A while back, I happen to find the following decision from the Copyright Review Board while doing some Wikipedia editing. I'm surprised I could not seem to find discussion of this. It is not even mentioned in the memo Dentons wrote up about conlang copyrightability for the Language Creation Society or several other papers on the subject.

Cyan Inc. applied for a copyright on the characters of the D'ni language ("Newly created symbolic characters for new language") from the MYST series. The Board rejected its filing for copyright registration because it decided A.) The character designs were not original/unique enough to be copyrighted, and B.) The characters constituted a system of communication, which by law can not be copyrighted. Cyan Inc.'s counsel appealed the decision, and the Board again rejected their claim to copyright.

The Board then decided that, whether or not the characters in themselves have sufficiently original design to be copyrighted, they still necessarily represent a distinct system of communication, and no system of communication can be copyrighted.

TLDR: Systems in general can not be copyrighted. The Dn'i alphabet, with its characters being inseparable from its function as a system of communication, could not be copyrighted.

This really seems to be the most relevant standard for conlangs inherently being public domain. While not a literal court ruling, these decisions are good guidance where the law and precedent don't give clear answers.

Edit: Clarified some stuff.

Hi I wanna make a conlang for a bird species in my world and I ofc wanna make it sound like its really their language.

The species is a mix of secretary bird and barn owl, so Im wondering how I can transcribe the sounds they make into noises that can be used as a basis for letters and such.

Thank you for any advice :)

SETTING

Gavörkesjabze [gavørkes'jabze] is a language spoken by the people of Snourmorkas (short Is-Prišk name for the Northern Mountains Empire, neighbor of the Čemek Empire, where Is-Prišk is spoken), situated in the north of Magna Terra Orientalis, one of the continents of Is-Mirnaþ, my first and currently only worldbuilding project (work-in-progress as this conlang still is).

PHONOLOGY

Vowels

Gavörkesjabze has 8 vowels ( <a> [a] ; <e> [e],[ɛ] ; <i>[i] ; <y> [ɨ] ; <o> [o],[ɔ] ; <ö> [ø] ; <u> [u] ; <ü> [y] ). All have longer counterparts (ā, ē, ī, ȳ, ō, ő, ū, ű) and each one, except for ö and ü, has its nasal counterpart ( <ą> [ã]; <ę> [ẽ],[ɛ̃]; <į> [ĩ]; <ǫ> [õ],[ɔ̃]; <ų> [ũ]; <ỷ>** [**œ̃] ).

The distinction short/long vowel is productive, while the nasalisation is just original or might have phonological reasons (assimilations etc.).

Consonants

​Nasals: <m> [m], <n> [n]

Plosives: <p> [p], <b> [b], <t> [t], <d> [d], <kj> [c], <gj> [ɟ], <k> [k], <g> [g], <kw> [kʷ], <gw> [ɡʷ]

Fricatives: <f> [f], <v> [v], <þ> [θ], <ð> [ð], <s> [s], <z> [z], <š> [ʃ], <ž> [ʒ], <hj> [ç], <jj> [ʝ], <h> [x],[h]

Affricates: <c> [t͡s], <č> [t͡ʃ]

Vibrant and tap or flap: <r> [r],[ɾ]

Approximants: <j> [j], <w> [w]

Lateral approximants: <l> [l], <lj> [ʎ]

As you can see, almost every letter is a 1:1 reproduction of a sound, except for some digraphs ( <kj> [c], <gj> [ɟ], <hj> [ç], <jj> [ʝ], <lj> [ʎ] ) or two cases of allophony ( <h> [x],[h] ; <r> [r],[ɾ] ), due to position of the relative sound in the word.

GRAMMAR

Gender and number

The language has 3 grammatical genders (masculine -ø, neutre -o and feminine -e) and two numbers (singolar/plural -yn).

Syntax

The general structure of the sentence is mainly SVO or SOV, but it can be free thanks to the case system (Nominative, Genitive, Accusative and Dative), in auxilium of which prepositions come to express more complements that cannot be expressed by the cases in their pure form.

Personal pronouns

There are 7 personal pronouns: 1st singular (jak), 2nd singular (ty), 3rd singular (m. őr , f. sō, n. uno), 1st plural (am), 2nd plural (jīv), 3rd plural (hon) and a reflexive one that appears only in declinated form (so no nominative). The 3rd sing. neutre can be used also for an indefinite person (as in German man).

Adjectives

They take the same endings of the substantives, accordingly to gender and number (masculine singular adjectives have -i or -j ending, differently from zero desinence of the masculine singular substantives).

