Category Archives: conlang community building

Conlex- Here is what I hope it means

Posted on November 6, 2013 by matthewdeanmartin

Conlex– a sort of activity for people creating new (or reviving dead/nearly dead) languages by actually speaking them into existence. It entails create a language, especially the materials necessary for learners and then doing what it takes to get a … Continue reading →

Posted in conlang community building, conlang learning | 2 Comments

Content Management for Conlangs

Posted on January 30, 2013 by matthewdeanmartin

I’m considering my options for posting the evolving definition and learning materials for a small conlang. Plain html. Evolves poorly. Easy to set up for a single document. Wiki Evolves well, but at the end it will look like a … Continue reading →

Posted in conlang community building | 3 Comments

Dating is a Conlang Creation Methodology

Posted on December 9, 2012 by matthewdeanmartin

Dating, especially the sort that allows for finding people with very particular special interests, happens to be relevant to conlanging of the sort where you create a language by actually speaking it at home with kids. – OKCupid allows for … Continue reading →

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How to show off a conlang, a fan’s opinion

Posted on July 22, 2012 by matthewdeanmartin

I tend to invest more of my time into studying and using fake languages than I do making them. Here are some of the things I’d like to see when a new language bursts on the scene. Keep in mind … Continue reading →

Posted in conlang community building, conlang licensing, conlang use | 1 Comment

Conlangs, Identity and Motivation

Posted on August 25, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

Someone asked me what the heck “identity” is and I couldn’t describe it very well. Your identity are all the things that you do that you do because of who you think you are. I’m a middle class American, so … Continue reading →

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Culture is not normally embedded in language like a paracite

Posted on July 24, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

While I enjoy putting on my viking hat and woolly sweater, getting out the skyr an playing some Sykur while I’m studying Icelandic– Icelandic would still be Icelandic without all of that cultural stuff.  For every charismatic word that says … Continue reading →

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Conlang Flash Card Heaven

Posted on July 22, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

I’ve recently discovered digital, time spaced, flashcards. I like Anki, but other similar ones exist. So now I have a lot of opinions about a conlanger’s flashcard strategy.  I think this is the number one nice thing that a conlanger … Continue reading →

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How do I say my name in ….

Posted on July 11, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

This is probably the first question I have when ever I get more than a mild interest in a constructed language. Surprisingly, this often is poorly documented and there is usually a tedious discussion about the merits of picking a … Continue reading →

Posted in conlang community building, conlang design | 2 Comments

When should a conlang community switch from English?

Posted on July 10, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

When a conlang is brand new, there is no choice in the matter– development and tutoring must occur in English (or what ever you and your audience’s language is). To attempt to use your conlang from the onset as the … Continue reading →

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Why Na’vi and Klingon are doing so well despite the concultures

Posted on July 8, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

The vast majority of activity for Na’vi is on the learnnavi.org website, especially the forums. The community, similar to Klingon’s current main forum, is about 80% monolingual fandom and 20% fandom that has invested time into learning the language. The … Continue reading →

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Why learn a conlang, a dead language or otherwise rare language

Posted on July 7, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

I just read this article, Why you Should Learn a Language and noticed that those are reasons to learn lingua francas, ie. languages spoken by a lot of native speakers or that are routinely used by people as a 2nd … Continue reading →

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First, we memorize a heap of words-Paper and Pencil Techniques

Posted on July 2, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

This is the first step of joining a conlang community and an early stage step in designing a language. You can’t really design a language unless you gain some proficiency in it. I’ve been putting off learning all the stems … Continue reading →

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Fan Friendliness

Posted on June 28, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

If you do want to be fan friendly. You don’t have to write an auxlang, either in goals or in language features to have a fan friendly language. Keep it small–what ever feels like the smallest vocabulary. “Complete” the language … Continue reading →

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My Conlang Manifesto

Posted on June 23, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

Please see the Conlang Manifesto Manifesto before subscribing to any advice here. Unless you are me, this doesn’t really apply to anyone, least of all those writing conlangs as amusing reference grammars, auxlangs or conlangs to support the writing of … Continue reading →

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Conlangers Reading List

Posted on June 10, 2011 by matthewdeanmartin

(I’ll be updating this with specific book recommendations… soon) Field Linguistics Manuals Especially the Morphosyntax related ones. Many field linguistics focus a lot on how to get information out of the head of the fluent speaker. Those techniques, obviously, don’t … Continue reading →

Posted in conlang community building, conlang design | 2 Comments