Hello! I'm still alive. And I'm still conlanging.
A brief summary of the decade-long hiatus: we moved from California to Texas at the beginning of 2013, and I was really busy with work and starting a lightsaber group, cosplaying, gaming and other geeky things after the move. I wasn't sure what else I had to add to the conlanging space while all these movies and TV shows with amazing conlangs were dropping left and right.
In 2009, we got Avatar with the Na'avi conlang by Paul Frommer. In 2011, we got Game of Thrones with Dothraki fleshed out by the very awesome David Peterson. In 2013 we got Defiance, Syfy's TV series with multiple conlangs by the still very awesome David Peterson. Maybe I wanted to sit back and let the pros teach me for awhile, but I kept playing with conlanging here and there. Whenever I thought about MakeALAng, I couldn't get into the same headspace and come up with anything that I thought would be of broad interest.
In 2022, I was amazed to find a few of my old posts being referenced in various articles and Youtube videos, which was incredibly flattering. My intent with MakeALang, from the beginning, was always to try and break down the complex bits of conlanging and simplify things both to increase my own understanding and hopefully make it more accessible for others.
This year I'm doing a lot of writing, and I wanted to write some more for MakeALang!
So lets start things off easy: a list of My Top Six Conlanging Tools in 2023.
1. IPA Chart. An interactive page showing all the IPA phonemes - and you can click to hear them. Basic but classic.
2. IPA Reader. An online tool that reads the IPA phonemes you input, and a great way to double-check you are getting your sounds right.
3. LanguaGen. Made by the same guy that was behind the go-to Awkwords site (Ian A. Cook), LanguaGen is the new resource for word generation. A fantastic tool - simple and intuitive. Click the HELP button in the top right corner to get all the details, create the rules and it can generate as many variations as you need. There are some additional conlanging tools (still in beta but can be used) linked in the upper right of the screen tha are worth exploring, but may be higher level than what you're looking for. Good to have on hand for when you GET to that level, though.
4. Excel/Google Sheets/Open Office. Spreadsheets remain an incredibly useful conlanging tool. Google Sheets is accessible across devices
5. 625 Words. Years back I cited Rick Harrison's ULD as a good wordlist to use for word generation, which it still is. However, 2000 words is a tall order. 625 words is much more manageable and great for using as roots to combine and make other words. Links to pdf file that can be copies and pasted into spreadsheets.
6. Vulgerlang. If you want a computer to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, this is the tool for you. However, if you don't know any of the concepts and principals of linguistics, the results won't be so great. At the very least, this can be a great tool for gaining deeper understanding of how all the pieces of linguistics fit together.
BUT, once you gain a better understanding of linguistics, Vulgerlang can really help speed things up, especially if you can give it a list of 625 words that you already like.
So there you go, short and sweet. Have a great day and keep building your conlanging toolbox!
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