re creating your list, it’s handy to have a place to store the roots/words. It could be as simple as creating a list in a Word or Google Doc, or perhaps a csv or Excel/Sheets file. Heck, if you really want to, you could keep a notebook that contains all the words and roots for your language.

Okay! Now for your turn. How can you create some roots for your language? You could use my method and slave away for hours on end, or you could use some of these tools below. Explore and click around to find one (or more) you like.

Vulgar

This one is my favorite. It’s easy to use and goes way beyond just giving you some words. It will even give you the bare bones of a phonology and grammar structure, in addition to 200 words. This is a GREAT tool to get started and play around with some ideas and not have to do the legwork for each idea. I recommend Vulgar the most, especially for people who are just starting out.

GenWord

This one is straightforward and fairly simple. This one might be good for generating lots of possibilities that you pick a few you like from. All you need to do is give the consonants, vowels, and glides in your language, then tell it the patterns your language allows. For instance, whether it allows CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) patterns, CCV, VVC, etc.

Awkwords

This one is a little more complex, but you can do more with it. I recommend looking at the Help section so you understand fully how to achieve your desired effects. What’s rather cool about this program is your ability to emphasize different sounds you want using an *.

Conlang Word Generator

This one is great if you are looking for a just a few words and you need help getting inspiration. By typing how many words you are looking for and clicking “randomize”, you will get a list of words from conlangs that already exist. They might help you generate some words when you are stuck, or you could even borrow them for your own conlang.

Polyglot

This is for those who want to get serious. This program contains so many features, many of which I haven’t even started exploring, but it sounds cool. It has everything, from a place to store your lexicon to a way to keep track of your grammar rules. If you want to *really* be into conlanging, this could be a great tool for you.

There you have it, folks, the next step of creating a language. Next, we will look at structuring the words and creating a morphology.

Until then, check out my books, with their very own conlang!

The Master of Night Has Arrived!

Published by Tabby on December 26, 2020

I feel honored, excited, ecstatic, spiffed, chuffed, and many other words to announce that The Warriors of Bhrea: The Master of Night is finally out!

Do you like ebooks? Great! Just click here. Prefer print books? No problemo! I’ve got your back here.

If you haven’t read the first book, do not fear! The Lost King ebook is FREE today and tomorrow, so check it out. It’s basically two books for the price of one—what better way to spend the Amazon gift card you got yesterday for Christmas?

Now it feels a little strange that there are two of my books out there in the world.

I can’t wait for you to read it and tell me what you think! When you finish, please leave a review, as reviews are what make or break an indie author!

Thank you all for your incredible amount of support… I can’t do any of this without you!

Enjoy the new book, and send me your thoughts on my social media or via my contact page. My beta team has told me it’s a real page-turner. 😏

Cheers,

Tabby

Conlanging 101: How to Create a Language, Part 1

Published by Tabby on December 4, 2020

To view the full list of my Conlanging 101 series, click here.

To view my Culture Building series, click here.

Over the months I’ve had my first book out, The Warriors of Bhrea: The Lost King, I’ve gotten many questions as to just how I created a language as well those expressing they wish they could do the same. Conlangs, or constructed languages, seem like they take an immense amount of work–but the truth is, they only really take as much work as you want to put into them. You could go full J. R. R. Tolkien, or you could just lay a simple ground work with a few words to get you through a scene or give a character a little extra pizzazz.

This is the first part of a series detailing the step-by-step process I used to build the language I use in my books, Korvet. I created a full set of phonemes, morphemes, lexicon, syntax, and more. Don’t let those words intimidate you–I will explain everything as we go! These are steps you can follow to whatever degree is best for you. I’ll also provide some GREAT conlang resources and tools along the way.

Strap in, and welcome to part 1 of Tabby’s conlang tutorial, guide, blog, or whatever you want to call it. 😎 We’re gonna do some Tolkienin’.

First things first. Why do you want to create a conlang?

It’s important to consider this before getting started, that way you only do as much as you need to and don’t overwhelm yourself with complex details if you don’t need to. Some potentials reasons would be:

for a book–likely a fantasy book–and characters will speak this language
for an original character creation–and you will need some interesting words and phrases to flesh out this character
for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign–characters will speak words from it, locations and items will be named according the language’s conventions
for fun–you just want to create a fleshed out world complete with how its denizens speak (for the record, this one is not lame…this is how J. R. R. Tolkien started out!)

Find your reason and use it to determine just how in-depth you need to go. Do you just need some words and phrases, or do you need to plan the whole shebang? Using your why as your guide, you can go through my step by step process and decide how far you need to go with each step to achieve your goal.

Next up: researching and looking at examples!

