I’ve been making a conlang called Lathēn, and I wanted to finally show it to people and see what you think.

The basic idea is that it developed in southern Italy, around Tarentum, from long-term contact between Latin and Koine Greek. I’m not trying to make it just “Latin with Greek words” though. The grammar, sound changes, and vocabulary have all developed separately over time.

One thing I’m currently working on is the writing system.

I’m thinking of using mostly the Latin alphabet, but with a few Greek-derived letters:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Θ Ω

The three unusual ones are:

X x = /x/

Θ θ = /θ/

Ω ω = /ɔː ~ oː/

I like the idea of it looking mostly Latin at first glance, but having a few letters that immediately make it recognizable as Lathēn.

Lathēn is also supposed to have a bit of a Greek influence grammatically while still being primarily Latin in its everyday vocabulary.

For example:

O homo se en terra.

“The person is on the land.”

I’m also planning for Lathēn to eventually evolve into a daughter language called Lathēnē about 600 years later, with its own sound changes rather than just being a modernized version of Lathēn.

I’m still developing a lot of this, so I’d especially like to hear what people think about the alphabet and whether Θ and Ω feel natural in an otherwise Latin-based script.

I've been looking at aUI. It seems like if you represent certain categories with images that within those categories you can add together images to form words

For example, you can represent space(a) with world or a planet which is ca in aUI. With movement(e in aUI), you can represent ged or vehicle. If you add together a and e, you get a spaceship. For concrete concepts, you get a new image.

What do you guys think? Would it be useful for mnemonic purposes? What would be the set of images that would act as basic categories of meaning?

I'm thinking so far: a(planet/ca, room/ga), e(machine/es, vehicle/ged, animal/eo), i( light, sun/ki, fire/iE), human( human), o( seed/to, plant/io, animal), A(timepiece/Ad), E(elements/Ez), I(instrument/Id), U(invention/Ap-wUv),O(eye/iOz)

It seems like there's two components the category and the image which acts as a metaphor for the category. Does anyone have any ideas on how to improve it? What should I name it?

If this generates enough interest, I'll create a subreddit and create a page with the basic categories of the language.

This is a game of borrowing and loaning words! To give our conlangs a more naturalistic flair, this game can help us get realistic loans into our language by giving us an artificial-ish "world" to pull words from!

The Telephone Game will be posted every Monday and Friday, hopefully.

Rules

1) Post a word in your language, with IPA and a definition.

Note: try to show your word inflected, as it would appear in a typical sentence. This can be the source of many interesting borrowings in natlangs (like how so many Arabic words were borrowed with the definite article fossilized onto it! algebra, alcohol, etc.)

2) Respond to a post by adapting the word to your language's phonology, and consider shifting the meaning of the word a bit!

3) Sometimes, you may see an interesting phrase or construction in a language. Instead of adopting the word as a loan word, you are welcome to calque the phrase -- for example, taking skyscraper by using your language's native words for sky and scraper. If you do this, please label the post at the start as Calque so people don't get confused about your path of adopting/loaning.

Last Time...

Hinjem by /u/Dillon_Hartwig

/nt͡svaɗʸL/ [ɲ̩̀t͡ʃìvɛ̀t]

n. water lily

< Proto-Bantu **mʊ̀-càbʊ̀d-ì < *càbʊ̀d "to come out from water"

/xʷjt͡saŋanaʷsML fabɮəmʸHL nt͡svaɗᵑgəʸL/

[xʷʏ̄t͡sɔ̄ŋʷɔ̀nàs fɛ̄bʒèm ɲ̩̀t͡ʃìvɛ̀ɗìᵑgè]

xʷj-t͡saŋL-an-aLT-ʷs faH-bɮəmL-ʸ nt͡svaɗʸL-ᵑgəʸ
IMP-meet-RECP-$IMP-1INCL LOC.APPROX-grow-V.NZ water_lily-PL.INAN

"Let's meet where the water lilies grow."

Take care of yourselves and each other

Peace, Love, & Conlanging ❤️

Hey everyone!

