Conlang General Sketch: Draconic

Has there been a serious attempt at a dragon language before? Bits and pieces have floated around for decades, but mostly it's names and the occasional phrase or noun. There have been several times that I'm aware of wherein a coherent (even if partial) language to be spoken by an intelligent dragon would have added depth and richness to a setting or story. Yet the only instances of such a thing I can recall are humans (or similar) saying that thus or such comes from some ancient language of dragons. I think the trouble with making one that has real meat to it has been a problem of not really thinking about what it is or comes from, or how one wants to use it. Or it could be that no one wanted to really bother.

That's where I come in.

As I mentioned before, my underlying concept for Draconic is that it begat a family of languages. It therefore is, appropriately for its speakers, an ancient and mysterious tongue, alien and difficult. Its nearest relative is Parseltongue (or Serpentine, if legal circumstances require). The plan is for it to be weird, majestic and dangerous sounding, instead of slithery, edgy and dangerous like the Parseltongue. (Parseltongue shouldn’t necessarily sound evil, but should hopefully play on humans’ natural distrust of snakes.) It should have a large and solid feel to it, as though of casual power. By the time I begin building this in earnest, I should be able to convey all this.

The grammar will also have a similar construction to Parseltongue. Dragons are wily, intelligent, and witty creatures, and the flexibility of their conversation should match the flexibility - and cunning - of their minds.

Because they have prehensile forepaws, it's a distinct possibility that I'll be able to make a writing system for Draconic. Should it be based on scratches, leading to straight lines predominating? Or should I go with a brush-based system, leading to complex and beautiful calligraphy? It's not too far out of line to suggest that they have both, or that the former could lead to the latter, and yet be kept around for casual or hasty use.

It probably seems odd that while Draconic leads to at least 3 other languages in my list, it's not the first even of its family in my plans for creation. Yes, bits and pieces of it will be done in a structural sort of way as I progress, but the truth of it is that it's less useful than the others and can, with that initial planning, be reverse-engineered. It may even end up better that way.

My Planned Languages

Designing languages is fun, and it's easy to get carried away with it.  I realize that it's unlikely I will get all of my ideas into a functional form, but the plan is to get some real development done on each. Even if they never get done they can be handed off to someone else, and failing that I'll at least amuse and educate myself.

The following list is a very brief description of each. I'll sketch out fuller plans in later posts.

• Dwarven:  Designed for gamers to actually use, this is made to be easy for English-speakers to learn. This is the only one with any real work done on it so far, and in fact I'm likely to publish something on it in the not-too-distant future.
• Parseltongue:  It was partly created for the Chamber of Secrets movie but no information seems to be on it anywhere.  So I'll do it.  It would be spectacular to talk Ms. Rowling into publishing or at least signing off on it. For one thing, it'd ensure development of probably the entire list.
• Draconic:  This is conceived as the head of a language family, and sort of a sister language to Parseltongue.
• Black Speech:  That's what Tolkien called Sauron’s created tongue for his minions, so I'll need a different name, though mine is for the same purpose exactly:  created by a big baddie to unite his disparate underlings.  Unlike Tolkien's, though, it's based not on Elvish but Draconic.
• Orcish:  Again like Tolkien’s, a simplified Black Speech, worn down by dumb underlings (orcs) who have no love or knowledge of language and little brainpower for using it.  Certainly easy to use by gamers, and possibly publishable.
• Arboreal:  I have a great idea for a language which is built of radicals and infixes, like the Semitic languages, and which uses a symbolic writing system that reflects it. The fictional speakers are a race of deeply philosophical tree-dwellers.
• Magic:  It would be very helpful to have a writing system for magic which is as regular and functional as the writing system for mathematics. It's been tried without much success for centuries. However, it seems there is a system which allows one to chart logic like a sentence diagram, and that makes it very promising.

I suspect I've left something off the list. Not that the above isn't more than enough.