So I am very new here. I did a lot of phonetics at uni but everything else I will need to finish reading up on (still reading through the kit).
I would like eventually to make a language for a roleplay setting that we are doing for fun but I think I am in over my head at the moment - I need to make a language which converts easily to music, can be written interchangeably with musical notes. Obviously this will require doing a lot of work on the music end too.
Has anyone done this or similar? Any general advice? Apologies w this is a common question.
I would like eventually to make a language for a roleplay setting that we are doing for fun but I think I am in over my head at the moment - I need to make a language which converts easily to music, can be written interchangeably with musical notes. Obviously this will require doing a lot of work on the music end too.
Has anyone done this or similar? Any general advice? Apologies w this is a common question.
Sup and welcome to the site. I don't know what you mean by "converts easily to music" — there are examples in real life of spoken languages that are encoded as purely "musical" information in the form of whistled languages. This is basically just a lossy transmission mode for the underlying, normal spoken language though. Conlangs based in some way around purely melodic information are also a thing, the most well-known one being Solresol (which is however not a great example to emulate).
I wouldn't recommend the latter option, though, unless the aesthetics of your setting absolutely require it. Common consensus here is that even "ordinary" spoken languages are extremely hard to create, and if you use a medium with which you are unfamiliar, it becomes vastly more difficult to make something sensible (although I am assuming your players would also be fine with something not sensible, so that may not be a problem for you).
I wouldn't recommend the latter option, though, unless the aesthetics of your setting absolutely require it. Common consensus here is that even "ordinary" spoken languages are extremely hard to create, and if you use a medium with which you are unfamiliar, it becomes vastly more difficult to make something sensible (although I am assuming your players would also be fine with something not sensible, so that may not be a problem for you).
Solresol is in the right vein, although from what j know of it, it's woefully inadequate (still, better than I can manage atm!).
The music aspect is not hugely problematic for me but the "conversion" as such is. "Conversion" in this case meaning that it would, like solresol, hopefully be communicable in music as well as a traditional spoken/written form.
It does not need to be naturalistic, auxillary is fine. Really the less irregularities the better when it comes to music.
The music aspect is not hugely problematic for me but the "conversion" as such is. "Conversion" in this case meaning that it would, like solresol, hopefully be communicable in music as well as a traditional spoken/written form.
It does not need to be naturalistic, auxillary is fine. Really the less irregularities the better when it comes to music.
I haven't done this exactly, but I've thought about the "conversion" you're talking about. A few years ago, I toyed with the idea of converting Italian to music, specifically, each syllable = a measure. Since Italian has a relatively simple syllable canon (s)C(l,r,j,w)V(N,Gem), it seemed pretty straightforward at first, but quickly it got complicated. So my advice is, come up with a relatively simple phonemic inventory and phonotactics, something that could easily translate to the diatonic scale (if that's what you like your music in).
I was thinking seven monophthongs corresponding to the seven notes (8th being a new octave). Diphthongs could easily be represented by two notes together. Of course, that implies that your language has at most triphthongs when "real" music might commonly have a five note chord!
Things like closed or back versions of the standard vowels could be represented by sharps or flats.
That leaves the question of consonants (perhaps syllables would be better?) but I am wondering id it would be possible to represent those through a second melody and/or rhythm. In piano this would be the other hand.
It would be complex to thw point of being unusable and have the dubious concern that simple melodies would contain meanings; on the other hand in regards to the former, it can as I said be auxillary and is better that way really; it need not be useable by humans.
For the latter issue, I have no answers or clear ideas on construction as yet. It would be near impossible to distinguish one melody from another and make sense of it.
Things like closed or back versions of the standard vowels could be represented by sharps or flats.
That leaves the question of consonants (perhaps syllables would be better?) but I am wondering id it would be possible to represent those through a second melody and/or rhythm. In piano this would be the other hand.
It would be complex to thw point of being unusable and have the dubious concern that simple melodies would contain meanings; on the other hand in regards to the former, it can as I said be auxillary and is better that way really; it need not be useable by humans.
For the latter issue, I have no answers or clear ideas on construction as yet. It would be near impossible to distinguish one melody from another and make sense of it.
Well, say you want to use two octaves, then you have 11 whole and 14 half tones available to you on the western scale. In the absolute simplest encoding scheme this gives you 25 phonemes to play with. Essentially a musical alphabet.
Bijection is wrong. "Converts to" only requires an injection, and as H13 noted, musical encodings often are lossy for languages. They could even be regarded as separate dialects in some cases, I think, although I really only know about Piraha.