Vulgar: fantasy language generator

Vulgar is a constructed language (conlang) generator for fantasy fiction writers and role players. Create unique languages for your race of peoples in the click of a button! Vulgar models the regularities, irregularities and quirks of real world languages: from grammar, to sounds, to vocabulary.

Trial the free version with a 200 word output. Purchase the pro version and getting access to a 4000 word vocabulary, and extra custom features.

This page makes extensive use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and various other linguistic terminology.

Custom phonemes

Enter phonemes separated by spaces. Use IPA symbols only. ?

Consonants:
Vowels:

Add random phonemes to custom selection (upon generation)

Show IPA symbols

Click symbols to add up arrow

or hold ALT key to cycle through symbols, eg: ALT + e = ɛ

English consonants: b d f ɡ h j k l m n ŋ p ɹ s t v w z ʃ ʒ ʧ ʤ θ ð - add all
English vowels (US): ɑ æ ɛ ɜː iː ɪ ɔ u ʊ ʌ aɪ aʊ eɪ oʊ ɔɪ - add all

All consonants: b ɓ β ʙ c ç d ɖ ɗ ʣ ʥ ʤ f ɸ ɡ ɠ ɢ ʛ ɰ h ɦ ħ ɧ ɥ ʜ j ʝ ɟ ʄ k l ɫ ɬ ɮ ɭ ʟ m ɱ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ p q r ɹ ɾ ɽ ɻ ɺ ʁ ʀ s ʂ ɕ ʃ t ʈ ʦ ʨ ʧ v ⱱ ʋ w ʍ x ɣ χ ʎ z ʐ ʑ ʒ θ ð ʔ ʡ ʕ ʢ ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ
All vowels: a æ ɑ ɒ ɐ e ɛ ɜ ɞ ə i ɨ ɪ y ʏ ø ɘ ɵ œ ɶ ɤ o ɔ u ʉ ʊ ɯ ʌ

IPA symbols scroll with screen

More options:

Word structure Advanced

Enter permissible consonants and consonant clusters here. This feature overrides Custom Phonemes above.

Word initial consonants:
Mid-word consonants:
Word final consonants:

Vowels:

2nd vowel group:

Add different vowels to second group and each word will use vowels from one or the other group. About vowel harmony.

+ vowel harmony

Word Structure Analyser (available in full version) analyses the frequency and locations of phonemes in any chunk of text and populates the result to the Advanced Word Structure fields. Separate words by space or new line. Analysing with Equiprobable dropoff rate will give you the exact frequencies.

Phoneme Classes:

Create custom classes of phonemes with single upper case letters. Classes can also be combinations of other classes, such as S = CV.
Note: in other sections of Vulgar, upper case letters have very specific meanings, like C = any consonant, V = any vowel, however these classes are independent from those sections.

Word Patterns:

Word patterns are made of phoneme classes (as defined above) or actual phonemes, eg: zVC means the word will always start with z, then a random choice of V and C.
Use brackets for optional patterns: CV(LV) means the LV pattern occurs 20% of the time. To change this probability, type a number after the brackets: CV(LV)₅ means it will occur 50% of the time; (al)₃VC means 'al' will occur 30% of time.
Patterns for particular parts-of-speech can be added after the default patterns (parts-of-speech = ...).

Affix Patterns:

These patterns are used for affixes when they equal "Random"

Dropoff rate ?:

Fast

Medium

Equiprobable

Arrange phonemes in: naturalistic ranking | natural with randomness | alphabetical | previous

Illegal combinations ?:

Ban same vowel twice in a row

Ban same syllable twice in a row

Syllable structure

Max consonants before vowel (onset):
Max consonants after vowel (coda):

Vowel probabilities

Vowel at start of word: ~ %
Vowel at end of word: ~ %

Vowel tones
Applies tone to all vowels. Left-most are more common.
extra high | high | mid | low | extra low

Represent tone with

tone letters

superscript numbers

diacritics

Stress pattern: ? Available in full version

Random

Initial — stress on the first syllable

Second — stress on the second syllable

Antepenult — stress on the third last syllable

Penultimate — stress on the second last syllable

Ultimate — stress on the last syllable

Predictable pattern

- A foot is defined as a group of

syllables

- Feet are built from the

left

right

edge of the word

- Stress falls on the

1st

2nd

3rd

syllable of each foot

- Main stress is on the

left most

right most

foot

No stress

No fixed stress

Allow contrastive stress (identical words that only differ by stress location)

Sound changes ?