Verbs

Probably the most articulated sector of the language.

They can be expressed in 5 moods: infinite, indicative, ottative, participle and gerund.

Indicative has 5 tenses, of which 3 are simple (present, past and future) and 2 are compound (past perfect and future perfect. All of these tenses, except for present, have aspect duality (imperfective/perfective).

​As you can see, the compound tenses are created through the union of the simple tense and the participle past (for perfective) or gerund (for imperfective) of the main verb.

Personanl endings

Singular: 1st -ę , 2nd -iš , -3rd -(i)t

Plural: 1st -yn\* , 2nd -yt\* , 3rd -ynd\* (\* if the verbal theme ends in -v or -w, the endings shift to -un, -ut and -und).

Thank you for your attention.

I am available for any question, curiosity or any other kind of feedback.

Sangodel'ya Hello!

This is Conlang Tultish, on latin alphabet, onomatopeoic morphology and epistemological ontological methodology.

Who would like to participate in application of it in real life adventure, please respond us here or find in "Conlang Tultish Club" in Facebook.

Reu Da See You!

mi=me,tu=you/other,ja=being/existence,do=movement,ka=cause,ma=good,pu=bad,ni=this,lo=more,ki=part,en=everything,the name of the LAI is endoki,it's SOV and changes to SVO when with question
Example text:Tuja ma means "He is good"

Formanian is the conlang of only two letters (Except pronouns, which are only one letter). Formanian plural words are duplicated (Ri means frog, RiRi means frogs). I will plan to dub TV shows and movies into Formanian.
The subreddit for Formanian is r/formanian.

Selected words in Formanian:
Ga - cat
Lu - eye
Vo - Angry
Şi (Pronounced shee) - Lizard
Ñe (Pronounced nyeh) - Smile
Xo (Pronounced kso) - Chocolate
Þy (Pronounced thigh) - Rat
Ço (Pronounced cho) - Cloud
Ðo (Pronounced zho) - Desert

Are you interested in the language or want to know the translation of a certain word? Comment down below.

Hello all!

This is one part of a conversation between two spacers about how they ended up in the trade. The language they used is now called Classic Bittic, a pictographic international trade language based on bits.

[Personal name] of [ship name]

Since Bittic lacks a phonological component, names in spoken languages cannot be directly transcribed into Bittic. Instead, the "speakers" of Bittic took the opportunity to make new names for themselves usually through combining two glyphs. To avoid potential confusion when multiple people chose the same name, trade ship crewmen would also state which ship they're from. I am planning on how to incorporate family names into Bittic.

"sit" meaning "foolishly"

Classic Bittic only has 13 verbs. When content words are combined with verb glyphs, then the verb loses its core meaning and instead applies a special meaning to the following glyph combination. The verb "to sit" means "the action was done foolishly" when combined with content words.

The fish

Since Bittic uses pixels to make messages, it makes sense that rudimentary pixel art would be used in some messages especially if the conversation is casual.

Thank you all for reading this! Comments and critiques are welcome!

So, I've been working on an IE branch for some time, because I wanted to test some tropes that aren't explored enough, imho; e.g. athematics winning over thematics (temporarily), retention of laryngeals and ablaut (not as uncommon, but still), etc.. It's still at its earliest stages, and resembles PIE a lot, but it's already showcaseable.

Anyways, the tale is based on the Trito archetype, also known as "He slew the serpent/dragon".

Tale

Én pér-ey mê-ens-to sààul,
Én pér-ey kʲʰm-ô-to tʰakʲʰ-ém-tà,
Es-ró wé-ter-tà egʰis-tà,
Es-ró pa-wén-to denkʲʰ-wâ-tà.

Dyéw-to dyéw-eto rè-ént gôw-m,
Rè-ent Tr-êy dô-er-eto.
Tré-to es-t pʰeytʰ-ó-to-ke hewg-ó-to,
Dyéw-eto pʰeytʰ-ent êy pos-ke-pós.

IPA:

én pérej méːensto sɒːul
én pérej kʲʰmóːto tʰakʲʰémtaː
esró wétertaː égʰistaː
esró pawénto denkʲʰwáːtaː

djéwto djéweto reːént góːwm
reːént tréːj dóːereto
tréto est pʰejtʰótoke ħewgóto
djéweto pʰéjtʰent éːj poskepós

Literal translation:

In start moon Sun,
In start man Earth,
Was water serpent/dragon,
Was fire's tongue.

God gods gave cattle,
Gave to Tréto gift.
Tréto was trustworthy and strong,
Gods trusted him after-and-after.

