How to Customize a Generated Language in Vulgarlang

Updated

Vulgarlang lets you customize a generated conlang through four option groups — Phonology, Spelling, Vocabulary, and Grammar — plus a set of advanced controls for word structure, sound changes, and stress. You can enter your own phonemes as IPA symbols separated by spaces, set consonant and vowel limits before and after vowels, define permissible consonant clusters by word position, and adjust phoneme frequencies, illegal combinations, vowel probabilities, tones, and stress patterns. The demo version outputs up to 200 words; a signup raises the vocabulary to 4000 words and unlocks extra features.

Start with the core option groups

After generating a language (or clearing a loaded one), the interface exposes these groups:

  • Phonology — the sound inventory and how sounds combine.
  • Spelling — how those sounds are written.
  • Vocabulary — the word stock.
  • Grammar — the rules and irregularities the generator models.

The generator is built to imitate the rules, irregularities, and quirks of real languages across grammar, sounds, and vocabulary, so changes you make in one area carry through to the output.

Set custom phonemes

Use Custom phonemes to define your own sound inventory. Enter phonemes separated by spaces, using IPA symbols only. The field is split into Consonants and Vowels, and you can toggle Show IPA symbols if you need a reference while typing.

Two related controls sit alongside this:

  • Add random phonemes to custom selection (upon generation) — lets the generator supplement your list.
  • Max consonants before vowel / after vowel — each offers 1, 2, or 3, capping how heavy a syllable can get.

If you would rather not hand-pick sounds, you can analyse word structure of your own language or load a preset from the list (Arabic, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Welsh, Zulu) as a starting point.

Control word structure

The Word structure section is where you define what combinations are legal. Note that using Advanced turns off the Custom Phonemes option above, so decide which route you want before filling it in.

In Advanced you specify permissible consonants and consonant clusters by position:

  • Word initial consonants
  • Mid-word consonants
  • Word final consonants
  • Vowels
  • 2nd vowel group — add different vowels here and each word draws from one group or the other. This is how you set up vowel harmony (there is a dedicated + vowel harmony control and an explanation link).

You also get pattern fields for Phoneme Classes, Word Patterns, and Affix Patterns. Affix patterns are used for randomly generated affixes, so they shape how words inflect rather than just how they sound.

Tune frequencies, probabilities, and tones

These settings decide how often each option actually appears in the output:

Setting What it controls
Phoneme frequencies Fast dropoff, Medium dropoff, or Equiprobable
Illegal combinations Ban same vowel twice in a row; ban same syllable twice in a row
Vowel probabilities Vowel at start of word (~%), vowel at end of word (~%)
Vowel tones Applies tone to all vowels; left-most options are more common

For tones, the available values are extra high, high, mid, low, extra low, rising, and falling. You choose how tone is represented: tone letters, superscript numbers, or diacritics.

Apply sound changes and stress

Sound changes has two display toggles: Reflect sound changes in spelling and Show changes in [square brackets]. There is also Remove forward slashes around IPA if you prefer output without the slash notation.

Stress pattern determines which syllable is stressed. The options are:

  • Initial — first syllable
  • Second — second syllable
  • Antepenult — third-last syllable
  • Penultimate — second-last syllable
  • Ultimate — last syllable
  • Predictable pattern, No stress, or No fixed stress

A note in the interface defines a foot as a group of 2 or 3 syllables, which matters if you are reasoning about stress placement. Change stress pattern is listed as a full-version feature, so expect it to be locked in the demo.

Verify your result

Generate a new language after each change and read the output against what you set. Practical checks:

  1. Confirm your custom IPA phonemes actually appear and that no banned combinations (same vowel twice, same syllable twice) show up.
  2. Check that consonant clusters only occur in the positions you permitted.
  3. If you set vowel harmony, confirm each word uses vowels from a single group.
  4. Look at the stress marking and tone representation to be sure they match your chosen format.

The 200-word demo cap is enough to sanity-check phonology and word shape; the 4000-word vocabulary after signup is what you need to judge whether the affix patterns and grammar hold up across a larger sample.

Common sticking points

  • Advanced overrides Custom Phonemes. If your hand-entered phonemes seem ignored, check whether Advanced word structure is active.
  • IPA only. Non-IPA characters in the phoneme field will not be interpreted as intended.
  • Spaces separate phonemes. A missing space merges two sounds into one entry.
  • Some controls are version-gated. Stress pattern changes and the larger vocabulary are tied to the full version, so plan your workflow around what the demo exposes.