This step might seem insignificant, but it is worth it. Trust me, you will WANT to look at other languages (real and constructed) to get inspiration and ideas for your conlang! Let’s take a look at a range of language types, both natural and constructed. Don’t feel the need to look through all of these, but hopefully a few them will give you some ideas of different sounds, tones, and feels you could explore with your language. Make sure to check out some of the audio and video to hear some samples as well!

Natural

Constructed

The pinnacle of haute couture language creation. 🧐

While you’re exploring languages, pay attention to their sounds and tone, then think of your language. Do you want your language to sound fluid and soft, or how about harsh and blocky? Do you want it to have tones and sound sing-songy, or will speakers use other kinds of inflection? This segues perfectly into the first real step of constructing a language…

Step 1: Creating the sounds of your language

Every language is made up of a set of basic sounds. Those sounds can generally be divided into consonants and vowels. Linguists organize those sounds into fancy charts. For example, the consonant chart for North American English is below:

			Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	bilabial	labio-dental	dental	alveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
stop	p b			t d		k g
fricative		f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ		h
affricate					t̠ʃ d̠ʒ
nasal	m			n		η
liquid				l	r
glide	w				y

North American English Phonology

If that looks like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, and you’re pretty much right! However, it’s really quite simple once you know what columns and rows mean.

Place of articulation indicates where in your mouth you make the sound. Sounds with your lips are bilabial, such as the /m/ sound, because you are pressing your lips together and push air through your vocal cords to make a sound.

Manner of articulation is how the airstream is affected as it flows from the lungs and out the nose and mouth. To revisit the /m/ sound again, it is nasal because the air goes through your vocal cords and out your nose. In each column, consonants can be voice or voiceless. Voiceless does not use the vocal cords, like p, t, and s. Voiced use the vocal cords, like b, d, and z. In the tables, I have the voiceless consonants on the left side of each column and the voiced on the right.

Where in the mouth different types of consonants are produced.

I don’t want to bore you with long lists describing the difference between bilabial and palatal, so check out this video on the subject! It breaks it down very well.

There is also a chart for vowels, but to be honest, that adds another layer of complexity may be unnecessary if you don’t want to get into all the subtle differences between each vowel sound. To keep it simple, I’ve stuck with your good ol’ a, e, i, o, and u, with a couple minor variations for e and i and the dipthongs au, ei, and ai. If you’re interested in learning more, you can hear all the different vowels sounds here.

These are the Korvet consonants:

			Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	bilabial	labio-dental	alveolar	postaveolar	palatal	velar
stop	p b		t d			k g
fricative		v	s	ʒ ɹ̠˔		x
affricate			d̠ʒ
flap			ɾ
nasal	m		n			η
liquid			l
lateral fricative			ɬ
glide	w				y

Korvet Phonology

You may notice that there are several differences between Korvet and English. For instance, Korvet doesn’t have an /f/ or /h/, but it has a /ɹ̠˔/, which is a sound that doesn’t appear in that many languages. According to Wikipedia, it only appears in some dialects of Dutch, Thai, and Mandarin. The closest way I can describe it is that it is a mix between an r and a j. You can listen to what it sounds like here! This sound is found at the end of Korvet words that end in r, like agesjinar. Another is ɬ, which is most famously known as the Welsh ll, like in Llywelyn. In Korvet, that sound is made when l is combined with an aleovlar consonant, like t or j. The name Tlense has this sound.

So all that was a roundabout way of thinking about what sounds you want to have in your language, because it all begins there. I think the sounds can say a lot about “the feel” of a language. I wanted Korvet to have a soft and flowy feel, so there aren’t that many fricatives or affricates, and there are a few glides and liquids.

Once you have your sounds, starting putting them together. Have some fun with it! Some examples of common sounds in English are mp, nt, fr…and adding vowels in the mix. Plass and dilk are words that could be in English because they use common sound combinations, but vlar and mtib could not be from English.

In Korvet, I allowed some unusual sounds to be put together, such as tl, jl, vl, dv, and sv. There are also some familiar combinations, like nt, gl, sk, and lt.

Romanization

As you pick and combine sounds for your language, you will need to consider how it will be represented in the Roman alphabet. In other words, how will the English-speaking normies read your word? If they saw a word like h₃rḗḱs, I wouldn’t blame them for running away. A more palatable way to put it would be hraex, or perhaps hraeks. While still foreign-looking, it is written only with Roman letters, thus being much less intimidating to read.

When creating Korvet, I kept in mind how the language would look in with Roman letters. Despite having several sounds that don’t correlate to any English letter, there were some approximations that would do the job. For example, there is no single letter that represents the /x/ sound, so kh would do (this is the common spelling for it anyway). English also doesn’t have a consistent way of spelling the /ʒ/ sound (like in measure or decision), so I decided sj would be the consistent spelling for that sound in Korvet.

