Fastest way to build lexicon.

[AlphaOnOne]

First things first, I wanted to say hello.
"Hello!"

Secondly:
I have a conlang I have been working on and I was wondering, how do you guys like to build the conlang's vocabulary? A friend of mine says that he opens a dictionary and translates entire pages at a time, but I don't find this very effective, as you end up with words that would rarely be used. What are your guys' thoughts/opinions?

[Trailsend]

A friend of mine says that he opens a dictionary and translates entire pages at a time, but I don't find this very effective, as you end up with words that would rarely be used.

Another problem is that you end up with an English relex—your language ends up with tons of words that correspond one-to-one with words in English. For many conlangs, this is not desirable, as it isn't terribly interesting, and it isn't at all realistic.

What is the purpose of your language? Is it supposed to be spoken by a fictional group of people? Do you use it to keep a journal, or to talk with a friend, or...?

(The answer to this question has a big effect on the preferred ways to coin vocabulary :) )

[Ceresz]

By translating, pretty much. I just come up with words whenever I need them. I rarely use word generators, but when I do I modify the words and assign a meaning that feels right.

Also, what Trailsend said. I kinda have to think like my speakers; I have to figure out when to create new roots, when to use compounds (if they do) or when to use derivation.

[cybrxkhan]

Translating certain texts help, although I don't really have any suggestions - conlangers typically tend to suggest doing religious texts like the Bible, since it's something a good amount of people know about. You can also try making up words per thematic category (i.e., words relating to education and school; words relating to politics ad history; words relating to agriculture; etc.).

[AlphaOnOne]

I'm mostly creating this conlang to explore different types of grammatical structures. I've always been fascinated by language and my conlang project has helped me learn more about linguistics in general. Thanks for the help!

[Trailsend]

I'm mostly creating this conlang to explore different types of grammatical structures. I've always been fascinated by language and my conlang project has helped me learn more about linguistics in general.

Ah! Then making up words page by page from an English dictionary is definitely not the way to go. Languages differ in wonderfully interesting ways in terms of how their lexicons are structured, and where they draw semantic boundaries. Learning to redraw your own semantic boundaries is a very fun and productive exercise

For example! Here's a paper you may find interesting:

Universality and language specificity in object naming (PDF)

Check out the diagrams on pages 27-29. Each number represents a specific object; they are arranged in the diagram according to physical similarity. The experimenters asked speakers of English, Spanish, and Mandarin what they would call each of the objects. Then, they drew bubbles around each group of objects that had the same name. This lets you see clearly all the ways in which the words from the different languages don't line up.

If someone asks you "How do you say píng in English?", you have a problem. No matter what translation you give them, it's going to be a lie. Sometimes a píng is a "jar." Sometimes it's a "bottle." Other times it's a "container"! BUT! It is not the case that píng has three different meanings. You can see in the diagrams that píng has a very nice, cohesive shape. There is a single cohesive idea behind píng—the problem is just that it doesn't line up with any single cohesive idea in English.

So! If you're making up a language in order to broaden your mental horizons and learn about the different ways that languages do things, you'll definitely want to look into the semantic systems of various languages and practice breaking down your English brain's lexical boundaries. How would your language draw bubbles around the sixty objects in the experiment?

Thanks for the help!

No problem Can't wait to see what you come up with!

[M. Park]

I’ve found this to work well for me, feel free to comment on it.

First I will write a short Aesopy-fable or a dialog I want to be able to say. Then I go through and circle the words I have. Then I go through and try to see if there are any that fall into a category that could be derived. Then I consult me “Massive Flowchart of Word Derivation”(see picture)


http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6398 ... xample.jpg

So when I come up with a word. It forces me to think ‘what would the people who use this word also associate this word with’ and I connect it to another word. In this example, I’m not sure if you can read, but, for instance, I made up the verb ‘to like’ and from there I was able to derive the word for passion, and ‘to want’. And from passion I got ‘fire’ and ‘war’, and from war ‘love’. Not only does this allow me to make a lot of words, but it has a built in morphological relationship

[cybrxkhan]

To expand on Trailsend's point, knowing other languages can really help with making varied vocabulary and meanings (not to mention other aspects of conlanging). I personally know Vietnamese (technically L1), and a bit of Mandarin, and a tinge of French and Japanese, and all of them help me think about different ways different concepts are grouped together in different languages. Even languages comparatively close to English, like German or French, might have some differences (although they might be fewer in number).

