Invent Your Own Language In Minutes, With LangMaker/Win 1.10 - Free!

Testimonials ¤ System Requirements ¤ Download Now ¤ Lexical Files ¤ Source Code ¤ Version History

Now Open Source!

If you are fascinated by words and language, then you might want to indulge in the ultimate word-play: invent your own language! An invented language, often called a model language, can be anything from a simple set of words made up for your private amusement to a complex system of interrelated languages designed to provide background to a public work. J.R.R. Tolkien invented Quenya, Sindarin and related languages to add verisimilitude to The Lord Of The Rings, while Anthony Burgess invented Nadsat for A Clockwork Orange. People around the world learn model languages for communication (Esperanto) and for fun (Klingon).

You too can create your own language:

just to have fun
to explore how languages work
to create a background for a story or game
as a private language for recording your journal
as a very personal work of art.

While inventing a language, even a model language, can be an intimidating prospect, LangMaker makes it extra enjoyable, by allowing you to quickly generate hundreds of words for your own language. If you love words, you'll love creating your own. With LangMaker, you can create your own language in minutes. But LangMaker can entertain you for hours, as you experiment with different forms or if you decide to use LangMaker to create a rich, detailed system of related languages. For a sample language (and its ancestor) created by the Standard Edition, see Kordron.

LangMaker can generate words according to patterns of consonants and vowels you specify, can transform words according to sound changes, can derive words from etymologies, and much more. All this, and its free! Even its source code is free! Download it now! (Then download this update.) (It's free, but if you insist... :-).

Testimonials

"This is an amazing, time-saving little piece of software. I have only been playing with it a short while, but I must admit that it does have a lot of possibilities... Thanks a million!" Jason Charette

"I just downloaded a copy of LangMaker, and I have three words to say... FAB YOO LUS!!!!" - Moreland Clinton Michael

"LangMaker is a wonderful tool for creating a entire lexicon for a constructed language. Its ability to create a consistent language family and history are superb. Definitely a must for any conlanger!" - Martin Greening

"It looks great. I've been tinkering with it for a couple hours, trying to get it to output just the right shapes of words in the right amounts. It's a wonderful program." - Chris Collins

"Speaking of the WWW pages [and the Web Wizard], congrats on thinking of such a useful tool! I was very impressed with this." - Matt Smith, https://www.crystal-mtn.com/users/msmith/matt.htm

"LangMaker is a terrific program. The transform feature is a very powerful tool; my sound shifts should be seamless, accurate and complete. Never could get that done right on paper." - Tom Hackett

"I have been very happy with what I have been able to do with the version I recently downloaded. I have had no problem running it on either of my computers, and it does exactly what I want a word generator to do. Thanks for making this available." - Mia Soderquist

"Just wanted to tell you again how much I enjoy Language Maker. It's great fun... You know, I've been able to pick out 'roots' from completely random vocabularies? ... Anyway, thanks for the program." - Pat Dunn, Jr.

"I also thank you again for your page. This was a sort of hidden hobby of mine that never usually got beyond a bit of grammar and a small lexicon for the hundreds of languages I started but never finished. With your resources and examples, I hope to finish one some day." - Marco Fabiani

"I just wanted to thank you for creating LangMaker! I have never found a program this great ever! Thank you for creating it!!!" - Jordi Kroon

"Thanks for the hard work! It's a fantastic program." - Duncan Duchov

System Requirements

Operating System	Windows 3.1 or Windows 95
Hard Disk Space	1.4 MB used
RAM	4 MB minimum
Utility Needed	PKUNZIP compatible decompressor

Download Now!

Download one of the following two ZIP files, then create a new directory on your hard drive for LangMaker (e.g., C:\LANGMAKR or C:\Program Files\LangMaker). Copy the downloaded file to this directory and unzip it. Then double-click on LANGMAKE.EXE, and you are in business! Open the file ORCNAMES.LEX or KATAKAN.LEX for a good introduction to the capabilities of LangMaker. I'll be glad to answer any of your questions by e-mail. - Jeffrey Henning

Full install (650 KB) - Everything you need in one package.

Upgrade install (58 KB) - If you downloaded a previous version of LangMaker, this package has everything you need to upgrade to LangMaker 1.09.

Lexical Files

Once you start using LangMaker, you may find the following lexical files useful (each is ZIPped):

VOCABULD (52 KB) - You can easily create a complete language with this file, a thorough 1600-word vocabulary, based on Rick Harrison's Universal Language Dictionary (used by permission). Perfect for creating a full-fledged language, with a vocabulary capable of expressing just about anything.

SIXLANGS (63 KB) - You can easily create a future language, descended from one of the six major world languages, with SIXLANGS.LEX. It has a phonetic representation of 1200+ words in Arabic, Chinese, English, Hindi, Russian and Spanish (based on the public domain Lojban database). Just apply a Transform command and change the language based on sound shifts, and you'll have an excellent language for a science-fiction setting.

LOJBAN (62 KB) - The Lojban gismu definitions. Create your own logical language, by generating invented vocabulary or by selectively transforming the SIXLANG file.

LATIN - A 3000+ word Latin lexicon, perfect for inventing your own Romance language!

MEDIEVAL - Coming someday, a 3000-word vocabulary suitable for a medieval or fantasy language, with a rich lexicon of weapons and monsters.

Source Code

LangMaker was developed with Visual Basic. It is currently a VB3 project, since the need to keep the overall size small for downloads is currently outweighing the need to seamlessly handle long file names. LangMaker is open source, meaning you can freely download the source code, modify it and do what you want with it. I'd love to get back any improvements, so that I can integrate them into the main code base, but that is up to you. Click here to download the source code (92 KB, zipped).

Version History

(version 1.11) July 5, 1999 [200K EXE] (beta version only)

Some errors now logged to file TUNEUP.PDC in the LangMaker directory; please forward this file when reporting bugs
Added some additional error trapping

(version 1.10) January 13, 1999 [199K EXE]

Added status bar to provide feedback that File/Save worked, at request of Jennifer Danielson
Fixed bug regarding INI file that caused application to crash on startup (ugh!)
Added some additional error trapping
Removed About System... dialogue to simplify source code (wasn't always accurate anyway)

(version 1.09) December 17, 1998 [175 KB EXE]

First open source version!
Removed need to register and removed limit of 100 rows to unregistered users
Removed spell checker (to make it easier for others to modify source code)
Modernized look of dialogs by replacing bold with plain text wherever possible
Removed dead code (again to make it easier for others to modify source code, and to reach personal goal of shrinking EXE to be smaller than version 1.00 EXE)

(version 1.08) May 14, 1997 [281 KB EXE]