Updated: June.18.2015
World building is a demanding task and for fantasy writers, it's a pretty serious business if it involves creating a set of phrases to indicate how different from ours is the characters' language and way of life. Language, which is also an indication of culture requires besides other stuff consistency or the writer keeps contradicting his/herself. You will find this article a lot different from what you're used to having on this blog (I had some help). This is my most ambitious effort, ever.
World building is a demanding task and for fantasy writers, it's a pretty serious business if it involves creating a set of phrases to indicate how different from ours is the characters' language and way of life. Language, which is also an indication of culture requires besides other stuff consistency or the writer keeps contradicting his/herself. You will find this article a lot different from what you're used to having on this blog (I had some help). This is my most ambitious effort, ever.
I tried to write an article discussing why it's necessary (or why it's not) for a fantasy setting to have its own language.
I already browsed online but wasn't satisfied with the answers I came up with. So, I asked a couple of friends to help me out. This is the question they gave their all to help me with. The ideas they contributed were damn good I couldn't help but copy and paste them here.
As with
all creative processes, particularly those done with written or printed word, I
think there is a level of authenticity that needs to be met before a story can
actually begin to progress. Part of this is involved in the exposition and
world building, and I am sure we can all agree that if those parts of the story
are done poorly, then the story itself suffers as a result of poor
backgrounding.
This
being said, the language is just as much a part of the exposition and reality
of the story as is a magic system or a political system or anything like that.
However, the language gets used in a vastly different way because it is never
actually used as a language in the context of the books. Sure,
reading through Tolkien is great, but how useful would it have been for all of
his songs to be in their "native" forms?
Furthermore,
since language and philology and linguistics are actual fields of study, most
readers are ill-equipped to pass judgment on any fictional languages. This is
different from magic systems because there aren't actually magicians who can
say whether it is silly or not. If a language were to be a pivotal part of the
story (and I'd argue that it cannot) then I think that story is going to suffer
in no small way as a result.
I would
also argue that a good fantasy series does not need its own
language. There is simply no reason for it to exist unless the author has a
penchant for linguistics because any time it would actually appear in the book,
it would have to be translated into an actual language, thus mitigating its
usefulness as a distinct language. There are a few conceivable exceptions, like
a short phrase or message that is presented in a native form, that is left
concealed until later events. However, this usage is no different than a closed
door or a locked chest in terms of plot devices.
Finally,
going back to comparing with a magic system, we all get angry when the system
is used illogically without consistency, or as a deus-ex. We look to magicks
like Sanderson's or Jordan's as bulwarks of a logical system. Immediately
several come to mind. How about languages (Tolkien is the exception that proves
the rule IMO)? We can't submit a fictional language to the same amount of
scrutiny that we can other elements of world building, because it isn't
possible without linguistic knowledge, and the time and elaboration of that
language which cannot really happen enough in a story written in English. There
isn't time or a place for an entire fictional language of high
quality. How many readers are going to be able to actually notice
inconsistencies or logical fallacies in a fictional language across five books?
Like "Oh dear, Mr. Author's syntax of those participles is all wrong! That
isn't at all how FictionalLanguage goes!"
Sometimes
its useful to create a language, and in some cases it can lend a TON of
credibility to a work, but honestly at that point the fictional stories nearly
become secondary to the language (as it was with Middle Earth). Creating a full
and serious language is no small task. There are few who would be able to look
at the few lines of elvish in LOTR and think "hot damn, that is a good
fucking language". You'd have to go out and actually research it to find
that out. So no, any made up language will do, so long as it is more or less
consistent in its uses. Again, part of the idea of fantasy is to leave a little
room for the reader's mind, and you just can't do that if you're spoon-fed an actual
language.
Part of
the current trend (by which I mean the last 50 years or so) in high-fantasy is
world building, which means creating a world which doesn't exist but is
believable enough in some ways to make the story work. Making it believable
means making realistic culture. How do people work? What do they do for fun?
What art and music do they make? What is their religion? Another question about
a hypohetical, alternative world culture is: what languages would they speak?
