Quote Originally Posted by BWR View Post
Should we build a language from intricate sound systems and add meaning later, or should we try to make a proper vocabulary and grammar and add flavor later? Because, correct me if I'm wrong, these proposed systems are flavor, not meaningful, right?
I figure do some phonology so we know what to make the roots and affixes look like. Then some basic grammar to know what kinds of affixes and function words we will need. Then come up with a list of basic vocabulary that the language will need, roots and affixes and such. Then make words for the vocabulary list that fits the phonological rules we made. Then give it a tune up and make changes where necessary. So we probably shouldn't get too intricate at first. But we still haven't determined the phonology yet.

Then look for some gaps in vocabulary to fill, possibly take a subject like smithing, figure out a bunch of terminology that it needs, come up with words for those terms, possibly basing new roots off old ones to mimic the look of a natural language. For instance the root for anvil may look suspiciously like the root for boulder. The root for forge may look suspiciously like someone took the roots for fire and hole and stuck them together and deleted a sound or two. ect. Could even have multiple words derived from the same compound by simplifying it in different ways, simulating the compound being made and simplified at different times in the languages development or even that they were the same word developed two different directions by different dialects and were then borrowed between them.

example of the above idea lets pretend

doku = boulder
dokwa = anvil

tsil = fire
nefi = hole
tsilnej = forge looks like tsilnefi with the f deleted and the ei sequence turned into a diphthong
tsillef = brick oven formed from the same compound by instead assimilating the n to l making a geminate l, and deleting i