Inventing Languages - A Practical Introduction

"Grounded on world building and the variation displayed by the world's languages, this book is an engaging, step-by-step guide to language invention. It presents a creative, interdisciplinary approach to conlanging that can be of interest to readers interested in language invention, particularly those without a previous background in linguistics"--

List of contents

Abbreviations; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. What are constructed languages?; 2. World building; 3. Designing vowel inventories; 4. Designing consonant inventories; 5. From sounds to syllables; 6. Stress and tone; 7. The lexicon; 8. The morphology of nouns; 9. The morphology of verbs; 10. Word order; 11. Statements, questions and commands; 12. Negation and evidentials; 13. Complex sentences; 14. Writing systems; 15. Semantics and pragmatics; 16. Variation in space and time; 17. Language channels and modalities; 18. Wrapping up and moving forward; Appendix A: natlangs mentioned; Appendix B: conlangs mentioned.

About the author

Carolina González is Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at Florida State University.

Summary

Grounded on world building and the variation displayed by the world's languages, this book is an engaging, step-by-step guide to language invention. It presents a creative, interdisciplinary approach to conlanging that can be of interest to readers interested in language invention, particularly those without a previous background in linguistics.

Foreword

Provides an engaging, hands-on introduction to linguistics and language invention, making linguistic typology accessible to a wide audience.

Product details

• Authors: Carolina Gonzalez, Carolina (Florida State University) Gonzalez, Carolina González, Gonzalez Carolina
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 30.04.2025, delayed
• EAN: 9781108836166
• ISBN: 978-1-108-83616-6
• No. of pages: 426
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Social sciences, law, business > Media, communication > Communication science; Linguistics, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General, Artificial languages, Bilingualism and multilingualism, Research methods: general, Research methods / methodology