Present Tense, Past Participles, And The Pluperfect

I spent most of my weekend in Barnes & Noble sitting in the cafe and reading. Mostly I read books on language, including Arika Okrent's In the Land of Invented Languages and Marty Grothe's Oxymorinica. I took notes in my handy dandy Moleskine notebook on things that interested me from both books but also some ideas to think about for Treth, Inlig, and Hinlig.

Treth? That would be a language spoken by the Traders who carry goods throughout the Jevanite Empire and surrounding countries.

Inlig? Most likely the language of Osnia before it was sundered.

Hinlig? The result of an influx of Mithel Tretha speakers who settled down in an area of Inlig speakers. It really serves an a forerunner for still developing language.

Confused? It's one of my pastimes: creating languages for the imaginary planet I've been noodling around with since graduate school (the first round). And, as usual, research and developing geography, history, and cultures are more fun than actually writing a story. I may get around to writing stories at some point, but the creative process of developing geography, history, and cultures provides me with a lot of enjoyment.

There are many different ways of constructing languages, and you can find a number of sites on the Internet devoted to Conlangs. Conlangs have a rich history, including Esperanto and the languages created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien created a world for his languages. I came at it the other way around, having already created a world. So, what would happen to language if you dumped refugees from Western Europe and North America on an uninhabited planet?

I started with the languages I know well, English, French, and German, which led to the development of Treth. At first I just worked on vocabulary and sound shifts, but it didn't take long before I realized that I really needed to spend some time on grammar. Somewhere in the depths of the Internet sits a translation of the Babel Text into an early version of Treth. Once I had some basic framework in place for Treth, I turned to looking at how an English-only language might evolve, which resulted in Inlig. And what about some of the descendant languages interacting? Now I have Hinlig, which is evolving on its own into an as yet unnamed language.

I was getting ready to start on a French descendant when I wondered what would happen if I threw in some Breton. Or Catalan. And let's not forget Spanish. What about orthography, how the languages are written?

As you can see, this can keep me occupied for a very long time. It's a fairly inexpensive pastime. Most of my research I can do on the Internet, in the library, and in local bookstores. A few vocabulary and grammar SparkCharts and BarCharts Reference Guides, notebooks, and pens, and I'm good to go.

Peace,
Jeff