How to Make a Conlang - Episode 1: Phonology

[@LexisLang]

And it's done. Almost 4 months in the making and many difficulties, episode one is finally here! It's an absolute colossus, but hopefully you enjoy. If you haven't seen the intro video ("episode 0", let's say), I recommend you give it a watch - it'll contextualise the whole series. There's a link in the description or check my channel page. More exciting things coming soon, so stay tuned! Btw, what do you think of the new music? I'm thinking of transitioning to it fully from my old one - it's much easier on the ears. Let me know your thoughts! :D

[@trentonbuchert7342]

I’ve watched a lot of conlang tutorials and I’ve unfortunately found rather few of them that feel very practical. Ironically, perhaps the most helpful tutorials for me were the ones that didn’t encourage naturalism and instead focused on the artistic side of constructing a language. Regardless, I think this is a good video.

[@LexisLang]

Thank you! I had worried it might be a bit theory-dense, but hopefully I explained it well enough! I think non-naturalistic langs probably are easier, but the core concepts are the same and I personally tend to prefer the naturalism. Glad you enjoyed! :D

[@pattap2826]

I can feel your passion for languages. I’d love to learn more from you. (Excuse my English, I’m not a native.)😅

[@LexisLang]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed - I'm very happy to have you! And your English is fine - if you hadn't said you weren't native, I wouldn't have been able to tell! :)

[@_haida]

You've truly knocked it out of the park with this one! Amazing video, can't wait for the other ones of this series

[@LexisLang]

Thank you, that makes me very happy to hear! I'm so glad you enjoyed - look forwards to seeing you for the next one (whenever that is!). :D

[@lXBlackWolfXl]

Regarding 'phonoaesthetics', the simple frequency of sounds also makes a difference. A word like 'lekel' sounds nicer than 'kelek', despite having the same phonemes and even syllable structure. Also, real languages rarely have their phonemes equally represented. In English for instance, the phone /z/ is famous for being rare. Though your phoneme inventory itself can have an effect on frequency. If you have really harsh-sound dorsal sounds, this will be mitigated if you have a high number of coronals since if all are equally represented, then the dorsals will be rarer than the coronals simply because there's more coronals. Another thing to note is that humans tend to find vowel-heavy words nicer sounding than consonant heavy ones. Just look at how people describe Spanish compared to German. You see this demonstrated in fantasy conlangs. Elvish languages tend to be really heavy on liquids, vowels, and open syllables. Orcish conlangs though tend to be really heavy on dorsals and stops, and have lots of closed syllables and even consonant clusters. I really think more research needs to be done to determine what effect phonemes and phonotactics have on a language's sound. Its hard to pick something when you're given no hint as to what effect everything has. Worse yet, on the freak occasions someone brings it up, they tend to just tell you how to make an Elvish conlang and an 'evil' one, seriously. Also, in the past I've seen it stated that preferably a language should sound as flat as possible. Can you imagine a woman speaking a harsh-sound orc conlang? Or writing a comedy in it? Or telling a joke? Or writing a horror story in a language like Quenya? Obviously, if you want a language to be usable, or at least make it realistic, it needs to sound as neutral as possible. Nobody however ever says a thing about how to accomplish that. Phonoaesthetics is a neat idea that was sorely needed, but its still a new field that clearly needs a lot of development.

[@LexisLang]

Absolutely! I agree with pretty much all of that. I did originally want to talk more about this side of things in the video, but with it being so long already and all I had to think about and the rewrites, it clearly slipped my mind. Frequency is an important thing a lot of beginners don't much consider and I should like to learn more about. Phonaesthetics is quite subjective, though. In your Spanish vs German example, I'm not actually sure the phonology makes so much difference. It makes some of course, but there are loads of languages way more "gutteral" than German. I suspect it's more thanks to many people's exposure to the language being from war films, with nazis shouting in German and the like. Context is important, as you mention. I don't really come across the idea of "phonaesthetics" in actual linguistics - I think it's more a conlang thing, but certainly there are studies on speaker perceptions and the effects of some sounds on the language from a more objective perspective.

[@deithlan]

Great video! The only nitpick I maybe would give it is that your example of /s/-/z/ variation in English plurals is not one of allophony, as both /s/ and /z/ are two properly distinct phonemes in English. The example you presented is instead one of allomorphy! Where one morpheme (the plural marker) will change forms according to its environment. A better example of allophony in English could be how the phoneme /h/ will change to a [ç] when in front of an /i/!

