
<p><em>This page is currently a stub.</em></p>
<p>This page is meant to host all of my conlang work over the years. It's currently very incomplete and will be updated as I dig things out of old notebooks and hard drives.</p>
<h3>Sketches from old notebooks</h3>
<ul>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/akinam">Akinam</a> (2018, sketch): A language influenced grammatically by Sumerian, with a limited stock of nominal roots and extensive compounding.</li>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/dara-vai">Dara Vai</a> (2018, sketch): A language influenced grammatically by Hausa and phonologically by Manchu.</li>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/fasik">Fasik</a> (2021, sketch): A lightly inflected conlang influenced grammatically, but not phonologically, by Latin.</li>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/hiskaras">Hiskaras</a> (2015, sketch): A sketch of a language with some influence from Middle Egyptian.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Languages of the Owl-Chicken World</h3>
<h4>Qal family</h4>
<ul>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/proto-qal">Proto-Qal</a> (2021)</li>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/justamija">Justamija</a> (2021)</li>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/lenethailef">Lenethailef</a> (2022)</li>
</ul>
<h4>Sakrat family</h4>
<ul>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/lenethailef">Proto-Sakrat</a> (2022)</li>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/myinh">Myǐnh</a> (2022)</li>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/sasyut">Sasyut</a> (2022)</li>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/kra-nlzor">Kra Nzlor</a> (2022)</li>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/pkwak">Pkwak</a> (2022)</li>
</ul>
<h4>Creoles</h4>
<ul>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/selal-sela">Selal Sela</a> (2022)</li>
</ul>
<h3>Other projects</h3>
<ul>
  <li><a href="/conlangs/zgljak-skp&#x27;waq">Zgljak Skp'waq</a> (2022): A Toki Pona "ruinlex".</li>
</ul>


My conlangs


<p><em>Wouldn't it be cool to invent your own alphabet? A unique form of calligraphy all your own? A script for one of the cultures in a world that you're building? Do you have a conlang that is crying out for a way to be written?</em></p>
<p>If you've ever asked yourself questions like these, <strong>Inventing Alphabets</strong> is for you. This course is a guided introduction to the practice of creating original writing systems as well as a grand tour of the anthropology, history, and linguistics of the world's writing systems.</p>
<h2>Course Goals</h2>
<p>By the end of this course, you will:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Have invented an original writing system for a language of your choosing (could be a conlang!)</li>
  <li>Understand the organizational principles which govern writing systems.</li>
  <li>Have become aware of the diversity of the world's existing writing systems.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Course Structure</h2>
<ul>
  <li>Students: <strong>10</strong></li>
  <li>Length: <strong>2hr sessions x 6 weeks</strong> (taught live over Zoom)
    <ul>
      <li>4 lecture sessions</li>
      <li>2 workshop sessions (space for Q&#x26;A and working side-by-side on your own writing systems)</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Technical details: you can use whatever medium you like to create your system (either digital or using paper), as long as there's some way to show us what you've been working on! :smiley:</li>
</ul>
<h2>Syllabus</h2>
<h3>Week 1: The Origins and Development of Writing</h3>
<p>The goal of this class is to get you acquainted with how writing works and where it came from. First, we'll disentangle the ideas of language and writing: these things are distinct but related, and related in interesting ways. Then we'll explore the origins of writing. We'll look at the material, social, and economic environments in which writing first arose, and how these things influenced the shape of early writing systems. We'll end with an interactive exercise to explore the effect of writing material and technology on the visual aspects of writing systems.</p>
<h3>Week 2: The Structure of Writing Systems</h3>
<p>The goal of this class is to introduce you to the internal structure and logic of writing systems, using the Latin alphabet (the one you're reading right now) as an example. We'll look in more depth at the many ways in which writing relates to language. Then we'll introduce the different organizing principles that the writing systems of the world use which we'll be delving more deeply into in the second half of the course. We'll end with an exercise to develop an alternative alphabet for English or another language.</p>
<h3>Week 3: Workshop Session 1</h3>
<p><em>Workshop sessions are a combination of co-working, show and tell, troubleshooting, and office hours.</em></p>
<h3>Week 4: Writing Sound</h3>
<p>The goal of this class is to introduce you to the families of non-alphabetic writing systems that nevertheless represent sound: these are the <strong>abjad</strong>, <strong>abugida</strong>, and <strong>syllabary</strong>. We'll be looking in depth at three systems: the Hebrew abjad, the Devanagari abugida, and the Cherokee syllabary. The class will finish with an exercise where we try to adapt the alphabet we made last time into an abjad, abugida, or syllabary.</p>
<h3>Week 5: Writing Meaning</h3>
<p>The goal of this class is to introduce you to the family of <strong>morphographic</strong> writing systems, systems which primarily encode minimal units of meaning (i.e. <strong>morphemes</strong>) rather than sound. We'll look at the ways these systems manage the complexity of representing all the morphemes in a language, when the number of morphemes in a language has no upper limit. We will use as our examples Chinese characters, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and cuneiform. Finally, we'll end with an exercise to add some morphographic elements to one of the writing systems we've worked on in previous weeks.</p>
<h3>Week 6: Workshop Session 2</h3>
<p><em>Workshop sessions are a combination of co-working, show and tell, troubleshooting, and office hours.</em></p>
<h2>Who Should Sign Up?</h2>
<p>This course requires no linguistic training, knowledge of any languages but English, or artistic prowess. What it does require is a spirit of curiosity and play: <strong>curiosity</strong> because you'll be learning a lot about how people have written things across time and space, and <strong>play</strong> because you'll be experimenting, brainstorming, sketching and revising until you've made the writing system of your heart's desire.</p>


