Real languages in fantasy

[fallenangelwriter]

OFten i have seen fantasy languages and cultures adaptefor use in fantasy worlds. for instance, i can't count the number of times the words to a magic "spell" have simply been latin, or the language of an ancient empire. often authors base a society on a preexisting real-world culture. setting culture aside for the moment, does that use of language bother you? it sometimes bothers me, but not always, and i can't figure out why it sometimes disturbs me and sometimes not.

for my WIP, i wanted languages for my peoples and didn't want to come up with complete new languages, so i based the languages on real-world ones. i modified them, but i still wonder whether it will be jarring or take readers out of the world.

the most significant language is the language of the angels, which is a combination of latin and japanese. I basically took some words from each language, but mostly japanese nouns, declined htem like latin words, used mostly latin syntax with a few japanese twists, stuck with the roman alphabet, and called it a language. the original human society spoke latin, but used japanese characters to write the latin words. finally, the culture with the closest links to the ancients speaks english, but maintains the japanese writing system and splashes some italian words, especially names, into their dialect to suggest thier descent from the latin speakers.

does this sort of thing bother readers, or do you find it interesting?

[reph]

A reader with a background in linguistics (Medievalist! Where are you?) might be bothered by such hybrids if their origin is evident. Words that look/sound sort of Latin and sort of Japanese could be distracting.

If the words don't look much like any known language, they'd seem suitable to me, as a sample reader, if their "feel" matched the fictional culture. A warlike society might speak in short words with frequent hard consonants and wouldn't end many words with unaccented vowels. Lovecraft's Cthulhu text is appropriately creepy-looking; it looks like a transliteration of somebody coughing up slime. Pthegn!

[Medievalist]

I basically took some words from each language, but mostly japanese nouns, declined them like latin words, used mostly latin syntax with a few japanese twists, stuck with the roman alphabet, and called it a language. the original human society spoke latin, but used japanese characters to write the latin words. finally, the culture with the closest links to the ancients speaks english, but maintains the japanese writing system and splashes some italian words, especially names, into their dialect to suggest thier descent from the latin speakers.

does this sort of thing bother readers, or do you find it interesting?

If it's done well, it doesn't bother me. It's usually done less than well though, and I confess in such case the funky linguistics is enough to make me set aside a book. C. J. Cherryh does this sort of thing very well; you might take a look at Tripoint, for instance, where English has been affected by Russian and French.

Or look at the way Chinese is used in Jos Whedon's Firefly TV series.

The problem is that most people sort of mix langauges, without really thinking about how language change works. You might look at the history of English, particularly the changes caused by Norman French speakers, enough to change Old English, essentially a foreign language, to Middle English, which is frequently understandable without extensive study.

[fallenangelwriter]

Well, I tried to do things that make linguistic sense. because the history of the world is different from earth, languages evolved differently. the choice fo languages was partly based on the languages i already spoke and understood, but thee is a logic to it. Latin was for its association with the bible, and with ancient empires. italian is a corruption of latin. as for the angel language, i mixed in japanese to make it different. Japanese is the language fo a fairly insular island society, and that's what the angels are.

structurally, the combo works. Latin words are declined and then jumbled about willy-nilly. japanese words have particles which work like declensions, but also emply position, but in theory with a few modifications, it could also be structurally loose in the way that latin is. the words look very different at first, but changing the anglicization of the japanese helps a lot. for instance, japanese is filled with "k"s, but if changed to "c"s it looks a lot more like latin.

in any event, the language would not just besome latin and some japanese words. every word would be somehow changed, whichever language it came from. I think many readers will realize what i've done- latin is commonly studied, and japanese looks quite distinctive, but i'm hoping that those readers who understand what i'm doing will find it intriguing.

[DaveKuzminski]

I've taken a different approach. Rather than come up with foreign languages, I've tried to create new words instead using the premise that some words were preferred over previous versions because of a cultural gap which is explained later in the story. As a result, a mosquito became a bloodsipper. A hurricane became a twice storm to those who experienced the eye crossing over. A fly became a bother. I think this gives the story enough shading to make it appear that it's some other world and still present enough parallels that readers can understand what's going on.

[Terra Aeterna]

the language would not just besome latin and some japanese words. every word would be somehow changed, whichever language it came from.

What you're doing is creating a creole or pidgin language. Interestingly enough, creoles (which are more formal than pidgins) tend to form in similar ways, even when they're not formed out of the same languages. That's to say if you have a French/Iroquois creole, over time it develops certain language rules that will be similar to the language rules of a Russian/Chutckee creole.

You might look at:

http://www.humanevolution.net/a/creoles-pidgins.html

http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene/language_evolution.html

[E.G. Gammon]

Whenever I create a phrase or spell in my novels, I take a phrase in a foreign language and spell it out differently. (I prefer Spanish, because it's the only other language I know and I try to make the Spanish phrase fit into what the spell or phrase (in the made-up language) is supposed to mean).

