Inventing Languages

A Practical Introduction

Carolina González (Florida State University)

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English

Cambridge University Press
31 July 2025

Bilingualism & multilingualism; Research methods: general

How are invented languages created? Artificially constructed languages ('conlangs') shed light on how we can apply the universal principles of language to produce whole new languages. Grounded on world building and linguistic typology, this engaging book provides a step-by-step guide to language invention, introducing the basic blocks of language building (such as sounds, morphemes and sentence structure) and demonstrating their use in both natural languages from English to Swahili, and invented languages from Esperanto to Klingon. An original conlang is developed throughout the book to bring the theory to life, accompanied with scaffolded, creative exercises that allow the reader to explore different linguistic options before incorporating them in their own conlang. Making conlanging accessible to readers with little or no background in linguistics, this guide is ideal for linguistics students, creative writers, and readers interested in language and language invention.

By: Carolina González (Florida State University)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781108799416
ISBN 10: 1108799418
Pages: 426
Publication Date: 31 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Abbreviations; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. What are constructed languages?; 2. World building; 3. Designing vowel inventories; 4. Designing consonant inventories; 5. From sounds to syllables; 6. Stress and tone; 7. The lexicon; 8. The morphology of nouns; 9. The morphology of verbs; 10. Word order; 11. Statements, questions and commands; 12. Negation and evidentials; 13. Complex sentences; 14. Writing systems; 15. Semantics and pragmatics; 16. Variation in space and time; 17. Language channels and modalities; 18. Wrapping up and moving forward; Appendix A: natlangs mentioned; Appendix B: conlangs mentioned.

Carolina González is Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at Florida State University.