The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building Paperback – Illustrated, September 29, 2015

Psst, don't tell anyone -- but you're reading a linguistics textbook! Everything from allophones to exponence to ergativity to pragmatics -- but it's super-fun and carries you along. Yes, there are Dothraki and High Valyrian examples -- and plenty of context about natural languages as well. Peterson carries off helping you understand linguistics in detail without making it feel like work.

I spent a lot of time waiting in doctors’ offices last week, and I needed something to save me from boredom- and anxiety-induced insanity. What better choice could I have made than The Art of Language Invention by David J. Peterson?Back when I was a kid, one of my favorite books was Dougal Dixon’s After Man: a Zoology of the Future. As an exercise in speculative biology, the book is responsible for maybe 90% of my enthusiasm about evolution, anatomy, and animal behavior. The fact that I know anything about those subjects at all is because I was enthusiastic for them, which puts Dixon to blame for most of what I know about the natural world. When I read The Art of Language Invention, the same thing happened with linguistics.You can’t create a good made-up language without knowing about real languages. Through the lens of his invented languages and his experience using them, Peterson educates the reader about the forces that shape the way we speak—a practical gift wrapped in shiny packaging. Like all good speculation, The Art of Language Invention educates and inspires as much as it entertains.And it IS entertaining, if for no other reason than the cat and onion jokes.Go read it. I expect to see your new language on my desk by Monday.

I come from a language related AI background and wanted to learn more about how language creation worked. Not only did this book give great background on that topic, it was very enjoyable to read.

A very interesting and informative read. Not only does it feature incredibly in depth look into the world and community of language creators, but it has nearly all the information you could ever need to know about making your own language. It could be a little much for casual readers, or people just needing a few words for their fictional world. Whatever the case may be, if you want to know all the ins and outs of language, this is a good place to start.

If you have the patience yo go through several chapters of the anatomy of a language, before getting to the nitty gritty of how to build one, then this book is perfect for you. Despite the fact that I gook several linguistics courses during my Bachelors and masters degrees, I really struggled with the first part of the book. It can be daunting, with dozens of terms that only a linguist would recognize, but it had to be covered if one were to attempt constructing a decent language. The latter part was quite interesting, and I was especially fascinated by font creation. Now I'm ready to construct my first language (a hybrid of several languages as a result of 500 years of several cultures cohabiting on one new colonized planet.) Here goes.

For various reasons, over my life I have been exposed to six or seven languages, including tonal ones, and even learned a few of those, including ASL. Languages are fascinating, at least to me. But the idea of just making up a reasonably plausible language was not in my experience. I guess the Army did use their own made up language to select folks who could do well in language school. That was fun too - taking a test based on a language you had just met - so to speak.

While very technical, The Art of Language Invention is a really good book on the more advanced concepts of creating a fictional language, and the structure of real-life language.I will say this - if you don't know at least a little bit about some basic language principles, like the IPA, syllable structure, and word structure, you might get lost. Even as a big fan of conlanging and language, some bits were very confusing. Read this AFTER you are at least a little bit familiar with basic conlanging stuff.

What this book is: a primer on the key areas that go into language invention. It covers roughly the same material that would be covered in the first year or two of a linguistics BA, but in extremely condensed form.What it is not: a guidebook on language creation. If you want to invent your own language, find an online conlanger group, read their FAQ, and get started. Like any other creative practice, no book will teach you more than jumping in and making a huge mess.As a basic informational book, it's interesting enough. Not amazing, but not mind-numbingly dull either. GoT fans are likely to enjoy the many scattered references to Dothraki, High Valyerian, etc. Conlangers probably know most of what's included already, but people who are simply curious as to how or why someone might invent an entire language will find a lot of interesting features of languages unknown to people who aren't either (a) conlangers or (b) linguistics majors.I would recommend memorising the sections on the IPA before getting too deep into the book. It's used extensively throughout and not being able to keep up with it will make already dense material even more inaccessible. Fortunately, the IPA isn't hard, just a bit tedious to get your head around. A quick internet search will pull up a few different IPA to audio translators for those who don't mind setting the book down to type.