[@LexisLang]

You're absolutely right - that's the first thing that comes to mind when I think English allophony, but it is actually allomorphy. Thanks for watching though - I'm glad you enjoyed! :)

[@Corben-pq4nc]

I’ve made many languages thanks to you

[@LexisLang]

I'm happy to have helped! Out of interest, have you seen any of my conlang videos before or have you just spent the last day since this one released conlanging non-stop? Either's a good strat to be honest. ;D

[@Corben-pq4nc]

@@LexisLang I know how to make a conlang, I use your _ evolution in 22 words

[@LexisLang]

Ah, that's good to hear! I've used them that way before too. I have hoped that it'd be a useful conlanging resource - glad to see it is! :)

[@sebastianascencio9714]

Thanks for your effort. Your content is trully invaluable :)

[@LexisLang]

Aw, thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)

[@lukekelly7286]

wait... did you mean to call it invaluable? Edit: just looked it up, invaluable means "indespensable", while I thought it meant "not valuable" that's my bad

[@LexisLang]

@@lukekelly7286 Lol. The idea is that something invaluable is so good or so expensive that it cannot be valued (given a price). Certainly seems confusing at first, but makes sense, unlike "inflammable"... :D

[@robloxuniverses9912]

Wait this is new i thought this was like months old

[@LexisLang]

I did an introduction video a few months ago, but this is the start of the main series. I finished editing it just 2 or 3 hours ago! Hope you enjoy! :D

[@robloxuniverses9912]

@@LexisLangcan’t wait for part 2! ^ - ^

[@entwistlefromthewho]

Why did you pair-up /s/ and /ɬ/ in the Welsh table as having symmetry? There is no symmetry between these two sounds: they're both unvoiced and different places of articulation.

[@LexisLang]

I wasn't saying they form a symmetrical pair - it was just space efficiency. I maybe should have put /ɬ/ in with /l/, but I just wanted to avoid having extra rows or confusing people (not sure it helped on that). But they're both voiceless alveolar fricatives - it's just a difference of lateral vs central. It technically shows symmetry with /l/, but yeah, it is just to save adding a whole extra row. Thank you for watching! :)

[@chao3948]

great video but making ortography already the second episode seems slightly backwards... why would you create a writing system when there is still nothing to write with it?

[@LexisLang]

Writing tends to rely far more heavily on sound than grammar. Even for non-phonetic scripts, grammar barely has a hand. Wordmaking comes at the end of the series, but you have the basics of it already from this video. Orthography could honestly go almost anywhere from this point because it's extra to an actual language, but some of the stuff I'll discuss (romanisation for instance) makes more sense to know going into the series. You'll probably only use the info later, but it's good to know sooner. I also think it's quite a fun topic, so should help lighten up the series after the theoretical colossus of this episode. As much as I enjoy the theory, I don't want to put other people off. How that explains my thoughts. Thanks for watching - I'm glad you enjoyed! :D

[@chao3948]

@@LexisLang yeah honestly that makes more sense now. i still think it would be useful to touch on ortography again on a later episode to explore how the spelling system would develop some of it's irregularities tho (it is a natlang afterall). still this first episode was really good so thank you for making it :)

[@LexisLang]

Good thought - I've added that to my plan! :)

[@EndaWida]

oo

[@LexisLang]

I hope this is an "oo" of enjoyment or perhaps appreciation, rather than an "oo" of malcontent or disinterest? So much possible subtext. ;D

[@EndaWida]

@@LexisLang i like how much detail this goes into.

[@LexisLang]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed! :)

[@Yusuketh443]

hi :3 UwU

[@LexisLang]

Hello! Thank you for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video! :)

[@Yusuketh443]

@@LexisLang :3

[@Kveldred]

Great video, but _why must you speak so slowly aaaaaah_

[@LexisLang]

I'm sorry, that's partly just how I speak. This is also a series where I'm trying to teach complex topics to total beginners, so it merits taking things quite slowly. I definitely talk slower in my videos than irl, but I'm quite slow generally too. Really happy you enjoyed the video though! I'll try to find a balance in future videos. :)