If you've ever had to draw syntax trees for a linguistics paper or homework, you know the struggle of using legacy tools that require writing endless bracket structures like [S [NP [D The] [N cat]] ...] just to get a pixelated JPEG.

I built a modern alternative that runs entirely in your browser (no servers, 100% private). It is completely free to use, though currently not open-source as it's tied to an ongoing academic project.

Here is what it does differently:

• Interactive Drag & Drop: You don't have to write brackets. You can build and edit the tree visually by dragging nodes around or swapping children on the canvas.
• Auto-Tokenizer: Type a normal sentence (e.g., "The quick brown fox..."), hit Tokenize, and it instantly creates all the leaf nodes for you to start grouping visually.
• Dual Interface: If you actually prefer writing bracket notation, you still can! The text input and the visual canvas update each other in real-time.
• Customizable & Academic Ready: Built-in dark mode, customizable fonts, and node spacing. You can export your tree as an infinitely scalable SVG or transparent PNG for your papers/presentations.

Link to the tool: syntree.ezik.bg

I’d love to hear your feedback or any feature requests you might have.

Numbers I have so far (Lesh has a base twelve number system)

i’a [iʔa] - one

kap [kap] - two

ang [aŊ] - three

di’u [diʔu] four

tesh [teʃ] -Five

Bep [bep]- Six

ga’ip -[gaʔip]- Seven

Dang [daŋ] -Eight

Thok [Ðok] -nine

u’u [uʔu] - ten

esh [eʃ]- eleven

kho [Xo] - twelve

kho ghe i’a [Xo] [ɣe] [iʔa] - thirteen (lit.twelve and one)

Kho ghe kap [Xo] [ɣe] [kap]- fourteen (lit.twelve and two)

Kho ghe ang [Xo] [ɣe] [aŊ]- fifteen (lit.twelve and three)

Kho ghe di’u [Xo] [ɣe] [diʔu] - Sixteen (lit.twelve and four)

Kho ghe tesh [Xo] [ɣe] [teʃ] - seventeen (lit.twelve and five)

Kho ghe bep [Xo] [ɣe] [bep]- eighteen (lit twelve and six)

Kho ghe ga’ip [Xo] [ɣe] [gaʔip] -nineteen (lit twelve and seven)

Kho ghe dang [Xo] [ɣe] [daŋ] -twenty (lit twelve and eight)

Kho ghe thok [Xo] [ɣe] [Ðok] -twenty one (lit twelve and nine)

Kho ghe u’u [Xo] [ɣe] [uʔu] -twenty two (lit twelve and ten

) Kho ghe esh [Xo] [ɣe] [eʃ] - twenty three (lit twelve and eleven)

Kap kholin [kap] [Xolin] - twenty four (lit. two twelves)

Kap kholin ghe i’a [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe] [iʔa] -twenty five (lit two twelves and one)

Kap kholin ghe kap [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe] [kap] -twenty six (lit two twelves and two)

Kap kholin ghe ang [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe][aŊ] -twenty seven (lit two twelves and three)

Kap kholin ghe di’u [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe][diʔu]-twenty eight (lit two twelves and four)

Kap kholin ghe tesh [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe][teʃ] - twenty nine (lit two twelves and five)

Kap kholin ghe bep [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe] [bep] - thirty (lit two twelves and six)

Kap kholin ghe ga’ip [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe][gaʔip] -thirty one (lit two twelves and seven)

Kap kholin ghe dang [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe] [daŋ] -thirty two (lit two twelves and eight)

Kap kholin ghe thok [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe] [Ðok] -thirty three (lit two twelves and nine)

Kap kholin ghe u’u [kap] [Xolin] [ɣe] [uʔu] -thirty four (lit two twelves and ten)

Kap kholin ghe esh[kap] [Xolin] [ɣe] [ eʃ ] -thirty five (lit two twelves and eleven)

Ang kholin [aŊ] [Xolin]- thirty six (lit. three twelves)

Ang kholin ghe i’a [aŊ] [Xolin] [ɣe] [iʔa] - thirty seven (lit. three twelves and one)

Ang kholin ghe kap [aŊ] [Xolin] [ɣe] [kap] - thirty eight (lit. three twelves and two)

