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finlaaaay's review against another edition
4.0
Read this in a day after it arrived. The original Language Construction Kit, originally an online article, was a mainstay of my teenage years, when I was into conlanging originally. I remember printing it out at school but at 4-point type to save paper. The older LCK book was basically the online article but fleshed out. This is all-new material. Rosenfelder writes well and includes plenty of real-world examples for the linguistic constructions he mentions in the book. There is a "guest chapter" by another author near the end, about North Caucasian languages, but unfortunately it is difficult to follow compared to the rest of the book.
marcasdeb's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.5
Advanced Language Construction allows the budding conlanger to break into a sprint from Rosenfelder's first book. Everything from the first Kit is here, in more detail, along with even more content. This time Rosenfelder delves more into technical linguistic theory, which is invaluable for gaining a deep knowledge of language and the processes that drive its change. And Rosenfelder doesn't limit himself to pure language; writing systems are discussed also, another important facet of worldbuilding and language construction. Just as with the LCK, ALC goes further and provides the reader with extra material to pursue themselves in the betterment of their craft and embroadening of their linguistic knowledge; an automated sound change applier is one example. Rosenfelder once again proves his own competence in not just linguistics, conlanging, and worldbuilding, but in communicating his expertise to the reader.
acaleyn's review against another edition
4.0
I knew I was going to like this book when it told me, "Aspiring linguists should already know the Greek alphabet...and if you know the Greek alphabet, there's little excuse for not reading Cyrillic." A book after my own heart.
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