Originally posted on Wordpress on 14 April 2021

A naming language is a very basic conlang: a phonology, an orthography, a small dictionary, and enough grammar to name things: people, places, deities, etc. Naming languages aren't intended used for full sentences or passages, so there's no need to create detailed grammars.

Of course, you can always do that. Your conlang just wouldn't be a strict naming language anymore.

Step 1: Phonology

The first thing I think about when creating a naming language is (aside from the culture that will be speaking it, of course) the phonology. A phonology is the sounds that comprise a language and how those sounds fit together - syllables, morae, stress, tone, etc.

What consonants do I want the language to have? What vowels? Do I want consonant clusters? Diphthongs? Vowel harmony? All those decisions are made in this stage.

Looking at the phonology of a real-world language can be helpful. If I want a language to sound Finnish, or Japanese, or Irish, I look at the sounds of that particular language.

In my amateur conlanger opinion, Wikipedia is actually a pretty good reference for phonology. Here are the Wikipedia pages for Finnish phonology, Japanese phonology, and Irish phonology.

Picking phonemes

Now, let's pick out some vowel sounds: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/

And some consonants: /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /s/, /ʃ/, /x/, /j/, /ɹ/

I like to organize this information in tables:

Labial Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop p t k
Fricative s ʃ x
Approximant ɹ j

Front Central Back
Close i e
Mid e o
Open a

Some of these sounds may look unfamiliar to those unfamiliar with linguistics:

If you want to familiarize yourself with IPA, here's an IPA chart with sounds.

For this example conlang, I've decided against having diphthongs or vowel harmony. Maybe another time!

Deciding on a syllable structure

Syllables can have relatively simple structures of CV, like in me /mi/ or more ridiculous structures like CCCVCCCC, like in strengths /stɹɛŋkθs/. Yes, that's three consonants, followed by one vowel, followed by four more consonants, all in the same syllable.

Let's use a simple CV syllable structure, where C = any consonant and V = any vowel. This produces syllables such as:

Stress

This probably isn't entirely necessary for a naming language, especially if you never actually plan on pronouncing any of the words you create. I like to do it anyway.

Let's put the stress on the first syllable of a word, because that's pretty easy to remember:

Step 2: Orthography

What letters are you going to use to represent the sounds of your language? I generally like to stick with something naturalistic. There's no reason, of course, that you can't use to represent /t/, or to represent /a/. However, a language that did that would be obnoxious.

Letter h k m n ng p r
Sound /x/ /k/ /m/ /n/ /ŋ/ /p/ /ɹ/
Letter s sh t y
Sound /s/ /ʃ/ /t/ /j/

Letter a e i o u
Sound /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/

I generally arrange my orthography like this, with separate tables for consonants and vowels. I find it's easier to keep track of things this way.

Step 3: A Dictionary

This is where I start creating the words I need - names & placenames. I generally find creating words to be pretty tedious, so this is my least favorite part of the process.

Usually what I do is create a word and assign an meaning to it. Here are a couple of examples using the words I created earlier:

This continues until I have all the words I think I need. Most of my planning & worldbuilding happens before I start writing, but it's inevitable that I miss something and end up having to come up with a couple more names later on in the story.

Step 4: Basic Grammar

Sometimes I skip this part if all I need are names. Okay, I usually skip this part for a naming language. But it may be worthwhile to work out how adjectives modify nouns or how the verbs in your language work. This usually requires deciding which cases, genders/classes & numbers a noun/adjective is marked for, and tense (at the very least) for verbs.

Two naming languages I created for The Book of Immortality:

Meitsung soré: the main language of the elves and the humans in the Meitsung Empire.

Mayu lháni: the language of the tigers. It has the sound /ɬ/ , which I think is most commonly known as the Welsh sound.