Inventing Alphabets


<h2>Course Goals</h2>
<p>This course is a hands-on introduction to making constructed languages (or <strong>conlangs</strong>) as a creative pursuit, taught by a linguist and experienced conlanger. The course also serves as an introduction to linguistics, but instead of learning the material in a dry, lecture style, you'll learn it all by doing. By the end of the course, you'll not only have created a language of your own, but you'll also have the ability to repeat the process and create whole worlds full of languages.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Colin is an absolute genius, a patient teacher, and a thrilling linguist.</p>
  <p>
    He encouraged our cohort to explore unique directions and was able to facilitate everyone’s different ideas. Throughout the course, Colin brought each of our projects from a handful of lip-and-tongue noises to a complex, beautiful, and unique language. I hope to take another course with him soon!
    —Jake
  </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Length / Commitment</h2>
<ul>
  <li>Length: 6 weeks</li>
  <li>Classes: 2-hour live workshop sessions
    <ul>
      <li>These are live sessions but are recorded for you to review if you need to miss a session.</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Homework: Approx. 1 hour per week</li>
  <li>Also includes:
    <ul>
      <li>Course textbook written by me, Colin (~90pp)</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>
<h2>Syllabus / Schedule</h2>
<h3>Week 1: Introduction</h3>
<p>What is a language and what does it mean to construct a language? In this session you’ll learn enough of the basics of linguistics to figure out what we need to do to make our first conlang. We’ll use this knowledge to break the task into chunks and set up a logical progression which will guide the rest of the course. Finally I’ll send you away with a mission to find a spark of inspiration for your first language that will guide you throughout the process.</p>
<h3>Week 2: Sounds</h3>
<p>What gives a language its unique sound? In this session, you'll learn about the range of sounds made by the languages of the world. You'll also learn a system of classifying sounds and use that information to create a palette of sounds for your language to draw on.</p>
<h3>Week 3: From Sounds to Words</h3>
<p>In this chapter, you'll learn how to combine sounds to make words according to a blueprint that you'll develop for your language. This is where your language starts develop its unique flavour.</p>
<h3>Week 4: From Words to Sentences</h3>
<p>This session is about going from your language’s first words to your language’s first sentences. To do this, we’ll learn the different strategies languages use to package meaning into words. Then we’ll learn about the different ways languages express relationships between words. This will give us the tools to start making sentences.</p>
<h3>Weeks 5–6: A More Powerful Grammar, Parts 1 and 2</h3>
<p>In these sessions we will start to increase the expressive power of your language by introducing the many things you can do with sentences that are not so simple. You'll learn thrilling grammatical strategies for adding additional details about when, where, and why something happened. You'll marvel at the ease with which you'll be combining sentences – ok, look: it's hard to write a captivating description of grammatical topics. But trust me, we'll have fun making your language capable of doing more.</p>
<h2>Artifacts</h2>
<p>By the end of the course, you will have created a set of core reference material for a new language:</p>
<ul>
  <li>A short guide to your language, including information on spelling, pronunciation, as well as how to form words and sentences.</li>
  <li>A small dictionary for your language</li>
  <li>A translation of a short fable (&#x3C; 100 words in English)</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
  <p>
    I must say I was really curious before we started the course - and all of my expectations went completely fulfilled. I think the course is really well structured as a sort of path that guides the student through the basic steps of building a conlang. At week 0, I knew nothing about conlangs and in just two months I got to write a sample story, how exciting!
    —Sandro
  </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Who Should Sign Up</h2>
<p>This course is for you if you:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Have a creative project you'd like to make a realistic language for (e.g. authors, game designers, worldbuilders).</li>
  <li>Want to learn to conlang as a creative pursuit.</li>
  <li>Are curious about linguistics and want to learn it in a fun and creative way.</li>
</ul>
<p>But it's probably not for you if you...</p>
<ul>
  <li>Are an experienced conlanger (this will be too basic for you).</li>
  <li>Are most interested in making a planned language for international communication (i.e. an auxlang).</li>
</ul>
<h2>Requirements</h2>
<ul>
  <li>No linguistics background is assumed.</li>
  <li>You'll need a Google account to participate in shared Google Docs/Sheets.</li>
</ul>


My conlangs

Sketches from old notebooks

Languages of the Owl-Chicken World

Qal family

Sakrat family

Creoles

Other projects

Related Courses

Inventing Alphabets

Language Construction Workshop

Conlang with me... live