How to Make a Conlang out of English

Ok.  My experience has been that some conlangers out there do not like it when your conlang is too... Englishey. This generally means your conlang has basically the same syntax and grammar as English, and the same sounds, too.  There might be a few twists in there - an extra case, some extra phonemes, a different alphabet, but overall, pretty close to English.

And really, who can blame them?  For those that take the time to learn and understand linguistics and all the concepts behind it, it looks and feels lazy and uninspired. For the record, I do not encourage conlanging snobbery, I'm just saying that I understand where it comes from.

But... if you DON'T know lots of linguistics, and don't care to study all the principles and so forth, what else can you do?  If you know a second language you can mash up the two languages you know.  But aside from that, how else can you build a language?

Being the conlang contrarian I am, I think you can transform English into an elegant, simple conlang if you understand at least a few linguistic principles, and because you're using English underneath it, you might be able to make it more sophisticated than you would otherwise be able to.

Here's my formula:


Step One: Restrict (and simultaneously simplify) the phonemes.  If you must, throw in some non-English sounds (like zh, a trill, a click, etc.)

Step Two: Figure out how you will substitute sounds as you translate words from English to your conlang.
Example: lets say the phonemes we picked in step one are P, T, K (P, T, & K are in almost every language), L, N, M, H, J, long and short vowels - I, U, O, and Y as a semi-vowel.
So, lets make a rule that any voiced plosive becomes non-voiced (b=p, d=t, g=k).
E's will become I's, A's will become U's.
Other semi-vowels (W, R) will beome Y.
Other fricatives will become H or be dropped.
Long vowel sounds will be shown by repeating the letter.  You know how to say "beet" but e's are now i's in this conlang, so you would have to write it as "biit," but it would sound the same.  There are a lot of issues we could get into here, but I'm just creating a framework to give an example of how this might work.
So, "cinnamon" would become hinnumon.  "Bulletin" would become pullitin.
"Keep this reference near you at all times" would become "Kiip hi yeheyen niu yu ut ul tiim" or something like that...

Step Three: Develop an altered grammar and syntax.
Example: Let's use a Yoda syntax and go for OSV (Object - Subject - Verb).
Lets use -im to make something plural.  Some "times" is now tiimim.
Let make ku- a prefix that shows command form of a verb.

So - according to the grammar rules, "Keep this reference near you at all times" would become "Near you, this reference keep at all times."
Then we apply the rest of the rules and "Near you, this reference keep at all times" would then become:

"Niu yu, hi yeheyen ku-kiip ut ul tiimim"

I don't know about you, but that does not look Englishey to me!  But hopefully you see my point, which is just that if you apply a few linguistic principles, you can make English, or whatever your native tongue is, into your own little conlang, and not have to worry as much about generating vocabulary and so on.  Try this out for yourself and see what you think.