Vulgar: Language generator

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Vulgar is a constructed language (conlang) generator for fantasy fiction writers and role players that creates unique and usable languages for your race of peoples in the click of a button. Vulgar's output 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, extra custom features and more!

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


Consonants:
Vowels:

Show IPA symbols


Free Version 8.2 (changelog)

Error

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There are not enough sounds in your language to generate a sufficient set of unique of words! Enter more consonants and/or vowels or turn off custom options.

Phonemes

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Phonemes are the individual sounds of a language. This is not the same as the spelling of a language (which is the orthography). Phonemes are represented by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is used to transcribe the exact pronunciation of words in all languages worldwide. IPA is written between forward slashes.

Becoming familiar with some of the IPA sounds will enhance your understanding of the languages generated by Vulgar.

Seed numbers

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The seed number can be used to recover a generated language. If you create something you like in the free version, you can recover its full output in the full version using its seed number. If you just want something random, leave it blank.

Important! If you use any custom settings in the free version, those settings must be re-entered exactly the same as they were (along with the seed number) to get the same output in the full version. Otherwise the program will output what the seed number would have generated if it was allowed to randomly pick its own settings. Furthermore, any custom phonemes must be re-entered in the exact same order, otherwise it will apply different frequencies to those phonemes.

Syllable structure

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Syllable structure refers to how many consonants are permitted to appear on either side of the vowel. A syllable structure of (C)V means the syllable must have one vowel and an optional consonant at the beginning. It permits patterns such as tito, raleo, ala. Languages with this kind of simple structure include Swahili and Fijian.

A syllable structure such as (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C) would allow more complex words such as strips, trainers. Most European languages have more complex structures.

Stress pattern

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Stress pattern refers to which syllable in a word gets emphasis. English has no exact fixed pattern; the stress can fall on any syllable: VIGorous (first), emPLOYment (second to last), hoTEL (last). Most of the world's major languages have no fixed pattern, however some do. Finnish words have stress on the first syllable. Greek is second to last syllable. Persian has it on the last syllable.

IPA uses the ˈ symbol before the syllable to represent primary stress. The word siho /si ˈho/ would be pronounced siHO.

Stress pattern

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Stress pattern refers to which syllable in a word gets emphasis. English has no exact fixed pattern; the stress can fall on any syllable: VIGorous (first), emPLOYment (second to last), hoTEL (last). Most of the world's major languages have no fixed pattern, however some do. Finnish words have stress on the first syllable. Greek is second to last syllable. Persian has it on the last syllable.

IPA uses the ˈ symbol before the syllable to represent primary stress. The word siho /si ˈho/ would be pronounced siHO.

Phonological rules

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All languages have phonemes that change slightly (or sometimes dramatically) based on the effects of other phonemes around it. These are known as phonological processes. We express them in writing as phonological rules, eg: e > i / _g = e turns into i before g.

For a more in-depth lesson on phonological rules, and the kinds of phonological rules that exist click here.

Diphthongs

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A diphthong is when two vowel sounds combine into one. English has various diphthongs. For example, the word "light" /laɪt/ is comprised of /a/ and /ɪ/, but is perceived as one vowel.

Consider using diphthongs to expand your vowel inventory.

Adpositions

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Adpositions are words that express spatial or temporal relations (in, on, under, towards, before) or mark various semantic roles (of, for). When adpositions come before the noun phrase they are called prepositions, i.e. in English: on the table. If they come after the noun phrase they are called postpositions. Languages that use postpositions include Chinese and Turkish.

Articles

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Articles are the words the, a, and some. The definite article, the, is used to refer to something whose reference is already known. Indefinite articles, a and some, are used to refer to new things in the discourse. In English, the indefinite article changes to match the plurality of the noun (a cat vs. some cats) however the definite does not. In other languages, articles may change to match grammatical properties of nouns based on a complex matrix of number (singular, plural) multiplied by gender (masculine, feminine, neuter, etc.) multiplied by case (nominative, accusative, etc.).

For an in-depth explanation of gender click here. For an explanation of case click here.

Morphology

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Morphology is the changing of a word to express various grammatical properties. In English, the plural marker "s" is an example of morphology. Some other languages change nouns based on a complex matrix of number (singular, plural) X by gender (masculine, feminine, neuter, etc.) X by case (nominative, accusative, etc.).

For an in-depth explanation of gender click here. For an explanation of case click here.

Phoneme frequencies

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Semi-random makes the frequency of phonemes random, but with consonant clusters and diphthongs being less frequent. Naturalistic ranks phonemes from left (most frequent) to right (least frequent) and calculates frequencies on a Yule distribution, which mimics distributions of phonemes in real languages. For equiprobable, phonemes can be custom weighted by adding them multiple times. Alternatively, enter a number directly after the phoneme to multiply it, eg: p3 sm2 is the same as p p p sm sm. These options work for Custom phonemes and Advanced word structure.

This checkbox also controls output from the Phonotactics Analyser.

Illegal combinations

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Specify sequences of phonemes that can't occur in a word. For example, although phonemes w and u do occur in Japanese, the sequence wu does not.

This field supports RegEx matching, so you can specify vowels that cannot occur word-initially or finally, among other things.

Separate rules with spaces.

Note: this feature will not work in scenarios where a derivational affix violates the rule (example: you make at an illegal combination, but afterwards the program creates a suffix -t and attaches it to sala to create salat).

Plurals

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Some languages do not have plural markers in the same way as English. Instead plurality may be determined by context or with 'counter' words such as "a few", "various", etc. Japanese is an example of a language with no plurals. Other languages may have some limited plural markers for nouns that refer to humans (Chinese). Others may not use plurals with inanimate nouns (Tamil).

Change alphabet order

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Input orthographic letters in the new order you want them to be alphabetised, separated by spaces. Note: Ordering errors can occur if you do not enter all the letters. Ordering errors may also occur when using diacritics or diagraphs. Therefore, á should be the single Unicode character (as opposed to the two character combination of a + accute diacritic symbol) in both your spelling rules and alphabet order.