The VG Resource

so exactly what it says on the tin, I would like to try and invent a language in the interest of an engaging game universe of which I've been theory crafting for a while but have yet to write up (which I should probably do before I forget characters names, families and so on)
I do not understand as much about linguistics as I should for attempting this so forgive amatuerity and by all means if you wish to feel free to engage in the crafting of the language, it'd be a great help.
Now to my understanding the base of a language should be the means of its writing and or speaking, its syntax in using and its alphabet, for which I have an idea but not much to go on.
I'll begin with its alphabet, inspired by a very lack-luster knowledge of romanized eastern languages and a hint of inspiration of compound wording from german, I propose an alphabet consisting of tiny words with a suggested but not always intended meaning, depending on the context, I'll throw together some here as an example, hpefully we can refine it to make more sense over time,
With this in mind I think the language should have an emphasis on Names as means of giving context, you could accidentally say something is to drive crazy, but mention by name a vehicle and in doing so make the same words carry a meaning of to drive unsafely, etc.

Code:
Writing (romanized sounding) - Isolated meaning - Grouped implications

Ci (see) - Light - to be large or powerful or righteous, good or more literally of Light

Tau (tow) - Hand - assisting, involved, physically or figuratively part of something

Bu (boo) - Home - to belong, be part of, to have built or to be harbouring

Utc (oots) - End - to finish, to kill, to leave in darkness or forsaken 

So this is just an example I expect a better understanding of the language will result in a better vocabulary, but a few example words to show my meaning,

Code:
Writing (romanized sounding) - literal meaning - interpreted meaning - name

Cibutau (see-boo-tow) - the great help of the home - the strong support of the home - a home guard

Ciutc (see-oots) - the lights end - a righteous end - a martyr

Untcbu (oot-boo) - to kill home - to betray - a traitor

a bit of context to the city in which this takes place wouldn't hurt I suppose, its not completely necessary but if you think it'll help feel free to read it, also apologies in advanced, I need to work on my writing skills, I can think up a story fine but writing it down isnt my strong suit.

The Civilization of Cinti

In the beginning there was nothing but a wave, the the wake of the wave worlds came to be and ceased to be, but eventually some of these worlds made waves of themselves, these echo'd through the other worlds, making changes to the wave and all that it spawns, this, to the beings that came of the Wave and now live among it, is called the Astra.
The world of Cinti (unnamed atm) was war struck, those seeking refuge fled north and settled in unstable mountains, this would have been a death sentance, but the instability were echos from the astra, ideas of radical leaps in technology seeping through, so with this knowledge bombarding and to some degree compelling them people of many cultures and ideologies built a bunkered city powered by light (with a massive solar panel dome covering the whole city, both as defense and a power source) and names it Cinti (sin-tee), meaning Of Light.
Cinti is a strange monarchy, the monarchs power is primarly the defending of cinti as opposed to the laws within, the spouse of the King or Queen are referred to as the Lesser Queen / Lesser King, as means to seperate them from the power of the monarch. The laws within are decided, judged and enforced by the Cina (see-nah), meaning under light. Cinti's laws circle around the idea of absolute freedom of arts and science, but the city has a problem with dangerous abuses of these freedoms, often claimed to be the result of madness from the echos of the astra.
In its early history 3 major disputes occur, first was the sharing of their knowledge with the rest of the world, after some light fighting it was decided that the King or Queen (and not the Lesser) would see to it that nobody gets out of the city and nobody gets in without a consultation and if successful an induction.
The second dispute was a matter of taxes, again after some light fighting it was decided tax would not be paid, instead power was purchased and the monarch alone would own the power from the cities dome.
The third dispute was a matter of expansion, with the city laid out and the dome functional if not complete how the city would expand became an issue, this was the first task given to the Cina who saw fit to promote expanding down rather than out, thanks to the incredible technology available this became possible rather quickly but only 2 cities were built, Cinti and the city under Cinti (yet to be named)

Thank you for reading, hope we can have fun with this,
Bombshell

You've certainly thought this through. Not only by giving meaning to made up words, but also parts of words and adding onto them to enhance the meaning. You also seem to have the same problem I have when writing. :/

One thing to consider, though it looks like you've already done quite a bit in regards to making that language, would be to make a English equivalent with different letters.

I've considered making an english-like language ut it feels too convinient, not to mention I like the kind of cryptic story telling we get in games such as the souls series and the halo terminals where the players engage so much as to investigate the world to unravel what is written in word, likewise a partially interpret language would encourage investigation into context, gradually making more sense of what is said... I was also watching the da vinci code at reaching this conclusion where the clever use of literals made for silly puzzle plot movers which peaked my interest.
so a little less rum and a little more thinking has made it apparent to me it is far better to start an alphabet with words that can and will be used, though the I don't have an idea to the sounds yet, it is clear the following alphabet characters should exist,

Code:
To Be / To Contain / To Be Part Of / To Take Part In

To Do / To Enthuse Of / To Allow

To Have / To Be Made Of / To Be Family Of / To Own

To Recieve / To Accept / To Embrace / To Be Surrounded By / Of Mercy

To Give / To Expel / To Spread Amongst / Of Generosity

Time

Location (a place or area)

Orientation (an individuals position)

Positive

Negative

Hard / Strong / Heavy

Soft / Weak / Light

Sky / Air / Weather / Space / To Be Free

Earth / Rock / Metal / Underground / To Stand

Sea / Water / Ice / To Flow

Head / Mind / Atra

Heart / Blood / Health

Hand / To Attack / To Do

Foot / To Move / To Jump

Body / To Support / To Defend

Thats 20, but I'm thinking there will need to be some conventions in place to show where literals are being used

(06-27-2015, 09:12 PM)Bombshell93 Wrote: [ -> ]
Code:
Writing (romanized sounding) - literal meaning - interpreted meaning - name Cibutau (see-boo-tow) - the great help of the home - the strong support of the home - a home guard Ciutc (see-oots) - the lights end - a righteous end - a martyr Untcbu (oot-boo) - to kill home - to betray - a traitor

You say "Ciutc" means "a righteous end", but I feel like it could also be used for something like "to end righteousness" or "the end of righteousness". Would this be Utci? Or is it just dependant on context?