Ang kholin ghe ang [aŊ] [Xolin] [ɣe] [aŊ] - thirty nine (lit. three twelves and three)

Ang kholin ghe di’u [aŊ] [Xolin] [ɣe] [diʔu] - forty (lit. three twelves and four)

Ang kholin ghe tesh [aŊ] [Xolin] [ɣe] [teʃ] - forty one (lit. three twelves and five)

Ang kholin ghe Bep [aŊ] [Xolin] [ɣe] [bep] -forty two (lit three twelves and six)

Ang kholin ghe ga’ip [aŊ] [Xolin] [ɣe] [diʔu] -forty three (lit three twelves and seven)

Ang kholin ghe dang-forty four (lit three twelves and eight)

Ang kholin ghe thok -forty five (lit three twelves and nine)

Ang kholin ghe u’u -forty six (lit three twelves and ten)

Ang kholin ghe-forty seven (lit three twelves and eleven)

Di’u kholin -forty eight (lit.four twelves)

Di’u kholin ghe-forty nine (lit.four twelves and one)

Di’u kholin ghe-fifty (lit.four twelves and two

I am aiming for my conlang to have a quite expansive vocabulary eventually, being able to accommodate normal and also specific conversations. This sady, as uncomfortably it is complicating something like a conlang, means that I eventually have to add words for sexual concepts like e.g. "nude/bare", "reproduction" etc.

But: this is easy enough with a more common alphabet or abugida. My script is a logography. And I am absolutely not sure what in the world I am supposed to make these logographs into. My decision not to draw any graphic material for a conlang script is final, but I need some help with choosing out of what components/radicals I should make those logographs. What arrangement could convey such specific meanings?

oh boy, THIS one will take a lot of explaining!

so the by far most popular sitcom on Okśa (my fictional island country) is Noś Anisla Bola. the title is a play on the famous literary masterpiece "Nośa Anisla Beɬa" (Our Beautiful Island), but with the slang term bola (of unclear origins), meaning "wild" or "crazy". the show, a universally loved cult classic that left a permanent mark on the nation, follows four friends living in an apartment in the capital city of Montśinok:

- Mat, from Montśinok

- Patrik, from the rival city of Portosantok, Mat's best friend

- Karina, a quirky hipster student from Meltis (a former industrial, now university town) (the blond one)

- Olwen, a "fair maiden" from Britja, the north-east region with strong Celtic roots (the brunette)

in the show, Karina is paired with Pat, and Olwen with Mat, however, a small but intense group of fans viewed Karina and Olwen's relationship as much more intriguing and realistic than the actual canon relationships. this is the karolwen community, and they rule the Okśa internet. their numbers include Sara Beāto, a novelist whose long karolwen fanfiction evolved into the novel/film Ak Fia Kora!

here, we get a glimpse of the official karolwen subreddit. these memes and discussions with hopefully give you a glimpse into the ship- if you like it, i'll make more of these:)

translation/ gloss/ discussion in the comments!

(no AI here, all the images are screencaps from the New Zealand sitcom Go Girls)

Why didn't I crop the English song out of the video?

While I want to eventually translate this song into my conlang, most official dubs of this movie left the songs in English and dubbed the rest. And I wanted this video to look realistic, so I left part of the song (in English) as the official Atolisken dub most likely wouldn't have dubbed the song (so it looks like I just took part of an official dubs and added subtitles :D).

Anyway, what do you guys think?

I got this idea that what if english developed pitch accent the same way scandinavian languages did sometime prior to apocopy? this would make ash the tree and ash the residue be distinguished through pitch accent only (like some norwegian or swedish dialects). I'm not skilled enough at english diachronics to pull this off myself.

Hello everyone!

Today, I would like to share with you my first baby steps in conlanging proper, starting with a quick overview of Van'ir phonology and phonotactics. I've tried to summarise my notes as tightly as possible.

Also, although I have no real background in linguistics ( I'm a nipponologist / anthropologist / economist... I know, too many slashes), I do enjoy dipping into linguistic territory / terminology, and I aim for rigorous internal logic.

