u/LordRT27

Hello everyone, I have decided I want to take on a pretty big project, but am not sure where to start.

TLDR: I want to build a world with several language families, but am not sure wether I should start with the proto-languages (or proto-world) or if I should start with making the languages actually important to my story.

Long version (this is mostly gonna be google translated from Dutch, so sorry if there are any problems in the tekst) (It's also gonna be a bit of a lore-dump meant to make it a bit easier to visualise my issue): I want to create an artificial language family (actually several, but let's stick to one for now), but I don't really know where to start. Should I create the ancestral language first, or should I start somewhere in the tree? I can find pros and cons for both methods; if I start with the ancestral language, I have to simulate tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years of language evolution before I get to languages ​​of any importance to my project. But if I start with a descendant, I run the problem that the language won't really feel "lived" (few or no irregularities/not many synonyms and so on). I need these languages ​​for a world I want to build that will contain multiple languages ​​from the same language family from different branches and time periods. However, I do not necessarily want a quick fix so that I can start my story. I primarily want to focus on the languages ​​spoken, since I love linguistics and specifically want to incorporate these language relationships into my story (that the spoken languages ​​tell a story themselves, beyond what the text itself explains). The languages are actually the main reason I wanted to make the world, I wanted a world wherein my languages could evolve and interact. So, this can certainly take a few months or even years, I don't want the quickest answer.

I know that was quite the tekst wall, but I thought I wanted to be thorough. If it helps to get more specific, I have an image of the main family tree I would like to work on for now (if you are not a fan of lore-dumps, skip this section):

https://preview.redd.it/trlvdkhbwt6h1.png?width=514&format=png&auto=webp&s=aed4f4c335157a4b3a1a3f5179cafdde156ffd6b

I think my biggest problem is that I don't really have a "current" time period, and that I'm going to need multiple stages of the same language family. If we take this tree as an example, the languages I will need for my current project are Oudsaqar, Saqar, Neqada, Hu'uti, Faranaq, and Wa'esh.

Of these languages, the most important is Oudsaqar (Old Saqar), which serves as the Latin of my world and thus also serves as a lingua franca during the time of the Saqar language. Old Saqar is also the language of the sacred scriptures and the language of literature. This will therefore be my most extensive language.

Saqar, Neqada, and Hu'uti are descendants of Old Saqar, and are the living languages ​​(i.e., the mother tongues of the population) during the first story I want to tell; Saqar is particularly important here since it is the mother tongue of one of my protagonists.

Faranaq is also somewhat important, as it is the ancestral language of a significant family in my story, but will mostly work as a naming language (in my current project at least).

Wa'esh is the language spoken by the first civilization on my planet. There are no descendants of this language to consider, and no one in my current story can speak it or even read its inscriptions (imagine the Indus script). I plan to expand on this language, but not for my current project.

Okay, lore-dump over, I hope it makes it a bit more clear what I wanted to do, but maybe it just made it more confusing, I don't know. My overall question is at least this: Where on the tree should I start building my tree? At the beginning (or even all the wat to proto-world), somewhere in the middle, or all the way at the bottom? Another option would be to just scrap this project all together and start from the very top down, and taking my world where it leads. Another issue is I guess that I have already some preconcieved notions as to what Old Saqar should sound and be like, which makes it harder to start anywhere else than there, but then it will be harder to evolve it to its proto-form.