Here is an example of my process, based on a couple English words I saw in the previous post:

BE SIMILAR TO THE LANGUAGE

would become:

BESI MILAR TOT HELAN GUA GE


It's a little cheesy, but it works.

[Nateskate]

I prefer word associations, mixed with something that sounds like it could be a real language. Sort of like the Beatles song "Sun King". It's really gibberish, and perhaps might have been their own secret language, but it sounds neo-french neo-Italian/Spanish.

But "Darkonay" or Ondarkay" where the mind sees "Dark," therefore the imagination sees this as a real word with meaning. And in fact, the reader/listener are all the more curious, because it sounds like something they could possibly decipher.

"Ondarkay...sounds like "on dark day...???"

Let me ask you this, haven't you wanted to interpret something in other languages, and you listen for a familiar phrase or word to lock onto?

"Ondarkay bestany pizzatatri" Sounds so bizzantine and gothic, but it could be your code for: "On dark days, you can order the best pizzas!" That's all the reader needs to know and you've got a hit.

[katiemac]

Nate, that's an interesting approach.

It reminds me of that communcation study, where no matter how you spell a word, as long as the first and the last letters remain the same, the human brain will recognize it for what it's supposed to be.

Smoe lttres are hdarer to mix tahn ohtres, but it siltl wkros!

[fallenangelwriter]

Maybe i should have made this a poll, since what i really want is to find out whether readers will find this disturbing or intersting.

[DaveKuzminski]

Depends upon how much is used for any fictional or foreign language. The more I don't understand, the less likely I am to pick up that author's next book.

[katiemac]

Personally, fallen, I'm not a big fan of reading other languages and things which I can't determine for myself what the basic meaning of the phrase is. The fact that Tolkien wrote an entire language for his novels is not unimpressive, it's actually quite interesting and very admirable, but more than likely I just skip over those phrases - if I don't know what they mean, reading them isn't going to help. Rather, I'd prefer something that instead reinforces parts of the story, like Rowling's use of spells in Harry Potter. Terms like "wingardium leviosa" (maybe? not sure -- had to look it up) in order to make something float -- well, that's understandable even if someone doesn't have a background in Latin. We can recognize it's English counterparts, "wing" and "levitate," and put the sense into it.

I realize, though, that not everyone wants to be as simple and use Latin bases, and sometimes it just won't fit in your story, either, especially if you've created an entirely new world that bears no resemblance to ours. This kind of goes back to the apostrophe discussion -- it's just not something I personally pay that much attention. I do think, however, that in order for the language to have the most meaning it should be somewhat recognizable to the modern eye.

[Terra Aeterna]

Maybe i should have made this a poll, since what i really want is to find out whether readers will find this disturbing or intersting.

Okay. Personally I find almost all made up languages in books to be annoying, distracting nonsense that I skip over. I especially hate the language created by random apostrophe placement, the language created by scrambling normal words around, and the totally fatuous word-replacement language ("runnerbeast" for horse in McCaffery's books).

Like Katie, I like the pseudo-latin in Harry Potter. I also like well thought out conlangs such as that which C.J. Cherryh uses in her Foreigner series. Otherwise, throwing random gobbletygook into a story does not make me feel like I'm in an alien culture, it makes me think the author is being lazy in his/her worldbuilding and trying to fake me out into thinking his/her world is much more interesting than it actually is.

[Nateskate]

Nate, that's an interesting approach.

It reminds me of that communcation study, where no matter how you spell a word, as long as the first and the last letters remain the same, the human brain will recognize it for what it's supposed to be.

Smoe lttres are hdarer to mix tahn ohtres, but it siltl wkros!

Isn't that absolutely amazing, but I could read that entire sentence in one pass without hesitation.

Some of this isn't based on a psychology as much as my desire to enjoy the game of communication. I love a code language. And frankly, I enjoy hiding encrypted messages in a story.

Once someone knows how I think, (if they see a clue), they'll realize that there are secret messages in my story (If it gets published).

But insofar as names, I like names that associate somewhat with a character. For instance, "Count Dimulb" and see "Dim-bulb" as in idiot.

Well, sometimes you can get away with "Count Dimbulb", but if you do that too much, it becomes cartoonish. Actually catoonish works from time to time, but you want somewhat of a sophistication, and not predictability.

For instance, "Wormtongue" is a dead giveaway-as in name equals character. But it isn't cloying in the context Tolkien uses it, because he didn't write a disney/WB: "Goofy, Daffy, Dopey...etc." It's mixed in with Gandalf, Frodo...etc.

I tend to like that approach.