Many of my works feature fictional languages which help to add color and depth to the story. Two such examples are Atlantean for the “Blackbird” series, and Norma (Standard) for the Sisterhood space opera. While some authors create languages entirely from scratch, the process that I use is quite different.First, I Decide the History and the “Feel” of My New LanguageTo use my Sisterhood series as an illustration, I envisioned a multi-cultural, interstellar civilization that had suffered total collapse due to a gender-specific plague, and had then resurrected itself to become a powerful star-spanning empire.Here, I saw a historical parallel between the United Sisterhood of Suns and the real-life State of Israel. Like the Sisterhood, Israel came into being after a great tragedy; the Holocaust. And just as in the Sisterhood, Israel found itself with a population that spoke a diverse group of languages, hailing as they did from all parts of Europe. Therefore, in an effort to establish a common tongue that everyone could understand, and to unify its people, it chose Hebrew as the official state language.Based on this precedent, I decided that the post-plague Sisterhood would make a similar choice, and in the end, I created something that was aesthetically pleasing, and yet technically sophisticated enough to meet the needs of a star-faring people. This was Norma, or Standard.Here, I must beg the reader’s indulgence and offer apologies for any sexist stereotyping, but it was my opinion that a civilization composed entirely of women would want a common language that met all of the above criteria, but still conveyed a certain linguistic beauty when it was spoken. My choice therefore, was to craft something similar to French, which in my opinion, is one of the loveliest languages ever spoken on our planet.However, I also realized that French shares many of its components with other romance languages, among which are Spanish, Romanian, and Italian. Therefore, when I created Norma, I felt that they too needed to play a part in the final result.I Use Real Languages as My Base and Then Combine Them and Add Linguistic “Drift”Knowing that my base would be French, I then utilized Google Translate, Freelang and other sources, and made English/French entries in each of them for the words and phrases that I knew that I would need. I then followed up on this by doing the same thing with the other romance languages and compiled a list of the results.Then came the fun part; combining these same results to form new words and phrases. Here, it was simply a matter of going with whichever language had the strongest influence and matched the design idea that I had in mind for the final product. For example, using the name for the Sisterhood itself, the United Sisterhood of Suns, I produced these results with Google Translate:fraternité des soleils (French)hermandad unida de soles (Spanish)unire saturata de soare (Romanian)sorellanza unita dei soli (Italian)From this, and with a bit of alteration to the vowels and consonants, I produced, “Unité Sorele da Soléz”. The same process was then employed for everything else and in short order, Norma was ready for use.I Keep in Mind That No Language is Truly “Pure”I also took another important step. The simple fact is that few languages exist without being influenced by other tongues. This is the result of trade and social interaction, either between peoples of different nations, or linguistic groups within a single nation. French for example, uses many words and phrases that come from English, such as the simple term ‘parking’ (un parking) and vice versa. Therefore, it was simply a given that my main language would possess elements from secondary tongues.So, I created these secondary languages, and then chose which terms would be known and used by everyone. In the Sisterhood series, one of the strongest influences on Norma came from the group inhabiting Proxima Centauri, the Zommerlanders, who spoke a combination of Afrikaans, Dutch, and German, with Afrikaans predominating. As a result, words and phrases like “Zat Klaar?” made their way into the common parlance of the greater Sisterhood.I Sometimes Use Obscure SourcesNot every fictional language comes together as easily. In the Blackbird series, I decided that the main language would be Atlantean. After conducting some research, I came to the conclusion that had this continent actually existed, it would have networked with other seafaring peoples and most likely would have shared certain linguistic similarities.Sadly, my first choice, Phoenician, exists in only a fragmentary state, but ancient Egyptian and Greek are another matter. Therefore, in creating Atlantean, Phoenician was my primary source, with ancient Egyptian filling in many of the gaps, sprinkled with a bit of Greek here and there. The result was a unique tongue that had the feeling of being completely genuine.ConclusionCreating languages for your story is not only an enjoyable process, but has added benefits. Firstly, it will provide you with a deeper insight into the cultural background of your characters, which in turn, will lend itself to better story-telling. Secondly, it will help to create a more immersive environment for your readers, and draw them in to the world that you have created. There is no down side to adding original languages to your tale and my methodology will ensure that those languages are both believable and seamless.Resourceshttps://translate.google.com/ (a straight, easy to use language to language translator)https://www.freelang.net/ (downloadable dictionaries in many languages)https://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Lang... (provides steps for the more complex process of creating languages from scratch)