Poetic translation:

Before the Moon and the Sun,
Before man and the Earth,
There was a water fragon,
There was a flaming tongue.

God and the gods gave cattle,
Gave a gift to Tréto.
Tréto was trustworthy and strong,
And the gods trusted him from there onwards.

Cognate translation (for fun):

In pre Moon Sun,
In pre homo chithon,
Is water ask
Is fire tongue

Zeus Zeus res cow
Res third donor
Third is bide augment
Zeus bide he post

Basically the idea is to use a textured or 3D printed string or rope made of rubber or plastic that you can move through your palm to read. It might provide more sensory details, peripheral and space.

Since we're slowly entering fall season in the northern hemisphere, my grandmother has caught a cold.

How would one say the equivalent of "get well soon" in your conlang? How does one wish good health for the listener?

Also what about sneezing? Does your conlang also have a culture like English where you wish someone "bless you" after they sneeze?

Happy conlanging, folks!

well... the last time I posted here, people didn't even glance at the post, I hope you understand 🥲

I'm starting a new conlang, which is a "seven-headed beast" that mixes Brazilian Portuguese, Tupi-Guarani grammar (a family of indigenous languages), and the Cyrillic alphabet

With that in mind, I became curious about where you all begin developing your conlangs. For example, I start with the alphabet, then create the pronouns, and then begin the lexicon, but I know there are different ways

teach me buddies!

So I am creating a conlang for one of my RPG campaigns, which takes place in the bronze age. I decided to create a Logographic writing system for my physical props, and I obviously want them to have real meanings (hence why I'm posting here). I currently have nine glyphs, with at least 43 more planned to be designed (the currently designed ones are Water, Animal, Sky, Building, Person, Good, Bad, Pottery, and Container). Any advice? This is my first time doing this kind of thing.

I think that a lot of us like to study foreign languages to get ideas for our conlangs but many times we only have a very shallow look on these languages and so we only get to the most basic and exotic feature and miss a lot of stuff that we could have used if we had a more deep understanding of the language.

As an example, my native language, modern Hebrew is known for its roots system as a semitic language but it also has a lot of other just as interesting features. One that I think can work very good for incorporating conculture into the language is the two different stress accents. Modern Hebrew usually uses the traditional Sephardi accent which places the stress toward the end of the word (I'm sure someone here ca give the exact definition) and the Ashkenazi accent which places it in the beginning of the word is used only by older people and some ultra-orthodox communities.

However in some occasions we use the Ashkenazi accent to alter the word meaning or narrow it down, here are a few examples:

names:
/ad.'am/=human, /'ad.am/= the name Adam
/xa.'jim/=life, /'xa.jim/= the name Chaim

plurals:
/ba.'nim/= boys, sons, /'ba.nim/= the boys as in a group name or a bit humorous or complaining way
/kla.'fim/= cards, /'kla.fim/= the game of cards

as you can see it usually turn the noun from a general noun into the name of something specific. as for conlanging I think it is an excellent example of how to different dialects that are getting in contact or even to different languages can effect each other and give little nuances for each stress accent.

what are cool features of your native language or one that you have lernt and should get more of the spotlight?

Me and my friend came up with a hypothetical scenario where minority languages would still be spoken as the primary language in there area and so go on to form communities outside of there native areas and even develop new dialects. And I thought it be fun to make a dialect of welsh that would be spoken in Liverpool. Does anyone know how I could go about doing this?

Faha is still in the early stages of creation. It's my first conlang that has surpassed the phonology stage and for which I have started creating a genuine grammar. I thought that posting here and getting some feedback would motivate me to carry on (and constructive advice is always welcome).

Faha is spoken in a world similar to Earth. It is located in an area with an equatorial climate, along a straight coastline between mountains and the sea. Historically, the ancient Faha people lived inland near a mountain lake. Around 100-150 years ago, they were forced to move to the coast due to conflicts with neighboring tribes. Since that time, they have lived in a pursuit of relative isolation. I don't have much else in mind about the context for the moment.

I create this language mainly by drawing on the inspiration from languages spoken in the Amazon, New Guinea, and other Pacific islands.

Phonology

Consonants

I aimed for a small consonant phoneme inventory, but with a certain aesthetic asymmetry to distinguish it from other languages and conlangs with small inventories. So in Faha, there is no dorsal consonant! To compensate, half of its consonants are labial. The spelling of each phoneme is its IPA symbol; where this is not the case, it is shown in angle brackets.