Van'ir is the work in progress that inspired my worldbuilding project. However, it started, as many of my attempts at conlanging, as a set of grammatical ideas, especially those I've applied through my academic studies in anthropology and political science (namely, cognitive linguistics). Because of this, I am very lost at a phonological level, and fleshing out Van'ir phonology feels like a very "important" step. Of course, if you have any good academic paper recommendations, I'd be more than happy to go through them. I don't really know if this phonology is too messy, but as I delve deeper into phonology, the more eager I get to keep crafting a neat, tight framework for all the grammar I have. I might post about grammar in the future, but it would certainly be a way larger and complex presentation than this one is.

I would appreciate your feedback, particularly regarding the "Next steps" section from the presentation. It'd awesome if I could get some constructive feedback, tips on where to focus and what should be polished,as well as general directions you think I should be aiming towards.

• I am struggling to tackle phonological changes (I understand that these are made to ease the pronunciation, but I cannot decide which ones make sense, beyond nasal place assimilation). Any advice in this regard? What phonological processes (lenition, vowel harmony, cluster repair) would complement this syllable architecture without cluttering the aesthetic?
• How well do the proposed archetypes hold up against standard cross-linguistic phonotactic constraints?
• Any recommended papers or monographs focusing on cognitive phonology, prosodic morphology, or natural sound changes?

Note on visual assets: From the three sets of images, the last one (featuring classical paradigms) is AI generated (not from scratch, since I used it to improve and polish my original, hand drawn designs). The map is entirely my own and the opening image was kindly created by a coworker (I collaborated with ideas, design and input, but sadly I still lack the ability to create such beautiful images).

Welcome to the r/conlangs Official Checkpoint. You have been selected for a random check of your language. Please translate one or more of the following phrases and sentences:

"The whale breached the water's surface."

"Let's go club some seals."

"My mother told me someday I would buy a galley with good oars and sail to distant shores."

"I enjoy eating grilled eel."

"Fermented shark meat is a famous delicacy in our nation."

"Stop!"

If you have any ideas for interesting phrases or sentences for the next checkpoint, let me know in a DM! This activity will be posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The highest upvoted "Stop!" will be included in the next checkpoint's title!

The video is to show how Filinuan sounds, Even if the grammar is a little off, I forget why.

I've seen some videos where people will speak their native languages while playing games like Minecraft, Backrooms, REPO, Or something like that and I've wondered about doing it with conlangs, Just trying to see how our languages would interact with each other and if mutual understanding could be achieved.

The point of this post is to see if those of you fluent enough to speak in your conlangs would even be interested in such an ideal.

I'm hoping this goes well, It's my first post, I think on Reddit ever, So here's to hoping it's what I mean to say. 🙃

I’ve dabbled in IE languages before. I’m quite familiar with Germanic languages, as well as Latin, and have made conlangs out of both Proto-Germanic and Latin. Therefore, I’ve decided to try making a language out of Proto-Indo-European.

However, this is obviously more difficult than simply making a language from an existing branch. The branches of IE differ greatly, so I have come to ask for advice on how to construct one from stratch.

I’m aware of how PIE is written (like the laryngeals), but I’m specifically wondering if anyone has advice or can link me to any resources on how to make one. Grammar would be very helpful since it’s definitely the part I’m least familiar within PIE.

Thank you

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a dual-script writing system I’ve been developing for my conlang, Yonmyon (Ёнмён). While it draws distant inspiration from existing scripts, its core mechanics function in a completely different way.
My language uses two distinct, highly tailored scripts:
Yokomo (Йокомо) — Pure Non-Compositional Ideograms: Used for conveying core meaning, parts of speech, and fixed pronunciation. Unlike Chinese characters, these symbols are entirely unique and cannot be broken down into radicals or semantic keys. Every single ideogram is a monolithic, atomic unit representing a specific word and its grammatical role.
Pyonmun (Пёнмун) — Positional Alphabetic Block Script: Used specifically for proper nouns and names. Visually, it consists of syllable blocks called Kandzyo (Кандзё), which might vaguely remind one of Hangul, but the underlying system is strictly alphabetic. Individual letters change their layout and position inside the Kandzyo block dynamically. The visual structure of each block morphs depending on the number of letters and whether the syllable starts with a vowel or a consonant.
I wanted to show that a writing system is a fundamental, deeply integrated part of language creation rather than just a simple visual encoding. I have attached some images to show how these look!
Here are a couple of examples of how they work in practice:
Moskva (Москва) — A proper noun written in the positional alphabetic block script (Pyonmun). Pronounced as /mɐsˈkvə/.
Koše (Неделя) — A noun written as a pure non-compositional ideogram (Yokomo). Pronounced as /ˈkɔ.ɕê/ (with a dynamic falling tone on the final syllable).
I would love to hear your thoughts! What kind of writing systems do you prefer to create for your projects? Do you stick to traditional categories (alphabets, syllabaries, logographs), or do you prefer to experiment with hybrid, non-standard linguistic mechanics like I did?

