Looking down at the raven that seemed to pay him a visit, Luxian smiled. A quick swish of his tail and he was crouching down, beaming at the bird.

It's time for the annual Fiat Lingua rewind!

Background: I created Fiat Lingua over ten years ago with the idea that it could be something like the Rutgers Optimality Archive: A place where conlangers could post work that they wanted to showcase, or work that was in progress. We've had tons of contributions over the years, and some standout work I'm really proud of.

Using our fancy statistics program (you know, the free version) we're able to determine the top 10 visited posts for this year (though, note, the numbers for the current year's December post will always be down a little bit, since it didn't have a full month. If you'd like to take a look at it, Carsten Becker did a version of "Silent Night" in his conlang Ayeri!). Here they are!

NUMBER 10

"Road Trip Conlanging with Kids" (August, 2023) by Mia DeSanzo: Fiat Lingua is supposed to be an archive of long, detailed conlang articles, and also short, breezy conlang ideas, and this is one of the latter! It's less than a page long, but a fun idea, and it was quite well-received!

NUMBER 9

"Art & Anxiety: Conlanging through impostor syndrome" (February, 2023) by Jessie Sams (now Jessie Peterson): This is a personal reflection by @quothalinguist on how she has dealt with impostor syndrome, and how it's impacted her conlanging.

NUMBER 8

"Taadži Linguistics" (March, 2023) by Lauren Kuffler: This is a wonderful introduction to the Taadži language, which features a writing system reminiscent of Mayan epigraphs.

NUMBER 7

"Tone for Conlangers: A Basic Introduction" (April, 2018) by Aidan Aannestad: Making a second consecutive appearance in the top ten, Aidan Aannestad's introduction to tone has been an invaluable resource for conlangers producing tonal conlangs for just over five years now!

NUMBER 6

"Afrihili: An African Interlanguage" (April, 2014) by William S. Annis: Afrihili is an a posteriori auxlang from the late 60s that uses Bantu languages as its source, and it is fascinating! One of my all-time favorite auxlangs, and William provides a wonderful introduction. Of interest, this article was number 6 in the top ten last year, as well!

NUMBER 5

"Names Aren’t Neutral: David J. Peterson on Creating a Fantasy Language" (March, 2019) by David J. Peterson: Up four spots from last year, this is my article on best practices when coming up with names in a fantasy setting—even when no conlang is present.

NUMBER 4

"Grambank & Language Documentation: Zhwadi and Its Features" (June, 2023) by Jessie Sams (now Jessie Peterson): The first of the game-changing mega-resources for conlanging Jessie created in 2023, this is a short description of how to use Grambank in conlanging with a link to a fillable Google spreadsheet any conlanger can copy and use to introduce their conlang to others.

NUMBER 3

"Patterns of Allophony" (April, 2015) by William S. Annis: Definitely one of the most popular papers on Fiat Lingua, William illustrates graphically a number of very common sound changes. This article once again occupies the third spot of our top ten!

NUMBER 2

"A Conlanger's Thesaurus" (September, 2014) by William S. Annis: We have a new number 1 for this year! This has, historically, been the most accessed article on Fiat Lingua, and it's obvious to see why. The article is relatively short, compared to the information and use you can get out of it. William Annis details ways in which languages relate words to other similar words. For conlangers who struggle either with coming up with words that are different from English in meaning, or who struggle with coming up with words at all, this reference article should prove very useful. Using the word maps in this article, you might be able to come up with words you never dreamt of before, but words which could exist in some language. A great resource for conlangers who are desperately trying to break out of the influence of their L1 or L2!

And now for the top viewed article for 2023 on Fiat Lingua...

NUMBER 1

"A Surreal Conlang" (January, 2023) by David J. Peterson: Quite the surprise! Late 2022 I wrote an article about how one might go about creating a surreal conlang—neither naturalistic nor regular and artificial like an auxlang or engelang—and it went up on Fiat Lingua on January 1st. I think (or hope) it served as a useful jumping off point for conlangers who are looking to try something really different from what they've seen done elsewhere.

* * * * *

in btwn working on other things im trying to update all my characters with up-to-date profiles and artwork over on my toyhouse.... there are a lot that are private or simply not uploaded so its gonna be a long road lol

Meet Sara!

Sara comes from the Āyeri tribe. This tribe originated in Ethiopia, in about 300 AD. Ever since the Air Charm chose one of their people, a huge cult formed around the bearer, believing it was a power given to her by some sort of a godess. The rest of the people didn't take that well. The "Charm followers" were being ostracized and soon left Ethiopia to settle in a forest and live a life closer to nature. Sara, as a bearer, is considered to be the princess. As a part of the royalty, she has a very... unusual family. Every time, a bearer is supposed to give birth to a girl while they're between 15 and 18, since when they become 19 years old, they become legitimate Charm bearers and set off to join the other ones while the alpha male (the one who impregnated the girl. Always one of the men called "the ones that see"; they travel to the outside world to be able to gain the knowledge needed for the princess to adjust.) and the man's partner, whether it be a male or a female, take care of the child, teaching her all she has to know about her life's destination. Sara ended up with two fathers. When she first appears in the comic, she is just turning 19.

ayeri!! theyre an akalii/ves’dari halfblood, hence the mishmash of bird and canine features, & theyre one of the few people with ves’dari blood that’s able to use magic--theyre v skilled with healing magic, though they lack any formal training because of how they live in a very small, remote fishing village.  theyre v friendly and compassionate & theyre friends with pretty much everyone who lives in the village and can always be found lending a hand somehow, some way--nobodys really sure how they find the time between working their family’s fishing business and tending to their 6 younger siblings, but they do it.  they experience a lot of self-doubt and alienation on account of being halfblooded (all the rest of their family is pureblood ves’dari, as their biological father, from whic their akalii half came from, disappeared when they were young) but they hide it all beneath smiles and laughs.