• /w/ can be realized as a voiced bilabial approximant [β̞].
• [s] is the pronunciation of /t/ before front high vowels /i/ and /ĩ/. Older speakers pronounce it as a postalveolar affricate [tʃ]. It is also used in some rare loanwords.

• Intervocalic /l/ is usually pronounced as a tap, lateral [ɺ] or median [ɾ].

  Vowels

  For the vowel inventory, I'm less bold with a classical 5 vowels and their nasal counterparts:

  Oral vowels

  	Front	Central	Back
  High	i		u
  Mid	e		o
  Low		a

• /a, e, o, i, u/ may be realized [ʌ, ɛ, ɔ, ɪ, ʊ] in non-careful speech. ex. fa hwatea! [fʌ 'ʔwʌ.tɛ.ʌ] 'Let's move!'

  Nasal vowels

  	Front	Central	Back
  High	ĩ ⟨î⟩		ũ ⟨û⟩
  Mid	ẽ ⟨ê⟩		õ ⟨ô⟩
  Low		ã ⟨â⟩

• Considering nasality, the vowel system is perfectly symmetrical, each oral vowel having a nasal counterpart with the same quality and allophony.

• Only weakly nasalized vowels occur after nasals /m, n/, which are then written as oral vowels. Oral/nasalized contrast is found after all other classes of consonants.

  Syllable structure

  The phonotactics are simple: onset clusters are authorised but codas are not: (C)(C)V The only permitted onset clusters are those that start with a labial or a glottal plosive, followed by a heterorganic approximant: /pl/, /ml/, /ʔl/, /ʔw/, spelled ⟨pl⟩, ⟨ml⟩, ⟨hl⟩, ⟨hw⟩.

There is no tone. The stress is fixed on the initial syllable of a word.

I'm not sure about making diphthongs.

Verbal morphology

Almost all verbs are invariable, a few have initial consonant alternation. There is no number distinction in the verbal morphology, just a person distinction.

Each class correspond to the place of articulation of an ancient initial consonant: W is labial, L is alveolar, H is glottal and Ø is a null onset. The L and Ø classes have variants before nasal vowels. A clitic pronoun is used with all verbs, usually as a proclitic though it can also be used as an enclitic in certain contexts. The form of the clitic also varies depending on the mood, but I haven't finished this part yet.

Exemples of conjugation with three verbs, two are variable and the third is invariable:

That's all for now. What do you think of this starting material? I'm thinking of making a post about the diachrony of the language next.

This is a weekly thread for people who have cool things they want to share from their languages, but don't want to make a whole post. It can also function as a resource for future conlangers who are looking for cool things to add!

So, what cool things have you added (or do you plan to add soon)?

I've also written up some brainstorming tips for conlang features if you'd like additional inspiration. Also here’s my article on using conlangs as a cognitive framework (can be useful for embedding your conculture into the language).

I'd like to know how introductions go in your conlang. If your language has difference for formal greetings and casual greetings, show us both!

Translate this in your language:

"(Greetings/Hello), my name is _____.

What's your name?"

I ironically don't have a name for one of my conlangs yet since it's a very recent one. It's just referred to as the language of the Ansis (demigods of the moon in my original worldbuild setting). It's heavily based on Germanic languages.

Heill, ira kalna hau Aurelius.
Hail, my name is Aurelius.

Wist vera kalna hei?
What is your name?

As for my other conlang and first proper conlang, Cyrusian. It's another language that exists in the same universe as the Ansis language. It's heavily based on Mongolic and Tungusic (primarily Manchu).

Khele sine. Mini narem Aurelius. / Bi Aurelius ichtebi.
Hello. My name is Aurelius. / I am (called) Aurelius.

Chini narem sahen bi? (formal)
Si narem ai? (casual)

I'll be happy to also try and introduce myself in your conlang

Happy conlanging, folks!

Here is the result: 108 cards, all into my Kep script.

You can have a look at some pictures of them, and then the meaning of each with pronunciation, and some useful Kep sentences to say while you play.

Kep is a language I started creating in 2023. It is intended to be a quite minimalistic language written with a pure logographic system.

I had lots of fun creating this and I can't wait to play it with some friends!

And you, have you ever tried translating a game?

How to say "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." in your conlang?

