Short version: anatomy is important, then grammar and vocabulary. Be consistent.

Last week we considered how you can modify known tongues to fit what you need for a fictional language. Now we’ll go farther afield. Unless you are a professional linguist [waves at Margaret Ball] or J.R.R. Tolkien, you will probably not write the whole book in your speech, or go into overwhelming detail. That’s what appendices are for, or a separate world guide that you sell to readers at a later date.

Once I created a language from scratch, Azdhagi. The first thing I did was set the constraints based on anatomy. The species is reptilian and does not have easily movable lips. Labile sounds are out, unless they can be produced through the nose or palatized (tongue on roof of mouth). No “p, b,” and so on. Facial movement is also limited, so body language along with spoken words are crucial for communication. Or in some cases, lack of body language, as the ability to hide one’s emotion (involuntary movements) is a sign of self-discipline and nobility. The language is not exactly nasal, but a number of sounds do come from the nasal cavities, or are tongue-on-palate, hisses, and semi-growls that are very, very hard for humanoids to do correctly*.

Azdhagi has more gutterals than does English, because without flexible lips, sounds like t and d run together. Instead the Azdhagi use lots of bright vowel sounds, like ee, ae, ai, sibilants, and “puffed” sounds made through the upper resonator (a grunt-like sound through the nose) or in the rear of the mouth. The language is partially inflected, but not as much as Chinese, for example.

Azdhag grammar is based on word order. The basic pattern is: subject (modifiers) verb (modifiers) object (modifiers, including indirect object), time signifier. So you would say “Mammal Lord Ni Drako go to manor Singing Pines with Zabet concubine tomorrow.” Rada’s war fan, from which she gets her court name of Lord Reh-dakh, is a reh-dakh schleerah a “fan iron weapon/war.” Not too hard, is it? We’ll skip what happens when you start getting adverbial phrases and descriptive clauses.

The time signifier came about because originally Azdhag had no separation between simple past and other past tenses, ditto future tense. At some point prior to the Great Relocation, the time signifier developed in order to show how far in the past or future the action did/will take place.

You probably don’t need to get that far into the weeds, unless you intend to use the language in a series of books, and it is very important to the story, as Azdhagi is in the Cat Among Dragons series. Or you are channeling J. R. R. Tolkien, or your character is a philologist with a habit of rhapsodizing about linguistics. The key is to set rules, remember anatomy (if not humanoid), and be consistent.

Image Credit: Image by Peter H from Pixabay

*That also applies to the written language, which is done with a talon filed into the proper tip shape. The PoV character’s claws won’t work. They are too short and narrow, so she has to use a writing stick. Calligraphy is not one of her skills.