That
being said, no author has gone to the lengths that Tolkien did in creating
languages. You don't have to take it that far. Any fantasy author, by at least
throwing in a few words and phrases in a made-up language, can communicate to
the reader that multiple nations or multiple culture-groups exist in this
world, which helps to make it believable.
Evan1701 said:
Tolkien:
making every prospective fantasy author feel inadequate since 1937.
realgenius13 said:
Language
is deeply tied to culture so when trying to create distinct cultures or subcultures
within a fantasy novel it can be a very useful tool. From what I remember of my
Spanish translation class in college in many countries where they speak Latin
based languages English is seen as a terse and scientific language, good for
writing about technical things. Whereas Spanish, French and Italian are often
seen as more artistic, less literal languages, or languages of love. Also when
translating between English and Spanish you can generally expect the Spanish to
be around 25% wordier than the English (translators always wanna get paid per
word in Spanish). This says something about the culture, I remember there being
an odd tradition of seeing who could come up with the most drawn out and
obsequious letter closing (Instead of "Sincerely" think "Your
most loyal companion with nothing but love and devotion and admiration for your
great intellect." or something like that). Also run-on sentences are
strongly frowned upon on English, in Spanish just go for it, you have a whole
paragraph without a single period, question mark, or exclamation mark? Looks
good to me. Also in Spanish all nouns are gendered either male or female which
also says something about the culture by which things they see as male or
female. Also when looking at language subcultures in Mexico it is interesting
to note that a large quantity of their swear words refer to "madre"
or mother in English.
Another
interesting aspect is that Spanish is perfectly phonetic and there are very few
exceptions to the rules of grammar, whereas French has tons of silent letters,
sometimes like 3 in a row will all be silent. I was subjected to the 2 intro
units of French in order to graduate with my Spanish degree and I had a lot of
trouble with this. French like Spanish genders their nouns, but look at the
word friend for example, "ami, amie, amis, amies" they are all
pronounced the same yet spelled differently and have different meanings. They
represent the male singular, female singular, male plural, and female plural,
and don't forget that if it's a mixed group of friends then you always default
to male plural. I remarked upon this to a friend, who spoke French, about how
difficult it is to break into as far as just listening and understanding, you
need so much context to know what they are talking about since many of the
words sound the same and he said it is entirely on purpose. They do this in an
attempt to protect the culture from outside influence. Also amusing is the
RAE's (Royal Academie Española) constant attempts at preventing the inclusion of
English cognates into the language). For example in most of Latin America
"computer" = "computadora" in Spain? "Ordenator."
This is literally just their attempt to prevent the inclusion of a word derived
from English into their language.
These
are just the examples I can come up with from my experience in learning romance
languages. While I believe that creating a language or several languages to use
in a book can make a culture and hence the world more believable, I also feel
it is often improperly implemented. Either the language is just renaming things
that we already have words for (seriously calling a rabbit a smurp is so
stupid) or it is a fully functional language, but presenting it is incredibly
dry. I used to teach Spanish and in my experience the vast majority of people
have little aptitude or interest in learning languages later in life because
the brain gets massively worse at learning languages past the age of 5 or 6. To
do this right an author basically has to go to the trouble of creating a fully
functional language and then present only the segments or slices of it that are
interesting and meaningful to the readers.
TL:DR
Language and culture are so inextricably linked that creating a language is
essentially creating a culture and doing this really helps to flesh out and
define a culture and particular characters from that culture, but it is
incredibly difficult to do so convincingly and present it in an interesting
fashion.
Language
can be used well, but it doesn't need to be a full language. Tolkien is the
prime example of possibly overdoing it, he created an entire language, but that
doesn't need to be the case.
Basically
language is great for an epic, a story in which we see different cultures,
usually you would have the main protagonists language be that of the author, or
the language he writes in. Then to differentiate the other cultures of the
world it's useful to use different language, GRRM does this well in A Song of
Ice and Fire, because he uses it sparingly. Old Valyrian is a language in the
world, yet GRRM has only created a few words of it, true he uses Valar Dohaelis
and Valar Moghulis frequently, but enough to create the illusion that the
culture is different.
Basically
language is a great way to separate cultures in fantasy, as it is in the real
world.
