From the Rabbit Hole

Very recently, I’ve come back to conlanging – the making of invented languages; one of my recurring loves – with fresh ideas for a project I had been working on until earlier this year. It’s unfortunately also confronted me with a struggle of mine.

The project is to take a region of a conworld, start from one shared proto-language – the equivalent of Proto-Indo-European in the real world – and then evolve it in different directions through shifts in sound and grammar to eventually create individual languages which hold more or less relation to each other. Think the Romance and Germanic languages. Throw in some broad history, with countries conquering each other, different systems of government, and the emergence of magic as a formalised academic discipline, and it’s a world ripe for lots of interesting interactions. All the brainchild of my mind, of course, but based on real linguistic concepts.

Conlanging is mightily nerdy. And I love it.

Core to that endeavour is the invention of these sound changes. No change in how the language sounds means no meaningful distinction between the sibling lingos. It would defeat the whole purpose. But… I have a hard time with it. And at the root of that, I think, is fear.

First, by definition, sound changes are an exercise in killing your darlings. If there’s a change I like for one word, designing the sound change that will make it happen will almost certainly maim a word I did like and would rather not have changed. While I’m partial to maudo (it means “egg”) becoming mahózo in the Imperial tongue, I’m sorry to see aufjip (“goat”) becoming ahufép by the same rules. Given the lexicon is 150 words and counting, it’s just inevitable. My instinct is to change the rule, weave it more precisely to only touch what I wanted changed, make exceptions. A mistake. Simpler rules are more natural, and besides easier to apply. I wanted change, now I need to learn to commit to it.

Second, there are in fact rules about the rules. It seems at first almost anything is possible. Some IRL language somewhere at some point in history will have done what I have in mind. That doesn’t mean it’s probable. I once presented a change to a Discord community of other conlangers, backed up by an example. It was quickly pointed out that this supposed example came from a highly dubious paper which most linguists don’t take seriously. Oops. So do I need to be an expert in language evolution with a PhD in Linguistics? No, but it can feel that way.

Watching fellow conlangers – some livestream their process – can be helpful to get a clue. It can also feel like watching Bob Ross “just add some trees” and when you blink there’s a beautiful forest. Why explain the minutiae of what is self-evident? Of course these changes need to happen this way. It’s only natural. Meanwhile, I wonder what if I get it wrong? I, lacking either a sense for it or the confidence that I do, could have made something I think works, then show it to my peers and they’ll laugh me out of the room.

I may be giving the impression here that conlanging is misery. It’s not. I am obsessed. Watching the sounds come together into words is magic. Thinking about what could be, why we communicate the way we do, is fascinating. But it

The solution shows itself when I work on a language which I mark “not important”. They aren’t core to the worldbuilding (yet). Because I’m less fussed, I invent simple, straightforward sound changes and see what rolls out the other end. They get to have the questionable choices, because it doesn’t matter so much. And you know what: they’ve consistently been the languages with better outcomes. Because I didn’t care. I didn’t treat them as dear, so I had no trouble killing darlings. They aren’t exactly my magnum opus, so who cares if others deride me for them? I’m just having fun.

This has worked so well, that I’ve started applying it to other pursuits. I write stories telling myself I’m not planning to publish them anyway. My newest game development project happens with the goal of learning from it, y’know for that future project where it’ll come in handy, but I have no illusion I’ll ever finish the whole game. What hubris. Even this blog exists in the understanding that no one will probably ever read it. If any of it sees the light of day, that’s great, but meanwhile best not to burden myself with worry.