Define custom sound change rules. This section uses phonological rule notation:

e > i / _k = e turns into i before k
v > b / #_ = v turns into b at the beginning of a word
{p,b} > m / V_V = p or b turns into m between vowels
C > Ø / _# = all consonants are deleted at the end of a word
w > v / _% = w turns into v before syllable boundary

To use RegEx notation, write "re " before the rule: re m(?=V) > n.

Apply changes

Show changes between [square brackets]

Include random changes with custom changes

Remove forward slashes around IPA

Remove diphthong and tie bar diacritics (creates neater IPA)

Custom spelling

Define how IPA symbols turn into written symbols, eg:

ʃ > sh
ne > ネ
o > o|ou (creates a random choice between o and ou)
#ʤ > j (# means word boundary; changes ʤ to j at the beginning of a word only)
ʤ# > ge (changes ʤ to ge at the end of a word only)

Spelling rules also support RegEx matching.

Make spelling rules sensitive to stress symbol

Apply default spelling rules as well as custom rules

Convert spelling with diacritics into single characters

Arrange Korean Jamo characters into syllables

No spelling

Add spelling diacritics: á à a̋ ȁ ǎ ȃ â ă ā ä ã å ȧ a̗ a̖ a̬ a̭ a̮ a̯ a̱ a̤ a̰ ḁ ạ

Change alphabet order: ?

Second spelling

This creates a second spelling alongside the main spelling. This can be useful for having non-Roman orthography alongside a Roman orthography. Eg: a Japanese alphabet and Roman alphabet.

Language name (in English):
Natively pronounced (in IPA):

Anglicize randomly generated language names

Add and remove words Only 1 in 10 added words will display in free version.

Enter extra words to be generated, in the format word(s) : part-of-speech

comely : adj
conlang, constructed language : n

Specify what the word translates to as English word : part-of-speech = conlang word (in IPA)

queen : n = kalisi

Or remove default words with minus sign:

-queen

More help with custom words

Include sci-fi vocab (available in pro version)

Remove all default words (only generate custom added words)

Remove translations (only generate conlang words)

Derived words:

Add affixes to words to create derived words as new word : pos = existing word-AFFIX.TAG

comeliness : n = comely-QUALITY.OF.BEING

Create compound words:

God of War : n = war god

Remove all default derived words

see list of derived words

Add or modify affixes (Read the affix guide):

List these rules in grammar section

Part-of-speech morphology

Create affixes and sound changes for parts-of-speech. The below examples adds an "o" to masculine nouns, "a" to feminine nouns, and "ar" to verbs. Conditional affixes can be created - see this guide. Note: Adding this feature to an existing language may totally change existing vocab.

nm = -o nf = -a v = -ar

Number base:

Either

Grammar editor

Read the Grammar editor guide for more tricks and tips.

Only 1 table can be generated in Demo version. Unlimited tables can be generated in full version.

This table will generate:

words affixes

Columns:
Rows:
Blocks:
Part-of-speech (that these affixes are used on):
Apply affixes to the word:

Hide heading & phonology section in final output

Re-insert: Consonant table | Vowel table | Phonological rules | Spelling table

Expand editor to fit content

More grammar options

Word order:

Random

SVO

SOV

VSO

VOS

OVS

OSV

Adjective order:

Random

Before the noun

After the noun

Force all affixes to be:

Prefixes

Suffixes

Either

Noun genders
Add or remove genders for dictionary words. If you use genders in the Grammar Editor, they need to be reflected here too. Capitalized letter(s) become the abbreviation.

Masculine Feminine Neuter

+ Add animate/inanimate genders

Download this language as...

- gives you the grammar in BBCode for use in World Anvil
- gives you the dictionary in CSV for World Anvil's dictionary import
- stand alone HTML file

Download

Show the code

PDF settings:
Title:
Subtitle:
Author:
Word entry colour:
Title page background colour:
Columns per page:
Pronunciation information:

Do not break dictionary entries over new columns

Version 9.5.1 (changelog)

More grammar options

Warnings

Note