I
actually think ASOIAF handles this fairly beautifully - we know there's certain
languages, and then we get the text in English. I get the immersive nature of
language, but I also see how using dialects and other languages can be
frustrating and take me out of the story.
Akeii said:
While
it's only practical to have 'English' as a common language, any self-respecting
linguist should instantly be able to tell you why languages are important.
Firstly, it becomes less and less practical to have one common language as the
geographical and cultural scope of the story increases. Having various
languages that work will also show that the author has put extensive thought
into how their ethnic groups have developed - trade languages, regional dialects
and divergent forms can all hint at how civilizations have progressed given
their relationships to each other and to any observable barriers.
If a
distinct vocabulary has been established, the reader might also be able to see
distinct cultural values given the right opportunities. Do family names come
first or second for individuals? Is poetry terse and succint or long and
flowery? Are there any unusual synonyms for words that the characters can
discover?
Finally,
a language is an excellent springboard into the simple connotations the sounds its
words can evoke. Is it musical or guttural? Are the consonants rolling,
sibilant or grating? A dedicated author would take this a step further and
consider the languages nonhuman races would develop, especially since the
sounds used to communicate should be vastly different.
None of
these factors are strictly necessary, but an author should take
them into consideration if they have a large world or decide to fashion their
own languages. They may not be very noticeable when done right, but you
certainly see the signs when a bad language comes up. Nothing makes the reader
want to gag and toss away a novel in sheer disgust more than one with horrible
words and names.
I don't
know how apparent this is to somebody who lives in North America, where
everybody speaks English and certain mutual understanding is retained due to
mobile population, uniform writing standards and popular culture, but languages
change A LOT inside even relatively small areas.
But
first examples; The area of Wheel of Time was somewhere
between the size of Europe and USA. Nevertheless, all people spoke the same
language with only few unique phrases per country (and semi-forgotten old
language that doesn't seem to have any relation to the modern one - where did
that come from?). The same goes for many other American books. In Song
of Ice and Fire the Seven Kingdoms are the size of South America, but
there is only one common language (and one or two semi-forgotten ones).
Meanwhile,
Scotland and England share the same small island and even they have hard time
understanding each other (the language-differences in WoT are more akin to the
differences between two counties next to each other - not those of two
countries on the opposite sides of continent). 1500 years ago all the
Mediterranean spoke Latin, but the off-spring languages of French, Spanish and
Italian are hardly identical.
Learning
new languages in immersed environment isn't very difficult. Even today,
exchange students are thrown into the deep end of the pool without any earlier
language skills and three to six months later they return home speaking the
language with only few minor missteps.
I'm not
saying that author SHOULD create several languages just for the authenticity,
but it's easy enough to say that the main character speaks three languages and
the author translates to the reader - and the languages the protagonist DOESN'T
speak are just given as descriptions ("all Bob could tell was that the
merchant was angry and he spoke to his nose.."). You can think few phrases
that are often repeated to give examples of what the foreign languages are
alike - this brings something to the world as well!
Or you
can have trader's language or some sort of lingua franca for the charactes to
speak in addition to their own languages!
Of
course, like software programmers say, each feature like this
takes time to write. It takes pages or time from something else. The trick is
finding the features that are important for the story (and important for the
readers) while avoiding the stuff that very few will ever spot. That Tolkien
had elvish dictionaries was fun for him, but it isn't important for the story
and other authors should feel it important to ape him on this -- but putting
some thought into languages is important. First language, second language,
dialect etc. tell as much about the character and of his society as does his
wealth, dress, body-appearance, customs.
In a
way, language tells MORE about character than any of the above; you may lose
wealth, you may change your clothes, you may be adopted and even customs are
easily learnt. But language, accent and dialect? Those aren't easily ironed
out! Just by opening his mouth a person tells where he's from, how he's been
educated, how high he has prioritised the learning of foreign culture etc. That
so many fantasy writers completely ignore this is one of my biggest gripes with
the genre.
TL;DR:
Languages are important in fantasy-setting, particularly in a setting where the
land wasn't colonised in the very recent past in haste.
In
addition to all the world-building aspects discussed in this thread, I would
like to point out that language is a mutable concept. For instance, the English
you use today, while nominally the same your grandparents spoke, is a different language.
