Conlanging Origins | Pimzarblan | 1 | Conlinguistics

How Did I Come Upon This Language?

It was actually completely unlike my traditional methods of conlanging. Typically, I used a decoder system in order to \”translate\” letters from the Latin alphabet to differing sounds. Indeed, plenty of words find their roots in this language. However, in this language\’s case, I started writing down words with the aesthetic quality resembling that of the Australian Aboriginal languages.

I was inspired to write a short story inspired by William Shakespeare\’s Roman plays Coriolanus and Antony & Cleopatra. This was supposed to be part of my final project in my Shakespeare university course, however I was more focused on the essay, which caused me to forget about writing the story. I wanted that story to be entirely unique, so I looked to fictional world-building. Although, I already had world-building projects in the past, I wanted to be completely original, so I made up a completely new fictional project.

Although, I did not go through with the short story, I still kept in mind the fluid nature of languages that I had neglected in my previous conlangs. Languages are always evolving, always inconsistent, and always making exceptions.

And those are parts of the beauty of languages in general.

Previous Conlangs

As for the previous conlanging projects that I drew inspiration from, there are two main languages that I attempted and failed in expanding because of my limited knowledge of linguistics.

One was started when I was in high school, which was supposed to have the aesthetic feel of a upper-class, aristocratic, chauvinistic feel. It was called Pnn Xnl\’dawq [pihn znihl-dawk]. Another was started years ago called Narth, and it was meant to resemble the Latin language. As can be expected, both of these languages were meant to be inspired by the Romans.

I also based the script off another world-building project that I rejected. It was made slightly before I made Narth. It was based on the Latin script, as evidenced by the slight curls along with the straight, chiseled lines.

What Is Pimzarblan?

The name of the language derives from two words \”pinz\” and \”arbalan,\” which mean \”gold building.\”

Its sprachenbund is on an island off the coast of the Eindasquing megacontinent–which itself is Pimzarblan for \”eastern land.\” As can be expected, Pimzarblan is a prestige language imposed by the Umbsquodsen Dynasty.

It belongs to its own language family, whereas the languages outside of the island belong to different language families. There are other languages that belong to the proto-Pimzarblan language family, though they are only spoken locally, whereas Pimzarblan is the language of government, histories, and stone-etchings.

It makes use of an alphasyllabary–sort of. The CV clusters tend to start with the upward stroke of the consonant and the downward stroke of the vowel next to it. This does not apply to stand-alone consonants or vowels. As evidenced by this etching, which is Pimzarblan, it uses this system in order to save time, especially since it is an agglutinative language that makes use of complicated words.

Inspirations

So far, I have described two main languages–at least language groups–that were the inspirations behind the Pimzarblan language. One language group is the Australian Aboriginal languages–specifically those of the Pama-Nyungan family. Another is Latin. The usage of a simplified vowel system along with verbalizers are derived from the Australian Aboriginal languages, while an inspiration that derived from Latin was the usage of consonantal clusters along with the use of conjugations, such as dative and subjunctive.

Sources

• \”Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary.\” Revised Edition. Edited by James Morwood. Oxford University. 2005.
• Westerlund, Torbjörn (2015). A Grammatical Sketch of Ngarla (Ngayarta, Pama-Nyungan) (PDF). Asia-Pacific Linguistics; A-PL 16. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics.