|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:45 pm
Thanks for the information Berz!
It's a language as far as the world I created is concerned though. I haven't changed the linguistics because: a.) I don't know the linguistics of other languages really (and the few I do know about I don't know a lot about), b.) it would take years as it did Tolkien, and c.) it's not going to be a real pain in the arse for readers to learn if they want to (at least people whose native language is English anyway).
Regarding phonetics though, I've read that publishers hate the use of them in general. If you've got a character who doesn't pronounce every single word correctly (as most people don't anyway), then changing the spelling to make it phonetic to the way they say it is just going to get on the editor's nerves. However, if you subsitute a letter with an apostrophe it's accepted, such as: 'ere, somethin', goin', etc...
Ain't is accepted as well I think.....even though it's not really a proper word (or is it? I've heard that the term "eh-oh" as used by the Teletubbies has found its way into the Oxford English Dictionary!)
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 3:39 pm
This has been a very helpful topic. With worldbuilding I'm trying to make the languages based on the names I already have, and using a few names of real world cities, even if they are European and would be recognised by most people. Another example I've seen used in books like in His Dark Materials are words like "en't", "ain't" and words like that. But it always gets me when something isn't spelt right, because I've seen words like "alright" in published book. It's not spelt correctly, because alright is two words! "all right" even. But I suppose it's how the character speaks, even I know you use words like "y'know" or "dunno". I find it makes the language more realistic, because people don't use full words when they can't be bothered do. Why say "I don't know" when "dunno" is so much simpler? That's also something to consider when forming languages, I think. Anyway, if my rant has made any sense, I'll take my hat off to you for understanding. I'll leave you with a question,
What about language phrases in your fantasy worlds?
For example, you can't have something we'd use commonly with the rise of technology in our world if you're not using any. I can't think of any at the moment, but I'll sure come up with some after I've pressed the submit button, lol.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 5:46 am
Actually, "alright" is a word as well as "all right".
Alright is used in the sense "I'm ok, alright?" Whereas all right is more "it's all right as far as I can see" (as in everything is as it should be).
All right can also be used like alright. It's just used more when being formal. I proved my English tutor at college wrong with this and she agreed when I showed her the Oxford English Dictionary. Dictionary.com Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This al·right Audio Help /ɔlˈraɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[awl-rahyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –adverb all right. —Usage note The form alright as a one-word spelling of the phrase all right in all of its senses probably arose by analogy with such words as already and altogether. Although alright is a common spelling in written dialogue and in other types of informal writing, all right is used in more formal, edited writing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 7:08 pm
DM_Melkhar Actually, "alright" is a word as well as "all right".
Alright is used in the sense "I'm ok, alright?" Whereas all right is more "it's all right as far as I can see" (as in everything is as it should be).
All right can also be used like alright. It's just used more when being formal. I proved my English tutor at college wrong with this and she agreed when I showed her the Oxford English Dictionary. Dictionary.com Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This al·right Audio Help /ɔlˈraɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[awl-rahyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –adverb all right. —Usage note The form alright as a one-word spelling of the phrase all right in all of its senses probably arose by analogy with such words as already and altogether. Although alright is a common spelling in written dialogue and in other types of informal writing, all right is used in more formal, edited writing. Hm, I haven't seen it around much until books started being published with it. See, I was taught that "all right" is two words, but that is really interesting. I'll keep that in mind. Also, I've recently started construction on my own language and it's a lot harder than I thought it was! For example, if you leave out key letters like n, you have to change quite a lot of the word around. I'm making life easier on myself and having the words sound as close as I can have them to their English counterparts, and sounding the pronunciation out loud. I can definitely see your troubles! Even when it comes to vowels, I've noticed if you put something like Ea and stretch the sound, it can sound foreign when you try to speak it. But the language I'm constructing sounds similar to Maori or Japanese, so you can imagine the interesting word combinations I can come up with. At the moment I'm doing colours, and it's quite fun trying to get it as close as I can to the English word and still having it look foreign. Props to you guys for giving me the idea!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:58 am
The language I'm creating has a few sounds, and I think I've mentioned it before in this thread.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:43 pm
Ok..........................
I've been told that adding dialects/accents into writing is wrong, and that most editors won't take work seriously if you rearrange words in order to fit into particular regional voices.
For example...
"Ah, he's roit. You can't do et if yeh think yeh can. If you believe you can oi say you can, got that sonny boy? Don't let anyone tell yer different you get me?"
Now, that sounds quite broad Norfolk (where I come from - although my accent isn't THAT broad), but in writing that's not going to look good to editors. I've been told that replacing certain letters with apostrophes is alright. I do that with my pirate. He doesn't always pronounce the gs on the ends of words like: giving, having, happening, and doing. I'll write them as: givin', havin', happenin' and doin'. I've also found out that the apparently made up term "ain't" for "isn't" is accepted as a word.
Even Dictionary.com accepts it - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ain't
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:13 pm
DM_Melkhar Ok..........................
I've been told that adding dialects/accents into writing is wrong, and that most editors won't take work seriously if you rearrange words in order to fit into particular regional voices.
For example...
"Ah, he's roit. You can't do et if yeh think yeh can. If you believe you can oi say you can, got that sonny boy? Don't let anyone tell yer different you get me?" I think I might have a couple of guesses as to the reason. For one thing, you have to spend time decoding it. People don't like to read something that they have to read out loud to get the meaning of a sentence. For another, that sounds downright Australian to me. You can never quite tell how someone is going to pronounce something in their brain, let alone out loud. So, even if you get as close to it as you can, it will likely never do exactly what you want it to, anyway. Berz.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:44 pm
Erm err...umm, I can see where you're coming from about that sounding Australian depending on how you read it. Explaining English dialects can be difficult as there are so many.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_dialect
On the training programme I am on for getting a job at the moment there's a half English and half American guy and he says I sound kind of posh as well as having a Norfolk accent. You can definitely tell the differences between the accents/dialects in the UK, and Norfolk/Suffolk has a very specific sound to it as described on Wikipedia there.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 1:46 pm
Anyway......