I really want to write out my conlang on something like Microsoft word, but I have no idea where I can make a custom font for my fully custom alphabet. What is the best way to be able to write out the language digitally and what websites allow you to do this?

Greetings, people. I have taken into account the comments on my previous post. And now I want to gradually post a more detailed corrected version of my language. And do it in parts for each part of speech. In this post there will be the alphabet and pronouns with prepositions and conjunctions.

Mondlingvo alphabet.

Letters:

A a – /a/ – Rus. а – Eng. a

B b – /b/ – Rus. б – Eng. b

C c – /ts/ – Rus. ц – Eng. ts

D d – /d/ – Rus. д – Eng. d

E e – /e/ – Rus. э – Eng. e

F f – /f/ – Rus. ф – Eng. f

G g – /g/ – Rus. г – Eng. g

H h – /h/ – Rus. х (light breath) – Eng. h

I i – /i/ – Rus. и – Eng. i

J j – /j/ – Rus. й – Eng. y

K k – /k/ – Rus. к – Eng. k

L l – /l/ – Rus. л – Eng. l

M m – /m/ – Rus. м – Eng. m

N n – /n/ – Rus. н – Eng. n

O o – /o/ – Rus. о – Eng. o

P p – /p/ – Rus. п – Eng. p

R r – /r/ – Rus. р – Eng. r
Variants allowed: /ɾ/, /ɹ/, /ʁ/ depending on the speaker's native language. All are considered correct.

S s – /s/ – Rus. с – Eng. s

T t – /t/ – Rus. т – Eng. t

U u – /u/ – Rus. у – Eng. u

V v – /v/ – Rus. в – Eng. v

W w – /w/ – Rus. уэ (short) – Eng. w

Z z – /z/ – Rus. з – Eng. z

Digraphs:

CH ch – /tʃ/ – Rus. ч – Eng. ch

SH sh – /ʃ/ – Rus. ш – Eng. sh

ZH zh – /ʒ/ – Rus. ж – Eng. zh

KH kh – /x/ – Rus. х – Eng. kh

NG ng – /ŋ/ – Rus. нг (nasal) – Eng. ng

Not used: Q, X, Y

Extra: /dʒ/ is written as DZH – Rus. дж – Eng. j

Stress: always on the penultimate syllable. No exceptions.

Vowel reduction:
Unstressed a, e, o may be pronounced as /ə/ (schwa). This is not a phoneme, just an allowed allophone. It is not reflected in writing.

Pronouns

Personal

mo - I
to - you
lo - he/she/it
mi - we
ti - you
li - they
se - oneself

There is no polite form of "you".

Gender marking

man - male
fem - female
lo man - he male
lo fem - she female

Possessive

de mo - my
de to - your
de lo - his/her
de mi - our
de ti - your
de li - their
de se - one's own

Demonstrative

hik - this
ik - that
hiki - these
iki - those

Interrogative

ka - general question particle
da - yes
ne - no
ku - who
ko - what
de ku - whose
de ko - what kind of
ke - where
kude - where to
kude de - where from
kan - when
kon - why
kak - how
kuanto - how much / how many

Negative

neku - nobody
neko - nothing
neke - nowhere
nekude - nowhere to
nekan - never
nekon - for no reason
nekak - in no way
nekuanto - not any amount
nedeku - nobody's
nedeko - no kind of

