Idioms.

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Cubix
Posts:22
Joined:2016-06-09, 17:29
Gender:male
Country:FRFrance (France)
Idioms.

Postby Cubix » 2016-09-09, 16:38

Hi, I'm creating this thread because I want to know how to create idioms in constructed languages.
Natural languages are usually full of idioms (and proverbs) because those languages are spoken since a very long time by a lot of people, and so have evolved a lot through time.
But conlangs are artificial and aren't spoken for long. So, they often are deprived of expressions and that stuff. So, guys, how do we create new idioms and proverbs for conlangs ?
Langue maternelle : [flag=]fr[/flag]
Fluently spoken : [flag=]en[/flag]
Ich kann ein bisschen sprechen : [flag=]de[/flag]
Kaj esperanto mojosas ! [flag=]eo[/flag]
Et ju posam strugisa lingo : Bonestalingu. And I have a conlang : Bonestalingu.

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Losam
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Real Name:Felipe
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)

Re: Idioms.

Postby Losam » 2016-09-12, 23:27

I think that you can:
  • Use as a base, your own native language's idioms and just translate those to your conlang. Or, you can modify some aspects or parts. For example: in my native language, we say: "The life isn't a sea of roses" instead of "bed of roses" (I think that "bed of roses" is common to English native speakers), what can I do? Change this idiom in this way: "A bucket of roses" and then, translate it to your conlang;
  • Also, you can observe, watch and listening to something to get the idea. For example: I saw a part of the movie "The Revenant", when a bear smashes the main actor, then, it gave me a idea for a idiom that I definitely will put in my conlang: "dicaprioted" from the name of the actor. But what means? For my conlang, it means that you was pissed off, humbled, corrupted or injured by someone or something. And after that, You return lookinto for vengeance. Got it? I have another one: "have an arrow on the knee" (an arrow from a bow). This expression means that you're no longer able to do something that you was used to do by something that happens to you (often, things that involve physical abilities). For example: "What about soccer today? No, I can't. I have an arrow on my knee". I created this expression from Skyrim (The Elder Scrolls V) when you're playing and saw a guard, sometimes he says: "I used to be an adventurer like you, but I took an arrow on the knee" (it's something like this, not exactly).
Also, I found some links about it:

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Ashucky
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Re: Idioms.

Postby Ashucky » 2016-09-24, 17:10

Idioms, saying, and set phrases are a reflection of the speakers' culture and the environment they live in. Each idiom or saying has some background or history, a reason why it came to be as such. You can, of course, just make them random without any historical background, nothing wrong with that, but it is helpful if you first have some culture fleshed out and know in what environment your speakers live. A mostly agrarian society will use different idioms from a mostly urban society, or a society living in flatlands vs a society living in mountains. There's always a why and a how behind every idiom, if they've become lost over time. So, if you know where the speakers of your conlang(s) live and in what environment, that will help you come up with more idioms (and keep them consistent, too; in an agrarian, society, for example, most of the idioms will probably have something to do with agriculture and such).
Slovenščina (sl)English (en)Italiano (it)漢語 (zh)Español (es)Suomi (fi)Svenska (sv)日本語 (ja)فارسی (fa)Nešili (hit)
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
Največji sovražnik znanja ni nevednost, marveč iluzija znanja.


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