I also feel like you need to form of structure, not just in terms of syntax (orders of words and such) but also things like the types of words, and the kind of affects you can have on words. For instance in English we have nouns, verbs, conjunctions, etc. Verbs also have different tenses, present, past perfect, past participle, and different ways of using them, e.g. "I saw it" for past perfect and "I have seen it" for past participle, not "I seen it". Things like ownership also need good definitions. In English we use "that book is mine" or "that is my book", while in Arabic (in which I'm not fluent but know a little bit) you would add "ee" onto the end of a noun which is belonging to the speaker. So if (hypothetically) the Arabic word for "book" was the same as in English, a book belonging to me would be "bookee".

I'm not a linguist or anything, but these are the sort of things I feel you should consider and implement in your language. It might be good to get help from somebody who knows a non-European language and who can show the different ways in which languages can be constructed (like the comparison between English and Arabic that I showed above). I know Dutch but being European and derived from Latin it's too similar to English to really make good comparisons.

I've been thinking the character which starts and or ends a word should describe the type of word it is, preceding characters depending on the word may or may not be significant,
In terms of word types I've been thinking;

Code:
Literal - letter sequence describing by the character literals - unchanged

Noun - Name - described by a capitalization at the start of a word (a change in the sound of a character so Ci (see) might become Ce (seh) or so on)

Poetic - letter sequence describing by loose interpretation of character literals - any use of capitalization

Poetics would use a suffix (To Do, To Be, To Have, etc.) to dictate the use of a word.
Capitalization should be the way in which the reader or listener tells a literal syllable from a non-literal, in some cases capitalization may even exist simply for the sake of the sound and not the meaning.
It has also just occured to me the following cases
Hand / To Attack / To Do / Sharp
Foot / To Move / To Jump / Round
Color / To Be Colorful / To Be Exciting / Exuberant

more important than "making fancy letter combinations" for languages, think about the language being an extension of a human being.

For example, there is a reason why 'Mother' in many languages are rendered with starting 'ma': Ma, Mama (many languages, including English, Russian, Japanese), Madre (Spanish), Mãe (Portuguese), Mamo (Polonese), Mamma (Italy), Eomma (Korean, in this case the 'ma' appears on the end) and so on. The 'ma' syllable is the easiest sound to reproduce (just open and close your mouth while saying 'aaah', that will give you an approximated 'ma' sound). This sound is the most likely sound a newborn baby will make - it's a case of a word that was created 'naturally' to tailor to the speaker.

So, it's good to keep your head a little away from "lol I'll add a ton of unusual consonantal clusters such as TC". Use simpler forms for everyday words, and work your way up to the more abstract, complex words.

so on the matter of words and word soundings I think its worth giving a crack now, as you suggest Gors, the language should start with a human implied base, its worth considering older necessities of language before considering continditionals,
I was thinking the tiny words approach to lettering was becoming a bit of a crux and that I needed something to better control sound from meaning, I think it may be better then to consider the use of a sound as a literal to be the special case (capitalization as previously stated), the use of it purely as a sound to be the norm, and the use of it as a poetic to be implicit in nouns
So here is a base of words I believe would apply to an early language, taking into account our inherit reactions to sound,

Code:
Sound (Capital Sound) - literal meaning - poetic meaning - special casing

Mah (May) - Mother - Female, To Care, To Carry, To Want Care

Pah (Pie) - Father - Male, To Defend, To Cover, To Want Protection

Mur (Moor) - Family - Relation, Blood, Kin Of - use is largely literal making proper nouns of Mah as Mahmur and Pah as Pahpur aloe, Murm meaning Family, Moors meaning Own Family 

Oom (Ohm) - Food - Hunger, To be Eadible, To Eat, To Receive, To Absorb

Air (Ay) - Danger - Urgency, Threatening, To Alarm, To be Alarmed - when used alone Nay meaning no, Nair meaning negative, less than

Ih (Eye) - Good - Positive, More Than, Yes, To be Well, To do Well - when used alone Ih meaning yes, Eye meaning positive, more than

Okay so this doesn't feel as complete as I'd thought it would, I think this is a case where research would help a lot so I'll take a look into histories of language and implicitness of language to refine this into a more natural seeming language.
In the interest of natural use I think the characters would do better to combine during use within a word, something implicit, such as,
PahAir not being (Pah-Air) but being Payr, just for examples sake I'd imagine this as meaning poison, danger in food or water, to not be consumed

The way you're creating your language highly reeks of chinese/japanese kanji, in which seemingly small pieces of sound has their implicit meaning. I suggest using that as reference for how stuff are constructed

In this case, it's good to start creating words for everyday natural things, such as fire, water, wind, earth, sky, plants etc. This way you can construct words such as 'sky water' for rain and 'sky fire' for sun

Also remember, even though 'sky fire' is a valid possibility for sun, don't abide to it directly. For example, moon in Portuguese is 'Lua', after a Roman Goddess, and not 'sky rock'. Use your world's mythology to spruce up your vocabulary - after all ou're creating a language, not a modular speech creator.

Bombshell93

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