Let's go on to actual spoken languages for writing.
Would you say that one HAS to know various languages in order to use them in a fantasy world? Any world is going to have languages that vary, and we're seeing English as the "common" language (as it's referred to in most fantasy works) in our own world.
I would like to use names and even a few phrases from different languages to express to the reader that that particular region in my world is not unlike that of say, France, Spain, Romania or Ireland. Obviously online translators can be somewhat incorrect at times, but I'm not going for anything truly exact as it's a different world.
What do you think?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 9:39 am
The use of made up languages in fantasy novels is something that always makes me a little weary. Tolkien is different because he was a philologist and had the languages before he had the world, but even then, the language didn't come up in much more than the names of places and characters, and when it was used in songs. Staying in the common language as much as possible is important. When you're trying to get a dialect across, that's where you have the names. Make every part of your world distinct, using names that your readers would recognize as being similar to a certain part of our world (consonant and vowel groupings, etc). Then when you say that someone spoke as a native of, say, Russetkya (I like that, might use it for something!), they'll have that accent in their minds.
Another thing you could use made up languages for, if you really feel the need to do so, is if a character is cursing. Then you could have something like:
"Maksísh karabash!" Mahtmed shouted as the theif ran off with his bag.
The old man passing by, not knowing what had just happened, yelled back, "what did you just call me?"
So you've established a form of speech that your reader will place with something they find familiar, and used your own language in dialogue in a way that the reader can figure out that it means something not so good, without having to know specifically what it means. Sorry, I've been watching too much Firefly. They curse in Mandrin Chinese...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 10:21 am
The language I created for my own world is basically English overlapped with different words. There will be a glossary, and it's not going to be used extensively.
What I just said in my last post is what I am more concerned about though.
I am interested to hear your thoughts on both though.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 8:27 pm
I think that knowing how a language works and the cultural context behind the language is more important than being a fluent speaker of the language in this case. Taking linguistic classes would probably be very beneficial. My friends who write and have taken a basic linguistic class told me that the class was one of the best classes they've taken in college. But then I don't make languages in my writing, and I've never taken any kind of linguistics class, other than the basic that I've learned so far in anthropology.
If you look at Tolkien though, he was a philologist, so he studied the history and structure of languages, but didn't necessarily speak them (especially since his main concentration was a dead language - Anglo-Saxon). Quenya and Sindarin are based on Finnish and Cymraeg (Welsh), but I don't believe he ever spoke either of those languages. He just knew intimately how languages worked.
I'm not sure if that helps at all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:40 am
It does help, but I won't be using other languages extensively apart from the one I've created myself which uses the same grammatical structures as English.
There is already one place in my world, in-fact it's a stretch of water, in which Spanish words are used. That area is meant to be like the Med, and there are a few areas that can be likened to that of Spain. If I want to use any Spanish phrases, I will ensure that they are grammatically correct.
Instead of me creating numerous languages I am taking examples from existing ones to make the reader more familiar with the world. If that world existed, then it probably wouldn't be Spanish spoken by a few regions in that area of the world, but something very much like it. I'm not going to spend a ridiculous amount of time studying every language on earth that I can think of in order to create similar languages for my own world. So, why not take examples from existing languages to make the world more diverse and immersive?
I only have one made up language, and that's the one I work on as and when I can with the same structures used in English, which is my native language and the one I have studied extensively at school and college.
Does that highlight what I mean a bit more? confused
EDIT: Additionally, how can we describe different dialects in fantasy. I can't say "she had a Russian/Eastern European/Spanish/English/??? accent/dialect" because Russia, Europe, Spain, England and other countries in this world don't exist in that world. As said above, I will use bits and pieces of this world's languages to tell others what kind of area a part of my world is like, but describing dialects is something very different.
My tall, dark woman has a dialect that has a few different sounds in it because she is a native of the land that speaks the language I am creating, and it has a variety of sounds in it that can be likened to a few different existing languages. This language even has a touch of an Egyptian sound (you guys have seen the Mummy films I take it?) but it's also got some European sounds in there too. So, there happens to be frequent emphasis on particular letters. For the most part it will have a very Eastern European kind of sound regardless of whether the character's dialect is strong or not, and some of them may have an additional vocal trait not unlike that of Fran from Final Fantasy XII as well.
I can't seem to find any books on how to write things like that in a world that doesn't have the same countries as our own.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:24 am
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:00 pm
Why not write that she puts an emphasis on those particular letters and leave the rest to your readers' imagination? After all, accents are hard to describe and the readers probably won't hear it the same way as you do unless you describe it down to every detail - just like a character's appearance. If they know she's a native speaker of your made-up language and recognize it as Egyptian/Eastern European sounding, maybe they will get a sense of how her accent would be, especially with the help from whatever description you may add?
Sorry, I can't help you much more than that. I don't know linguistics or how different accents sound well enough, and would be at a loss as much as you. In fact, it's first now that I've read this thread that I've begun thinking about dialects in my own world. I doubt I could draw lines between dialects of my world and dialects of this world, anyhow. Most likely, there won't be that much of an accent; the elves might complain that the humans pronounce the vowels the wrong way, and the humans, in turn, would say the elves tend to stretch them far too much and have trouble pronouncing sh and similar sounds, but that's probably it.
Of course those two languages aren't the only languages in my world, nor is one language exclusive to elves and the other to humans. I merely haven't worked out exactly how the other two sound like.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
