This is my second post on the languages of Innocence Seekers: The Black Rose. This time, though, I will be detailing the process by which I create my conlangs for Innocence Seekers. The process of creating a language is long and hard, as one would need to think about every aspect of the language’s grammar and vocabulary. Indeed, for many languages, I have nothing to show for it except a list of numbers. It is far easier for me to create a language from a pre-existing language (for obvious reasons), and it is these languages which are the most well-developed for me.
The first thing I do for an a priori language (i.e. a language with an original vocabulary) is to determine its purpose within Innocence Seekers. If it is a naturalistic language, I begin with the proto-language. I first deduce the phonology and phonotactics of this proto-language, create some words, and some basic grammar, then I apply sound changes to the proto-language. Of course, as I go, I will change the grammar of the daughter languages.
An example is the Nodaimese language. While it is not well-developed yet, it is clearly a nominative-accusative language with subject-verb agreement. Note that Proto-Nodaimic was not fully a nominative-accusative language; instead it displayed split ergativity, depending on the animacy of the subject. For all intransitive verbs, the sole core argument did not take any suffix. For transitive verbs, however, the suffixes used to mark the arguments depend on whether they are animate or inanimate. In this case, *-t was the accusative case marker, used for animate nouns, and *-s was the ergative case marker, used for inanimate nouns. In Old Nodaimese, the language transitioned to a nominative-accusative alignment, generalising the -t suffix (which later became -ta) to all nouns. The old ergative suffix -s was then repurposed as an instrumental case.
Also through the process of language change irregularities can arise. The Nodaimese word for “person” is dei. If this noun were completely regular, one would expect its accusative form to be *deita. However, it is instead delata. This is because the Old Nodaimese form was del, with accusative delat, and word-final /l/ regularly became /j/.
For a posteriori languages, the process is easier. Since there is already a vocabulary and an original grammar, I would only need to apply sound changes and make adjustments to the grammar to create a new language. However, I’m free to take liberties with the grammar, and I may take into account language contact.
An example is the Namari language. Based on Japanese, it is my most well-developed conlang in the Innocence Seekers universe. Although, in-universe it forms a dialect continuum with Japanese, the central dialects are sufficiently divergent enough to be considered a separate language (and let’s not get started on the highly divergent western dialects). The dialects have between 10 and 13 cases, and the central and western dialects have a rich conjugational system, consisting of as many as seven moods and up to 16 tense-aspect combinations. Conversely, the extensive formal and honorific conjugational forms found in Japanese have been significantly reduced, leaving only a politeness marker and an honorific agreement marker. And even then, in the central and western dialects, the politeness marker is falling out of use and the honorific markers are evolving into a gender system.
One thing which I try to think about for all of my languages is creating sample texts. Most conlangers go for “standard texts” such as the Lord’s Prayer or the Tower of Babel passage. However, I’ve decided to follow conlanger Mark Rosenfelder’s advice found in his Language Construction Kit: “Every sentence you write is an opportunity to develop the lexicon, confront syntactic oddities, and show off the culture” (emphasis mine). This particularly applies to Namari, as the Kingdom of Namari’s Christian, Jewish and Muslim populations total less than ten thousand combined (out of a population of around 300 million in the 2012 census). The Kingdom of Likkra has around 20,000 in the Japanese and Namari speaking areas (you’re actually more likely to find an English-speaking Christian in Likkra than a Namari-speaking Christian, even though English is a minority language in Likkra). This means that translating the Babel text to Namari would not showcase the culture of the people of Namari. Instead, I’ve chosen texts which are closer to the speakers’ cultures for my languages (the only “standard text” I will use is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). For Nillonan, I could do the Lord’s Prayer, or the Babel text, but I felt that the Iliad was a better sample text (since the majority of the Kingdom of Cedysna’s inhabitants are pagan). For Namari, I have a passage of Magical Kurumi-chan (a fictional magical girl manga/anime in the Innocence Seekers universe) as a sample text.
That’s all I’ll say for today. Look forward to the next episode of Innocence Seekers: April Light, and I hope I don’t get struck down with writers’ block before then.
P.S. I found this drawing of Chino of Is the Order a Rabbit? cosplaying as Swim Swim of Magical Girl Raising Project (both are voiced by Inori Minase). The illustrator has also done Cocoa as La Pucelle (Ayane Sakura).