How can I make phonological constraints without strangling myself?

There are three main languages in this world:

• Draconic, used by the "old" races, i.e: tengu, dragons, lizardfolk, etc...

• Abyssal, used by both demons and angels: Initially was a low-level language where the description of basic concepts could fill books. Later, a renowned demon collected the most common concepts and structures in the language into libraries and assigned shorthands for them. Nowadays, the language diverged into several dialects:

  • Structured Query, used to organize data.
  • Object-oriented, used to describe various complex systems by breaking them down to their components (objects) which have attributes and functions (things they do).
  • Linear, somewhat deprecated but makes the description of linear (from point A to point B without side-roads) processes easier.

• Common: British English, the isekai gang had brought in.

Common is the language spoken.
A name's meaning comes from the draconic word(s) it was made from.
Abyssal is used in magical incantations.

So, I managed to avoid having to create multiple fleshed-out languages. Yet, I don't know what to do with this one. You see, this language is supposed to accommodate the dialects of quite a few races. Tengu put in clicks and trills to convey simple messages (like ridicule), lizardfolk might hiss, dragons could roar, draconic simply connects these together with a "common ground". Since it's also used to name people and places, it has to be present in a spoken and written format, the latter with both a runic (used for marks and carvings) and a "formal" alphabet.

So, one extremely complex language. Great.

I have no idea how to start with this one most gulagers conlangers limit their phonetic inventory, I'm using Hungarian for the "standard", plus the tengu/dragon/snake/monitor lizard/programmer noises, though they're usually undertones. I have to, as tengu want names with lots of front vowels (e, é, i, í, ö, Å‘ and maybe even á), lizardfolk, and dragons probably want mixed/neutral ones for themselves and demons want sudo rm -rf /home/ and similar curses as their identifiers.

So, yes. This is the problem, draconic is supposed to accommodate a lot, which makes implementing phonological constraints much more difficult. The language is supposed to have a "character", how can I ensure that without limiting the races' own dialects and unique words?

To be clear, the language is primarily a conlang, similar in purpose to Esperanto, though I mostly want it to be a basis for names. The main difference is that I mostly use Hungarian grammar rules as they manage to remain somewhat sane without compromising the language's capabilities.

I mean, "Say it as written" is a fundamental principle with the most striking exceptions being legacy stuff, i.e: old family names Like Kossuth (Kosút) and Dessewfy (Dezsőfi); and "mistakes" you make naturally dió -> dijó. So, a Hungarian spelling contest would make little sense.

Hungarian is also an agglutinating language, so Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért, is a valid word, though a tad bit nonsensical.

posted over 4 years ago

Mephistopheles‭

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