Now I have a way to spell out my langauge:

Nasj’jos, Attriminda kamse. Bhreata yaserase. Korveta etsjwoten? Sem ettongle’anen?

[Hello, I’m Attriminda. I live in Bhrea. Do you speak Korvet? Can you understand me?]

While it doesn’t look like English, it also doesn’t look so foreign that it will be impossible to parse out how to pronounce it.

Wrapping up

I’ve given you a lot of information–now it’s time to go try some things on your own! Write down some sounds you want to use for your language–remember that there are many, many potential sounds to choose from. Some are very rare. Don’t be afraid to explore those as well.

You can write down your sounds in a list, or if you want a more organized visual representation, here is a blank consonant chart for you to play around with:

	bilabial	labio-dental	alveolar	postaveolar	palatal	velar
stop
fricative
affricate
flap
nasal
lateral liquid
lateral fricative
glide

And next time, we will go over how to create a lexicon, or list of words. You are going to love the resources I’ve found for you–it will make compiling lists of words easy and fun! Click here to go to Part 2!

How Do I Choose Book Titles?

Published by Tabby on November 30, 2020

If you’re like me, you might feel as though there are some titles that just “come” to you, and others you might painstakingly mull over for months before finally conceding to one that will just do. That is certainly how my brain has worked in this process!

“Wouldn’t a book title generator make this all easier?” you ask? NO. I mean, no. Perhaps book title generators could get you started with finding good keywords, but there is a lot more thought that should go into book titles. The book title, besides the cover, is going to be the first thing a reader sees. Readers do judge a book by its cover, and titles generated by an AI will likely not appeal as much as one carefully crafted by the author.

There are a few ways to at least get you started. These are important factors for helping you when looking for book title ideas:

1. Genre

What kind of genre does The Warriors of Bhrea make you think of? “Warrior” might invoke images of epic battles or swords or armor, and “Bhrea” is an entirely made up word that might ignite the imagination, making the reader wonder “What is that? I want to find out more!” All put together, it is meant to invoke an epic fantasy feel.

Your title should be in line with other books of the genre. Lair of Terror would not be a good title for a light-hearted romance novel. …On second thought, that actually sounds pretty awesome. 😎 I’d read it at least.

2. Length

There is a happy medium between one-worded, generic titles and what seems like an entire novel being on the title page.

Think of it like your desired reader. What will they remember? That is the most important factor. It may be longer or shorter, but as long as it is memorable, your reader will be able to find it or find themselves drawn to it.

Adding a subtitle creates a little lee-way as well—for instance, my overall series is named The Warriors of Bhrea, but each separate book has its own unique subtitle that sets the tone for that individual book.

3. Complexity

Keep it simple. You are drawing readers in—the more complex details can be in the description. You don’t need a thesaurus to come up with a good title.

When deciding my title, my goal was that the key words, “warriors” and “Bhrea” would make the potential reader wonder: “What is Bhrea? What does it mean to be a warrior of Bhrea?” While “Bhrea” is an unusual word, it is also not a complex word. It doesn’t overwhelm the reader with crazy symbols and accent marks to turn off their interest.

Now that we’ve got the basics, how do you actually choose a title?

My personal favorite way to go about deciding a title is to choose something from your book that is not necessarily in the forefront of the action, but is still central to the story. What is driving your story? What will introduce a little mystery as to what your book is about, and as readers go through it, they say “Aha! That’s what this is really about!”

If you’ve read The Lost King, you might have noticed that the titular character was not the main character and did not have a huge role, but he in a way drove the story. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, well you better get yourself over to Amazon and find out!

The same is the case for The Master of Night. This character is not the main role, but she drives the plot.

Now, you don’t have to do it this way. This is just my personal favorite. By all means, make your main character the titular character. The title could also refer to a place, an event, an object, anything that somehow drives the story! All in all, I say find something that drives the story but doesn’t spell out the plot for your reader.

I hope this helps you get started on deciding a title. The title is important—so give it some thought! But also, don’t fret about it too much. When it doubt, test some titles with your friends, colleagues, and other potential readers. Their input will give you a lot of good information on what could work and what wouldn’t.

Things That Make Me Go Hmmmm 🤔

Published by Tabby on September 11, 2020

I consider myself a pretty open person. I like to entertain interesting ideas for the sake of entertaining them, though I also consider myself a skeptic of anything truly crazy. If something can be explained by simple, likely mechanisms, then that is probably the explanation.

However, some things really just make me go “hmmm.”

Take for example the Baalbek Trilithon.

