Conlang construction philosophy? :)

[berg]

This whole thread is really cool! I've never actually thought about conlangs like this? (to show the level of amature I am haha)

I've only ever really employed conlangs for nouns so that I could have cool names for my people and places, but the way I've done it then is much more simple. I take my group of people (say, mountain giants), and then think of what sort of sounds I want to connotate to them (w/ the example, maybe like, an avalanche of boulders or crunching gravel), and then I try and find video clips of those sounds and write down the sort of syllables I hear (ch's, uu's, oo's, etc), and then make up words that sort of incorporate those sounds, so that the mountain trolls roughly have the sound of rocks. Or if I were doing mermaids or water nymphs or something, I would use "liquid-y sounds" like l's and s's and b's.

It's kind of a rudimentary system, but it gets me what I need when I'm creating a few nouns!
I'm definitely going to try making a proper language at some point though, using this thread for pointers.

[berg]

I guess an easier way of saying all this is that I do it more phonetically than with any other sort of system.

[Jalyha]

I've been working on Solsprak for a novel of mine. Starting with the very basics of phonology definitely helped me figure out what the language would sound like. It's still in the baby stages right now--I need to work more on the tenses and such--but I'd like to finish making the alphabet before I go any further. It has influences from Spanish, Latin, and German. Grammatically, it's similar to German and English. This is my first time colanging, so I'm a pretty huge noob, but it's definitely worth the effort.

Also, I bought a book recently that has helped me figure out syntax and structure. "The Loom of Language" is by Frederick Bodmer and I'd suggest grabbing it at the library if anyone gets the chance. It's not about colanging, but understanding how natural languages are formed and influenced definitely helps make colanging sound more natural, imo.

I think I was looking into getting that book at one point? I can't remember. Your language looks like it's coming along well!! I never used that site because it's so technical it gives me headaches, but I bet it's a good guide, and a great way to keep organized!

I guess an easier way of saying all this is that I do it more phonetically than with any other sort of system.

I think all our methods are mostly phonetics, but I like the idea of getting language sounds from nature sounds I might try that at some point, and see what happens!