[Khemehekis]

Another tup: don't think that just because a word is an adjective in English, it has to be an adjective in your conlang. The words "hungry", "thirsty" and "cold" (as in "I'm cold") are adjectives in English, but in the Romance languages people say, "I have hunger", "I have thirst" or "I have cold".

The verb "to like" is another example. You could do it like English, where we have a verb "to like", and the person who likes is the subject and whatever or whoever is liked is the object. You could do it like Italian, where they have a verb "piacere" and the person who likes is the object and whatever or whoever is liked is the subject. You could do it like Spanish, where they use a reflexive verb "gustarse" (to taste oneself), and sometimes the preposition "a". You could do it like Japanese, where they have an adjective "suki" (liked), and you say that something is liked by you. Or you could do it like German, where they have a verb "haben" (to have), accompanied by the adverb "gern" or "gerne".

In Kankonian, the adjective "bethiuala" means "a bleeding-heart", and the adjective "nobowon" means "a loner". Instead of saying "Sean deserves a spanking", people say:

Kakap abrikas Sean.
spank suit+PRESENT Sean
"A spanking suits Sean."

[Ilargi]

I’ve found this to work well for me, feel free to comment on it.

First I will write a short Aesopy-fable or a dialog I want to be able to say. Then I go through and circle the words I have. Then I go through and try to see if there are any that fall into a category that could be derived. Then I consult me “Massive Flowchart of Word Derivation”(see picture)


http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6398 ... xample.jpg

So when I come up with a word. It forces me to think ‘what would the people who use this word also associate this word with’ and I connect it to another word. In this example, I’m not sure if you can read, but, for instance, I made up the verb ‘to like’ and from there I was able to derive the word for passion, and ‘to want’. And from passion I got ‘fire’ and ‘war’, and from war ‘love’. Not only does this allow me to make a lot of words, but it has a built in morphological relationship

This is brilliant. I'm working on my first conlang, and I'll definitely try this out. Thanks a lot for posting this.

[M. Park]

The program I use is called Dia (http://live.gnome.org/Dia) it is free, as far as I know.

So far I’ve had problems exporting it as a nice clean image, but I may be exporting things wrong. The only thing I recommend is that you don’t go too crazy without also making a dictionary at the same time, because there is no way to actually search for things in the big flowchart version (unless I make some sort of X Y chart on the side)

[Trailsend]

So when I come up with a word. It forces me to think ‘what would the people who use this word also associate this word with’ and I connect it to another word. In this example, I’m not sure if you can read, but, for instance, I made up the verb ‘to like’ and from there I was able to derive the word for passion, and ‘to want’. And from passion I got ‘fire’ and ‘war’, and from war ‘love’. Not only does this allow me to make a lot of words, but it has a built in morphological relationship

An excellent process! Remember to keep in mind the word-boundary issue, though, because abstract ideas are even messier than concrete ones. For example, you have a verb that you translate as "to like"...but what does it really mean? What kinds of actual situations would you use this word to talk about?

Liking the taste of pizza?
Liking to do a particular activity?
Liking a person's personality?
Being sexually attracted to someone?
Considering something aesthetically appealing?
Approving of something from a moral standpoint?

Different languages could use the same word to refer to all of these different situations, or use any combination of different words to divide them up.

In Chinuk Wawa, the ideas of liking, wanting, and needing are all subsumed under the single concept of tiki. In Mandarin, yao4 can be used for many different circumstances where English would use want, need, or must.

Love is a classic example of an idea in English that gets cut up in many different ways in other languages. What kinds of situations does your language's word for love cover?

[M. Park]

For example, you have a verb that you translate as "to like"...but what does it really mean? What kinds of actual situations would you use this word to talk about?

Thanks. I had considered this aspect of things to a degree, with English synonyms ( ‘if I have a word for burn, do I need one for seer and scald, and char, etc etc), but I had failed to see it on the bigger scale. I guess a good example of English failing at this is the word funny. So the sentence "The Detective in the case of the clown serial kill found the evidence funny" it is unclear if the funny in question would be Ha-ha funny or 'hmm, how did the rubber nose get there' funny.

Once I finish the section in my conlang I’m working on now, I think I will review the words I have to see if the conculture would be more nuanced about them, and others they would be condensed.