Opinions on conlangs? Creating languages is one of my hobbies. My worldbuilding projects always involve creating a language--in fact, that's one of the first things I do, so I can use the language to name things. You can see the beginning stages of one of my created languages
here.
Anyway, the point of this post is to ask you your opinions. I have a couple questions I've been pondering for a while, but any other thoughts are very welcome!
-- One of the things I struggle with the most is finding a balance between what's good for the story, and what I
want. This is mostly an issue of sounds: how my hypothetical readers will react to the names and words that show up in the story.
( Read more... )-- How much presence you like made-up languages to have in the stories you read? I plan to only use my languages to create names and maybe a phrase or two that will be understandable from context. It's a lot of work for just that but it's independently enjoyable to me so I don't mind.
I know that the more I include, the more I run the risk of my languages sounding "stupid." I've read stories with fake words or phrases and rolled my eyes because something was off about them. And there wasn't necessarily anything
objectively wrong. It's just one of those things.
-- If you conlang or are interested in linguistics, do you think this colors your reactions to the made-up names and words that show up in your fantasy? I can no longer stand froofy fantasy names like "Alairthyien" or whatever, and I definitely notice if some of the characters have real names, while others are made up.
If you're not into conlangs or linguistics, I'd really appreciate your opinions, too! Particularly in your reactions to fake languages in your stories.