Ever thought about inventing your own language? It probably seems like an impossible task, but it's actually much easier than you might think.
In fact, you could do it in just a few hours. I did! I call it "Vetazi" — more on that in a bit.
Ever since I learned that Tolkien created The Lord of the Rings to support the etymology for a language he created, I've been fascinated.
There are actually tons of invented languages, otherwise known as "conlangs."
A conlang is an artificially constructed language. That's what we're doing: we're inventing one.
Here are a few conlangs you might recognize:
Growing up speaking only English, learning a new language has always felt daunting.
How do they work? Why is the grammar different than English? They have different alphabets?
This year, I wanted to change that. So I started doing lessons on Duolingo. Italian, French, German, Russian. I eventually landed on Spanish since I live in San Diego, right on the border of Mexico.
That kicked off another motivation for taking a stab at making my own language: Fixing all the annoying quirks of other languages I tried to pick up.
Why isn't French phonetic? Why does Spanish have masculine and feminine nouns? Why does English have a million exceptions?
Like every delusional nerd, I decided I could do it better.
Maybe I'll use it one day for a sci-fi novel to make it feel more intricate. Who knows?
So as an experiment, I created my own language, and I’m here to show you exactly how I did it — and how you can too.
Spoiler: You don’t need to be a linguistics expert to pull this off. You just need a plan, a little imagination, and a willingness to geek out about words.
Every language starts with sounds. For my language, I wanted it to be phonetic — everything pronounced exactly as it’s spelled. I also wanted it to be easy to speak, so I carefully chose which sounds to include and exclude.
To guide this process, I referenced the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) chart, which organizes all possible human speech sounds into clear categories.
Now, I know what you're thinking. It looks crazy. I'll dumb it down.
Here’s what I did:
I categorized vowels into soft (e.g., “ah,” “oh,” “oo”) and hard (e.g., “ay,” “uh,” “aw”).
Soft vowels include:
Hard vowels include:
This grouping made it easier to design smooth transitions between sounds while keeping pronunciation clear.
I selected consonants that flowed well together and eliminated tricky ones like the soft “f” and “h” sounds.
Some sounds naturally clash when spoken together (e.g., “sh” + “k”), so I avoided those combinations.
I aimed for smooth transitions between sounds, like “m” + “p” or “n” + “l.”
I decided that every unique sound got its own place in the system. For example, “oh” (as in “oat”) and “oo” (as in “boot”) had separate symbols and uses.
It's totally up to you on how much you want to spell out vs leave up to contextual understanding.
Some languages heavily use some sounds and rarely use others. This is what makes them sound unique.
Deciding on which ones you'll include and exclude is the first step. Then you can decide which ones you use more often vs not.
Once you’ve nailed your sounds, it’s time to create an alphabet.
This is where things get fun — you can design a script that’s as simple or elaborate as you want.
For my language, I tried to come up with a system to delineate between consonants and vowels to make it easier to read a word.
I wanted the symbol design to feel rather universal and easily legible.
Avoid overly complex symbols if you want to write quickly.
Test your script by writing sample words and sentences.
One thing that drives me nuts about English is the vowels. The same symbol can used for different sounds (e.g. he vs men) and they can be combined but the sound is unchanged (e.g. ate vs straight).
So I decided that each unique vowel would have their own unique symbol.
To brainstorm symbols, I imagined a square box and tried to come up with as many distinct shapes that went end to end within the box as I could.
My apologies for the chicken scratch hand writing. What I'm trying to show here is:
This is all with the goal of creating a system that feels intuitive, logical, and near impossible to get symbols confused with each other.
I realized that grouping symbols so they are not used consecutively — especially when they are harder to pronounce in sequence — makes forming words much easier. This also makes it "safe" to make symbols within a group look similar since they won't be used next to each other. And this also makes the symbols feel more connected, like part of a linguistic family, rather than random elements.
Pronouns are the backbone of any language. I wanted mine to be intuitive but flexible, so here’s the system I created:
This is enough. Too many pronouns and modifiers and your brain has to do too much work to form words.
Grammar is where your language comes to life. This part might sound intimidating, but it’s really just about setting rules to make sentences flow logically. Here’s how I approached it:
I chose Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) as my default structure (e.g., “I eat food”) because it’s simple and familiar.
You could also mix this up, e.g. Gaelic follows Verb-Subject-Object (VSO).
I kept it straightforward with separate words for each tense:
Negation was as simple as adding no before the verb or adjective:
Singular was the default, but I created suffixes for other amounts:
I added prefixes to indicate intensity or aspect:
Your grammar doesn’t have to be complex — the key is consistency.
With the foundation in place, it’s time to expand your vocabulary. Start with the basics and build up logically. Here’s how I approached it:
Focus on the most common words first (e.g., eat, drink, run, big, small).
25 words in the English dictionary make up about one-third of all printed material in English, and 100 words make up about half of all written English. So you don't need that many words to be functional.
I used consistent patterns to make new words:
Add prefixes to flip meanings:
Combine simple roots to express complex ideas:
You can continue this process endlessly. The beauty of language and etymology is there's a certain amount of randomness and arbitrary assignment. You can just make up words!
For example, when deciding on the name for this fictional language of mine, I decided to combine words that describe "you + me + communicate".
I decided on Vetazi.
Veta = We (inclusive: me + you).
Zi = A root indicating expression, connection, or shared understanding (e.g., “si” for neutrality, adapted to suggest sharing ideas).
Pronunciation: veh-tah-zee
Meaning: A word representing collective communication or the language shared among all of us.
By following these steps, your vocabulary will grow naturally and intuitively.
Making your own language is challenging, creative, and ridiculously rewarding.
Each step, from defining sounds to constructing grammar and vocabulary, connects you to the process in an incredibly personal way.
The journey reflects your creativity and logic. Your language is entirely yours, shaped by your imagination and tailored to your vision.
Have fun with it!
