TnT: Conlangs

[pipisafoat]

The first order of business today is a signal-boost. We're about writing, but we're also about caring about people. So let's try to do that some. (On a related note, if there's a humanitarian effort you ever want us to spread the word about, feel free to let any mod know.)
help_japan and help_japan are both charity auctions to, unsurprisingly, benefit Japan. Please investigate these communities and see if you can help at all.

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In our regular news, a final congratulations to 1stmate for winning the previous contest! All writers are reminded that contest 26 [premise: one morning, the sun doesn't rise] is open for entries until Monday at 10 pm GMT (5 pm EST).

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I think quite a few of us write science fiction and/or fantasy around here. I'm sure even more of us read those genres. Every now and then, I see authors constructing languages for a particular race or species in their books. Many many many years ago, I even started building a language of my own. For no particular reason, and not very well, but hey, I tried it! Have you? Perhaps more importantly, how do you feel about someone (yourself included) using an invented language in a book?

Conlangs: What's your opinion?

Comments

[ex_pippin880]

I took some linguistics units in university to be able to conlang better, but then I fell in love with linguistics and forgot about the conlanging. :)

I think conlangs, like all things, are okay when done in moderation and done with skill/love. They're a realistic thing to have (secondary world spec fic where one whole planet speaks the same language shits me so much uuurgh) and they can add a lot. But they can also be used shittily or lazily!

With secondary world spec fic, the entire premise is that the story has been translated into English (or another Earth language). So, sure, you could go "well, then translate EVERYTHING into English". But you might not be able to, or your characters might hear a language they don't understand, so it would be confusing to translate that into English. Okay, you could translate it into French or whatever instead, but that starts weakening your suspension of disbelief.

(I have had many long discussions with friends about matters like 'is it okay for a fantasy culture not based on, say, Japanese culture, to have "katana" or "kimono", or should they just be "sword" and "robe". My POV boils down to "whatever the author does is going to annoy someone, so they should just pick one method and do that consistently and well" .)

[ex_pippin880]

And, I mean, the simple act of choosing names for your characters and places is conlanging -- you're picking what phonemes exist in their language (or what words, if you have a name like Daisy which is understood to be the English translation of their alien word for the daisy plant), possibly how they gender names, whether they can have consonant clusters in their language...

[pipisafoat]

Now I really really really want some sort of something in which a character from Earth is named Daisy and meets some aliens, to whom to the word "daisy" is some sort of horrible curse or something. Oh, the potential fun! *bounces*

[ex_pippin880]

There's a Fry & Laurie (I thiiiink) sketch of something similar, but based around Earth languages and a business deal, but alas I cannot locate it on youtube.

[ex_pippin880]

Oh, um, not about helping or anything, but people here might be interested:

junetide is gonna start next week. It's an original fiction & art gift exchange (like Yuletide or Yuletart but with original stuff). Signs ups next week, with two months to write/draw, and postings in late June.

[pipisafoat]

Lovely! There's a thing of that vein I'm currently investigating to see if it's internationally-open that I was going to share tomorrow with the reminders; I'd be glad to include junetide in the same post! Any of these things, always, pls feel free to share. (I mean, anything that isn't like limited to one country or one fandom or something like that.) Thanks!

[ex_pippin880]

:D

[darkspirited1]

I like it if it's done well. It makes me feel like I'm more in a different world. It piques my curiosity too. I want to learn the invented language and figure out how it works. Sometimes that distracts me, but in a fun way that makes me want to study Spanish harder, LOL.

It also makes me happy because I am deeply fascinated by linguistics.

I have also started constructing a language. Mostly at this point, I've just made sure that names are consistent since different endings mean different things. I'd like to come up with aspects of other languages too since travel and languages play a good deal of importance in my main project, but I fear I will be one of those that will end up doing it poorly, lol.

Still. Nothing makes me more angry than a world where EVERYONE understands EVERYONE. You can have a universal language if you want, such as Earth's English is currently, but not everyone has to speak that. In small towns, the odds of speaking it should be lower than a city. And, hello! It gives potential for all sorts of conflict and humor! Why doesn't anyone capitalize on that?

[ex_pippin880]

One of my small delights in a world I've recently made is that between the four major characters there are four languages (and
additional dialects) -- and since one of them is only fluent in his native language but they spend most of their time outside of his native lands... :3

(Another cheats by having a demon that translates for her. I've been trying to think up a while to disable that so she gets a smug-shattering experience.)

[darkspirited1]

Oo! That would be fun to have someone who could communicate suddenly unable. Sounds intriguing. :)

[ailelie]

Just noting that the topic/task for build_a_world in Feb/Mar is constructing a language.

I put a resource post up here.

[ex_pippin880]

create an alphabet for your language

That's being rather restrictive and Euro-centric. :?

[ailelie]

An alphabet or syllabary or pictographic system or what-have-you.

I used 'alphabet' as a catch-all term, not as an attempt to restrict. Also, it is secondary as not all languages have a written component. It's just, if the primary challenge is mostly written/etc, I try to make the secondary something artistic/etc.

[ex_pippin880]

Why not "writing system" as a catch-all term?

idk, maybe to people who haven't studied linguistics/languages 'alphabet' can include abjads and syllabaries and the others? but to me it just reads like 'let's make Fantasy German #8523'.

Maybe Latin wasn't the thing that most ruined my capability to communicate, after all. Hmm.

[ailelie]

*laughs* I already changed the page. If you catch another use of alphabet, let me know? I also just added an ETA so that people would know a change had been made and why.

Thanks for the heads-up, by the way.

[silverflight8]

I used to really love it. (weaned on Tolkien etc etc) Now I don't know if it's just reading a lot more fiction that's not sf/f, but it comes of as very irritating sometimes. Almost juvenile, I suppose; this is a completely irrational feeling, but I wonder if it's because I created worlds and languages and so slapping on names randomly is not hard. I really need confidence in the author before I can actually move past all the made-up languages (and omg, do not get me started on portraying accents) and take the book seriously.

Or maybe it's just snobbery, IDK.

ps the random icon thing is really neat ;)