Where do I stop?

Hi there!

Just signed up to Notebook and I'm importing my notes on a world I've been designing for a while now. I'm realizing as I add locations, characters, and groups, that I desperately need to start creating a language for my people so I can name said categories. (up until now they could remain nameless in my head, I know who and what they're about)

I have two cultures mostly formed and ready for a proper language, however, because I've been basing their cultures on existing cultures I'm afraid that when I get into the language-building I'll end up ripping too heavily off of their inspiration and create an offensive and unreadable mess.

I'm not planning on going full-on Tolkien, I just need enough to assign proper nouns and some catch-phrases that might pass between cultures easily to give a good feel to the world. Is this possible? How does one go about this?

If you're going for a naming language that's just going to be a handful of phrases or a few words, I'd recommend looking at Tolkien anyway - Black Speech is a fantastic example. Since you're basing the cultures on existing ones, as well, take a look at their grammar, syntax, and what sort of sounds the languages have. Do you want the conlangs to follow them closely, with a few major differences - getting rid of nasals, or addings a series of glottal stops, etc. - or do you just want them to sound a certain way - flowing, harsh and gutteral, or some sort of mixture of the two? After that, you just sort of have to make up a few root words following the outlines you want - or borrow from the languages your looking at. It never hurts to throw a few similar looking words in there that your reader can accurately guess at!

Hope some of this rambling helps, I'm not the most coherent right now ^^;

This is quite helpful thanks! Always open to thoughts from others too!