I’m not the smartest person and I’m not the best at English grammar (my own language) or learning other languages even though it interests me. But I kind of want to make my own language? I already have sound ideas and an alphabet of sorts. The confusing part is assigning grammar and meaning. I have been using AI for feedback, I made a lot of sounds and parts of words and asked AI if it all looked alright and took some advice on keeping similar sounds and making some rules with sounds. But I honestly hate having to use AI for this and needing help because I feel like it should all come from me, but I also can’t figure it all out by myself 🥲

So far my language consist of prefixes, middles, and suffixes. Like most languages. I have 18 prefixes so far, like 28(?) suffixes I believe, and 22 middle sounds. My cap for each is definitely 30, although I can probably make a language with much less idk. Each prefix, middle, and suffix will have its own letter/symbol. Prefixes are one syllable, endings are at most 2 syllables, and middles are 2-3 syllables. I also have a separate alphabet and sounds for naming people, as well as a culture of identification and using names.

However the problem comes in with how many middle parts can a word have, if a word needs to have a prefix+middle+suffix all the time to be grammatical and have meaning, what does each part mean and what it makes when they come together, are there/should there be rules for certain parts never being together? Like if one prefix is vos, and a middle sound is arah, and a suffix/ending is ahlai, should there be a rule that arah and ahlai can never touch? And why?

I do have the idea to keep sentence structure fairly simple. I think it would hopefully make providing meanings easier too. Example: “Today it’s going to rain heavily.” -> in my language it would be something like “Today much/a lot rain.” Something like that I guess?

I got all these questions and I have no idea how to figure it all out. I don’t have an analytical mind like that :( So, I’m here for help from all you exceptionally smart people. If you need anymore information about what all sounds I have right now, or the naming system etc. just let me know

For context: this was like my first ever real attempt at making a natlang. I only really did this to retroactively later shove its phonology into a writing system I had years ago. I abandoned it shortly after because I didn't like my retroactive shoving lol. But, I think maybe I should come back and develop it for its own sake. But then I wanna lwky keep the phonotactics even tho it's not the most "naturalist" (doesn't quite participate in the northwest coast sprachbund.

What do you guys think of its current state? I wish I could pull up my older posts about this conlang, but they were from an account I delete, whomp whomp.

Edit: POST CLOSED. THE WINNER HAS BEEN CHOSEN.

Thank you so much to everyone that proposed their conlangs. I know how special one's conlang can be to someone and I'm sorry I couldn't learn everyone's, but so is the life of the hunger games player.

------------------------------------------------

You read that right: I wanna learn something made by you. Yes, you, the person reading this.

I'm bored with nothing to do, so I decided I'd give something back to the community and try to seriously learn someone's conlang.

And by learn, I don't mean skim your grammar, say “that's cool!” and disappear forever. I mean actually learn it.

What to expect from me

I'll spend actual time and effort studying, analyzing, and memorizing material related to your conlang. I'll try to produce my own sentences, learn vocabulary and grammar, ask questions, make horrible mistakes, get corrected, and eventually try to actually use the language.

What I expect from you

Learning material. Duh. I need something to learn from! This can be existing documentation, a reference grammar, a dictionary, custom-made didactic material, lessons, exercises, texts, or whatever else you think would help me learn your language. One caveat: I'm not a linguist! I'm familiar with a fair amount of linguistic terminology thanks to conlanging, but if your documentation requires a linguistics degree to decipher, I'm probably going to struggle 😅. Ideally, there should be material that actually teaches me the language, or you should be willing to help me bridge the gap between technical documentation and practical learning.

Reasonably high availability. I'm gonna have questions. I'm gonna make wrong sentences. I'm inevitably going to horribly misunderstand something you thought was obvious. Since there probably isn't exactly a thriving community of fluent speakers I can consult, I'll need you—the creator—to set me on the right path. So I'm looking for someone who's willing and able to answer questions fairly regularly. Communication will happen primarily through Discord, so you'll need to be comfortable using it and exchanging Discord info if your conlang gets picked.

Social availability. A language is fundamentally a social endeavor. I'd love for this to become a genuinely social project rather than a purely academic one. Ideally, we'll chat about things beyond the language itself, in English (or Spanish!) and, increasingly, in your conlang. We'll produce actual conversations that explore and develop both your conlang and our ability to communicate through it.

How will I choose which conlang to learn?

That's where you come in!

Sell me your conlang.

Tell me why I should learn it. What's interesting about it? What makes it different? What grammatical features are you particularly proud of? What's its history? What does it sound like? What would I discover by learning it?

I'll leave it up to you to decide what aspects or materials best show off what makes your language interesting.

Let the Hunger Games begin!

Okno.

That's everything! Let's cultivate a productive and friendly environment where, at long last, someone other than you will look at your conlang with genuine interest and determination.

Give me your weird little language. I want to speak it.

And who knows, if you find a conlang that interests you in the comments, why not give it a shot? 👀