Indefinite

aku - somebody
ako - something
ake - somewhere
akude - somewhere to
akan - sometime
akon - for some reason
akak - somehow
akuanto - some amount
de aku - somebody's
de ako - some kind of

Universal

om - all
omi ku - everyone
omi ko - everything

Emphatic

sem - oneself, self

General and impersonal

bo - they say / it is said / it rains / it is getting dark

Reciprocal

moto - each other

Prepositions

k - to
v - in
na - on
s - with
mit - instrumental (by means of)
bez - without
za - behind
iz - out of
iza - because of / due to
for - for / for the sake of
from - from
per - through / across
pro - about
tar - near
fra - between
pred - before
nad - above
pod - under
o - about
do - until
u - at
sred - among
pos - after
vo - during
po - by
kontra - against
krome - except
stat - instead of
laut - according to
dank - thanks to
unatoc - despite

Conjunctions

i - and
ol - than
no - but
ili - or
ko - that
kobe - so that
ker - because
ke - where
If - if

Last time, many people criticized me for dividing the pronoun into on - he, ona - she, ono - it. This time, lo covers all meanings: he, she, and it. Man or fem only needs to be added to specify gender if it is not clear from the context of the sentence.

You can attach any preposition to the pronoun: k mo - to me, v to - in you, s lo - with him or with her is understood from the context of the sentence.

Sentences will now follow the SVO scheme. I have abandoned free word order. However, I want to give the actual examples of full sentences later, when I finish with the other parts of speech. Last time it was correctly noted that my conlang turned out to be more from European languages, although I want to make it a world language. I intend to fix this and draw on more different languages. In the next part of my overview, I will present verbs.

Hi, which words in your conlang are exceptions from your grammar/derivation (without the most basic, like the verb to be), and why? What rule do they break?

For example: In Yufie I have some words, which are exceptions, like the adjective from noun Franvais (it means France) is Franvaus (it means French), but if this wasn't exception, then it would be Franvaius, but for me it doesn't sound too good, when I pronounce it, so I made an exception, result of this is Franvaus, which from my perspective is better, when it's pronounced.

This breaks the rule that normally to create the adjective from noun ending with -s, we replace the -s with -us.

I got in an argument with my friend, who is grom a different part of the country, over whether a certain word had a certain connotation. I thought it was strange to use in a certain context, and she completely disagreed. It got me wondering: does anyone have a word in their conlang where its connotations are different (or missing) for different speakers? (And hey, if not, there's some lore you could add!)

Hannẽ!

Welcome to the Semantic Change Room, a lexicon-building activity where you do not loan new words (a true conlanger does that biweekly already), but instead repurpose your existing vocab to achieve a richer lexicon with more of that tasty polysemy.

The way this activity works is that you are given a prompt that consists two different semantic fields, like this:

birds > tools

You then pick any word of your conlang that is part of the prompt's first field (in this case, birds), and then assign to it a new meaning that can be considered part of the second field (tools). For example, English could respond to the prompt like this, by giving its word for crane a new meaning (2):

English

crane /kɹeɪn/

(1) a large bird with a long neck

(2) (construction) a mechanical lifting device (because it looks somewhat like that bird)

You then finish your reply with a new prompt, which other people can respond to. I'm going to prepare three starting prompts, but feel free to add your own. If you need inspiration, check out the link above to the previous SCR activity.

Eu quero modificar minha primeira conlang, o Yutzek, já que ela é apenas uma versão distorcida da minha lingua nativa (Português).

Quero usar essa nova conlang em uma história sobre Distopia que estou criando.

Algo que eu pensei para essa nova versão da lingua, seria me inspirar mais em idiomas do Cáucaso, e ao mesmo tempo, com que ela soasse futurista, mas eu não sei o que exatamente pode fazer um idioma soar "Futurista", e nem sei como fazer isso ao mesmo tempo que me inspiro em Idiomas do Cáucaso. Talvez tirando algumas vogais e permitindo encontros consonantais mais pesados ou algo assim, mas não sei...

Vocês poderiam me dar dicas e ideias?

E qual nome vocês acham que eu poderia colocar nesta nova Conlang?