Lexember is a social-media challenge to add one word to your constructed language each day of December. Lexember was created by Mia DeSanzo and Pete Bleackley in 2012, so this will be its thirteenth year! Adding a word a day is certainly an easily achievable goal, something that you can do over a cup of coffee, on a commute, or when pulling out your smartphone.
If you already have a conlang that you’ll be adding words to, check out Stephen Escher’s “12 Tips for Lexember.”
If you don’t have a conlang, what a great time to start one! How to do that?
- Hate a blank page? You can create a totally random language with Vulgarlang and then start editing it.
- You can check out my zine article on creating a naming language, my publisher Mark Rosenfelder’s Language Construction Kitlet, or my own book, Langmaker.
To create a naming language, each day choose a different meaning from these tables, making sure to have a fairly even mix of adjectives and nouns.
| Adjectives | Nouns | ||
| bear-like beloved bitter blessed brave chief compassionate constant desired divine eagle-like earnest falcon-like famous flowering fortunate fox-like free hallowed happy industrious laughing lion-like loyal manly | mighty noble northern patriotic peaceful powerful praiseworthy prayerful protecting pure ready sharp shining small strong strong-willed swift valiant victorious war’s wealthy wise wolf-like worthy young | arrow battle bearer brightness counselor crown defender dweller earth farmer father fighter forest gate gift giver God guardian hammer harvester healer helper home horse keeper laurel | leader lily lover maid man pearl people protector rock rose ruler runner smith son spear staff steward stranger stronghold sword traveler twin warrior wolf |
You can use these tables to generate names in the following ways:
- adjective1: “Pure” (Katherine)
- adjective1 + adjective2: “Noble and Shining” (Alberta)
- adjective1 + noun1: “Chief Protector” (Howard)
- noun1 + noun2: “Elf Ruler” (Avery)
- adjective1 + adjective2 + noun1: “Noble, Brave Warrior” (Gunther)
- adjective1 + noun1 + noun2: “Strong Warrior Twin”
- adjective1 + adjective2 + noun1 + noun2: “Young Bear-like Battle Hammer”
Remember to keep your words short, with just 2 to 4 sounds each, since they will be combined together. The average length of a name in the Dungeon & Dragons Player’s Handbook is just 6 sounds long. And you might want to add a final suffix to signal gender.
My first year participating in Lexember was 2020. I actually started late, on December 10 to be exact, so if you’re reading this in mid-December you should still start. (Heck, don’t worry if you’re doing this in another month entirely—I also did Lextober in 2021, just because.) Last year I combined conlanging with my interest in birding and created names for birds in Denju.
For an added holiday-themed challenge, when creating your December conlang’s inventory of sounds, make sure you have no L.
Happy Lexember!
Photo by Kristian Strand on Unsplash. Originally published 27-Nov-2021.
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