This chapter introduces language invention. It addresses the similarities and differences between natural languages (natlangs) and constructed languages (conlangs) and distinguishes the latter from creative language forms such as slang and language games. This chapter also covers the main types of conlangs and the key motivations underlying language invention. It also discusses important considerations to keep in mind when creating a language and provides a guided exercise on language invention. The chapter ends with a list of resources and references to explore further.

This chapter focuses on the lexicon. It discusses how languages encode concepts into words and introduces lexical and grammatical word categories attested in languages, paying special attention to content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and interjections). This chapter also highlights strategies that can be used to increase the number of words in a conlang, provides a set of guided questions to expand a conlang vocabulary and discusses aspects of the lexicon of the Salt language, including color terms. The chapter ends with a list of resources ad references to explore further.

This chapter focuses on language variation and change. It discusses criteria used to distinguish dialects and languages, discusses standard and vernacular dialects, and previews various types of dialectal variation, including geolects, genderlects and sociolects. In addition, it examines language change and the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that are conducive to it. This chapter also addresses aspects of variation and change in Esperanto, Lojban and Tolkien’s Elvish languages. In addition, it provides conlanging practice and a set of guided questions to incorporate aspects of variation in a conlang, and exemplifies dialectal variation and historical change in the Salt language.

Inventories across the continent differ little, except in the north-east (Cape York Peninsula). From a typological perspective, there are a number of patterns that are common in Australia, but uncommon elsewhere. A significant number of Australian languages show a four-way coronal place opposition. The great majority of Australian languages have only one obstruent series; neither [continuant] nor [voice] are contrastive for obstruents. Typically, obstruents and nasals show the same set of place oppositions: there are as many nasals as obstruents. We discuss the evidence for various natural classes within the consonant and vowel inventories. The characteristics of coronal place oppositions are discussed in detail, drawing on evidence from perception, neutralisations, alternations, distributions, and acoustics. We discuss arguments for featural analyses on articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual bases. Also examined are complex articulations (pre-nasalised stops, pre-stopped nasals) and contrasts based on laryngeal mechanisms (the fortis/lenis contrast, the glottal stop).

This chapter summarizes the conlanging process described throughout the book and provides suggestions on how to continue to build a conlang, including composing and translating fictional texts, and developing vocabulary and grammar further. It also discusses the extent to which conlangs need to be consistent with patterns attested in natural languages and provides a full translation and gloss of a fictional text for the Salt language.

We discuss a range of juncture phenomena, from the utterance down to the word, as a way of trying to come to grips with the question of what kind of domain the ‘word’ is in Australian languages. In some languages, we find unexpected behaviour internal to words – pauses, epenthetic elements, and intonational pitch resets – that indicates the presence of word-internal phonological or intonational phrase boundaries. This in turn raises questions about the status of phonological rules that operate across such junctures, and whether these rules are better regarded as sandhi phenomena. While the metrical structures of complex words indicate that morphology is critical to understanding the location of prosodic prominence, it is also clear that not all morphological relations are equally ‘visible’’to the metrical (or intonational) system. Relations of an unproductive or lexically conditioned kind, as in verb inflection, typically do not constitute a separate prosodic domain, while productive inflections and compound constructions regularly do. We discuss the ways in which this distinction is cashed out in other phonological behaviour – vowel lengthening and reduplication patterns – and the ways in which this morphology might be modelled.

Like segmental inventories, phonotactic patterns show comparatively little variation across Australia. Following Steriade, a number of analysts have proposed that consonantal transitions play a central role in constraining phonotactic patterns. They have particularly noted that VC transitions appear to play a significant role, as well as the more familiar role of CV transitions. A preference for having VC transitions appears to be an important factor in two areas: (i) place assimilation patterns; (ii) coronal place neutralization patterns. Despite the fact that nasals and obstruents share the same set of place oppositions, Australian languages do not show the standard assimilatory pattern whereby a nasal assimilates in place of articulation to a following obstruent. Rather, Australian languages show two non-standard patterns. There may be no assimilation, or the obstruent assimilates in place of articulation to the preceding nasal. Both these non-standard patterns appear to relate to a preference for maintaining VC transitions into the nasals. The only detailed proposals for VC syllables come from Australian languages, and we discuss the evidence for these proposals in detail. Licensing by cue, optimising allomorphy, positional markedness, gesture and timing, loanword, and contact phonology are also discussed.

This chapter focuses on written systems. It introduces logographic, semiographic and phonographic scripts, including alphabets, abjads, abugidas, and syllabaries, and provides a short account of the origin of writing. This chapter also exemplifies noteworthy conscripts and discusses the connection between writing, the fictional world, and the phonological and morphological structure of a language. In addition, it provides conlanging practice, provides you with a blueprint that will facilitate the design of an original conscript for a conlang, and introduces the writing system of the Salt language.

In the final chapter we summarise some of our primary findings with respect to the phonology and morphology of Australian languages, and the implications of these patterns for our current understanding of human language.

This chapter focuses on verbal morphology, in particular, agreement and so-called TAM, i.e., tense, aspect and mood/modality. It provides conlanging practice, a set of guided questions to develop the verbal morphology of a conlang, and describes the verbal morphology of the Salt language

This chapter focuses on the development of vocalic inventories in conlanging. It introduces speech sounds and their transcription using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in contrast to romanization. It describes how vowels are pronounced, classified and organized in contrastive sets in languages. This chapter also offers suggestions on how to choose vowels for a conlang, includes a set of guided questions to facilitate this task and provides conlanging practice. This chapter also describes the vocalic inventory of the Salt language and includes a list of resources and references to explore further.

While spoken languages rely on the oral-aural language modality, there are languages that are based on manual-visual and tactile modalities; these are discussed in this chapter. This chapter also addresses communication channels, from modal speech found in all spoken languages, to whistled, hum, musical and yell speech. In addition, this chapter introduces communication in non-human species, including plants, animals and aliens. It also provides conlanging practice, a set of guided questions to facilitate the incorporation of communication channels and language modalities in a conlang, and presents some information of communication channels in the Salt language.

The first chapter sets the scene for readers unfamiliar with Australian languages. For those who are, we cover some of the ground that is essential to keep in mind for the chapters that follow. There are summaries of some of the basic generalisations about inventories and phonotactics, word structure, syntax. Historical linguistics and sociolinguistics are also touched on here, but the main discussion of these topics is elsewhere in the volume. The main discussion of the genetic divisions and proposed affiliations of Australian languages is in this chapter. There is also a review of the history of modern phonological analysis of Australian languages and their impact on the field. We comment on the widespread homogeneity in segmental and phonotactic structures and the differences between Australian languages and languages elsewhere in the world.