Language Invention Quotes

Invented languages have often been created in tandem with entire invented universes, and most conlangers come to their craft by way of fantasy and science fiction.

The young cult of sociology, needing a language, invented one. There are many dead languages, but the sociologists' is the only language that was dead at birth.

We invented words; we'll tell you how they're supposed to sound.

The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.

Indeed, children thrown together in a community that doesn't have a language of its own will invent one in order to communicate with each other.

To create a past that seemed authentic but would be a fiction, you need an invented language.

Adam is one of my favourite writers, period. He has such a unique voice and he's somebody who I admire so much for putting the effort into inventing his own language and furthering it.

Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.

'Recreative' is a word that I invented because in urban culture, with colloquialism, we invent so many slangs. I don't like the way that 'recreational' sounds - I don't like to say I do a lot of 'recreational' reading. I like to say that I read 'recreatively.' I do a lot of 'recreative' reading.

The problems of inventing a new language are staggering. But what else can one do if one needs to express one's feeling precisely?

the translator, a lonely sort of acrobat, becomes confused in a labyrinth of paradox, or climbs a pyramid of dependent clauses and has to invent a way down from it in his own language.

I'm pretty good at inventing phrases - you know, the sort of words that suddenly make you jump, almost as though you'd sat on a pin, they seem so new and exciting even though they're about something hypnopaedically* obvious. But that doesn't seem enough. It's not enough for the phrases to be good; what you make with them ought to be good too.