TnT: Conlangs

[pipisafoat]

The first order of business today is a signal-boost. We're about writing, but we're also about caring about people. So let's try to do that some. (On a related note, if there's a humanitarian effort you ever want us to spread the word about, feel free to let any mod know.)
help_japan and help_japan are both charity auctions to, unsurprisingly, benefit Japan. Please investigate these communities and see if you can help at all.

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In our regular news, a final congratulations to 1stmate for winning the previous contest! All writers are reminded that contest 26 [premise: one morning, the sun doesn't rise] is open for entries until Monday at 10 pm GMT (5 pm EST).

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I think quite a few of us write science fiction and/or fantasy around here. I'm sure even more of us read those genres. Every now and then, I see authors constructing languages for a particular race or species in their books. Many many many years ago, I even started building a language of my own. For no particular reason, and not very well, but hey, I tried it! Have you? Perhaps more importantly, how do you feel about someone (yourself included) using an invented language in a book?

Conlangs: What's your opinion?

Comments

[ex_pippin880]

And, I mean, the simple act of choosing names for your characters and places is conlanging -- you're picking what phonemes exist in their language (or what words, if you have a name like Daisy which is understood to be the English translation of their alien word for the daisy plant), possibly how they gender names, whether they can have consonant clusters in their language...

[pipisafoat]

Now I really really really want some sort of something in which a character from Earth is named Daisy and meets some aliens, to whom to the word "daisy" is some sort of horrible curse or something. Oh, the potential fun! *bounces*

[ex_pippin880]

There's a Fry & Laurie (I thiiiink) sketch of something similar, but based around Earth languages and a business deal, but alas I cannot locate it on youtube.