Baalbek Trilithon - A Wall With Two Pasts | Miesta, Prírodné

An ancient Roman site dating back over 2,000 years, the Temple of Jupiter Baal has quite an interesting feature. The stones that form the base are known as the “trilithon,” a set of three enormous blocks of hewn stone that each weigh over 750 tons. That’s 1,500,000 pounds (or 680,388.56 kg for you anti-Imperial bastards). Each!

A similarly sized stone was even stranded, called The Stone of the Pregnant woman. That one weighs about 1,200 tons.

Baalbek Trilithon | Ancient origins, Ancient ruins, Megalithic ...

Scholars endlessly debate how Roman architects could have moved such large stones. Some say the foundation stones predate the Romans, or even those before, such as Alexander the Great.

If it wasn’t the Romans or Greeks, then who?

Obviously, it was aliens.

Anyway, this made me hmmm quite a bit. These huge stones fascinate me, as do other monolithic structures dotted throughout the world. How did ancient cultures move such massive stones? This YouTube channel digs deep into many different ancient sites (heh, get it?) and strives to find the answer based on the most evidence. His video on Baalbek is quite informative and sound with its arguments. Check it out!

What else makes me go hmmm?

The Boötes Void.

It simultaneously makes me go hmmm and eeek. A great bubble of emptiness found in the constellation of Boötes, it looks like…

THIS

“Yawn,” you say. “A bunch of dots?”

I admit, this rendering does not really do the void justice.

Perhaps this one paints a better picture?

It is almost 330 million light-years across–a vast bubble of emptiness in which very, very few galaxies reside compared to our area of the universe. About 60 have been found within it.

To put it in perspective, if the Milky Way were in this void, we would have no idea that there were other galaxies until we developed powerful enough telescopes to detect anything outside of the Void.

Creepy.

Makes you rethink being scared of the dark, huh?

Of course, the Boötes Void has sparked many theories as to why it exists, ranging from smaller voids merging to…

You guessed it, aliens.

I mean, what if? Makes you go “hmmmm,” doesn’t it? Good thing it is 700 million light years away, right? You probably won’t live long enough for the galaxy-consuming alien race to come for us.

Probably.

This video does a great job explaining what Boötes Void is and why it’s so strange.

Those are just two things that have held my attention over the years. Many other things hold my attention occasionally…

Such as writing a sequel!

If you have not seen yet, I am calling Book 2 The Master of Night.

Stay tuned for more updates, such as a cover reveal!

If you want a sneak peek at the first couple chapters, be sure to sign up for my newsletter!

Until next time, I hope you are all well.

Tabby

Introducing Myself

Published by Tabby on May 14, 2020

Hello world. It’s me, Tabby.

I suppose I need to have a post for when people come and visit here or something. So, I thought I would tell you a little bit about myself! Buckle up kids, it’s a…well, it’s not a wild ride per se. But, I hope you find some entertainment all the same.

Well, the first thing you need to know is that I’m a huge nerd. I play Dungeons and Dragons, watch superhero movies, and read sci fi and fantasy, yeah yeah yeah… That’s all, like, normie-level now. But I don’t think you understand. I am a NERD. Let me tell you why.

At my wedding, I unironically wore Leia buns and had my wedding party use Star Wars props. I made my wonderful, patient husband wear a Han Solo belt, and with nerf guns we “shot” our way into the reception.

But perhaps that is not nerdy enough. I get it; people have Star Wars weddings all the time.

In college, I played on my school’s Quidditch team. It was all the rage in those days–for those who were both really nerdy and rather negligent about their own safety. I helped found my school’s team and played as a Beater. I wasn’t GOOD by any means, but hey, it was fun for a while.

Maybe you’re still not convinced. You have a cousin who played Quidditch and loves Star Wars. That’s fine. But have they done this?

Here is me at my local Comic-Con. I dressed up AS my Dungeons and Character, Lorien the druid elf. I made the costume myself. It took weeks to make, and I’m proud to say I’m quite happy with how it turned out.

Oh, that’s still not good enough, you say? Okay, how about this:

Yes, that is me. Rapping about planets. I had to do a project for an astronomy class in college, and I could have done things like “create a visual diagram” or “write a poem,” but no. I chose to rap about extrasolar planets to Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby.

As I’m writing this, I’ve realized I’ve taken up quite a bit of your time just to show you how ridiculously nerdy I am. So, to wrap it up, I’ll show you a nice and normal picture.

Here I am with my wonderful husband in one of my favorite places in the world–the Rocky Mountains. I love nature, I love mountains, and I love seeing both with my best friend.

I hope these little tidbits of my life were a source of laughter, of cringe, or even a “heh, I’ve done that too.”

Until next time, I hope all is well for you!

Tabby