See, languages evolve, and people in different time periods, places or even
professions will use one subset of a language, while others will use a
different subset.
For
instance, a miner will use certain words that an astronomer might not know,
understand, or interpret correctly, because the astronomer's language includes
concepts the miner's language does not, and vice-versa.
Thus,
it's simpler to create a language that has at its core the concepts which may
not exist in your readers' language, have them explained once (or not, let them
figure it out from context), and be done with that.
As an
example, I'd point out Stephen King's Dark Tower series (if only because that's
what I'm currently reading): They all speak English, but in Roland's world if
you want a quick snack, you don't have a sandwich, but rather a popkin, and
when your grandfather was a kid, he didn't walk five miles (uphill both ways)
to get to school, he walked three wheels to get there. Then you have
words/concepts like ka-tet, which are made up (or more so that
"popkin"), which are concepts central to the series, and frankly, ka-tet sounds
a lot better than group of destiny-linked brothers-in-arms.
So on
the whole, even fantasy which doesn't deal with arcane magic, Elves or
fundamentally different universes does benefit from a foreign language, be it
Quenya, Latin or Minnesotan.
It
doesn't need it's own language no. However when you are creating a new race or
species I don't think it's far fetched to come up with a new language. Else you
have orcs or goblins speaking Spanish, and maybe some ogre's thrown in there
speaking Cantonese.... just pointing out that it's strange to use real world
languages for them.
Serpentira said:
I'd say
the previous posters have it- it's not necessary exactly, but it does add an
extra layer of authenticity to the people(s) that are being created.
Personally, I also think it's a useful tool for highlighting items or ideas
that are of importance in the world- it makes the reader take note. Names of
people, places or items, words of endearment, oaths and sayings- all are things
that can picked out. Examples from modern literature would be Aes Sedai or ter'angreal in
The Wheel of Time series. The very unusualness of the words make them stick
out, and stick with the reader.
So,
while plenty of fantasy books stick to plain English (or the local equivalent)
and can work perfectly fine that way, I feel that the importance of language as
a device for highlighting themes and emerging the reader in a foreign land is
one that can hardly be discounted. That said, I don't think that creating the
entire language down to every verb tense and all common words is a requirement-
it never hurts for the consistency of what words you do choose to use, though.
Well,
I'd say building a good world is one of the most important parts of fantasy. Part
of that is differing nations, perhaps races, and there's no way those are all
going to develop the same language. You can explain how everyone came to speak
the same language, but not why there is only one everywhere.
That
being said, the definition of a "good" world changes depending on the
story. If everything takes place within one nation, you can probably skip the
whole language problem. If the story doesn't take itself too seriously, you can
probably skip it too. But ya know, WoT has one language, and it didn't bother
me too awfully much.
EDIT:
WoT had the ancient language, which is not especially important to the story,
but a good way to add flavor to the world.
No.
Quirk words or phrases in a made up language are kind of fantasy essentials,
but an entire language, while cool, is overkill to me. I wouldn't fault an
author for doing it, but I would enjoy it just as much without.
Most
fantasy stories inherently involve sentient species other than humans. It other
human cultures have their own languages in the real world, it follows that
other species would have entirely different languages. Creating those
languages, even if it's a few phrases or words sprinkled throughout the book,
helps world building. World building is a huge part of a successful fantasy
story, because the made up world most often needs to feel real.
I
wouldn't say that a fantasy universe needs to represent fictional languages,
but it would seem strange if large groups of disparate cultures all spoke the
same language, so I think it should be addressed where necessary.
I'd say
that if a writer only wants to create a few words, they don't need to be a
linguist. However, if they do want to reach for the mark of so many thousands
of words for the language to be considered functional, I think a solid
understanding of linguistics would help immensely. Knowing etymology and the
construction and history of foreign languages could only add to the sense of
authenticity in a fantasy language.
I'm more
likely to go with the last option. Language isn't just about exchanging words
in one language for another. You have grammar, syntax, and a bunch of other
stuff I probably am missing because I'm not a linguist. You should have
continuity, which many non-linguists don't manage when making up a language.
You should know how it's pronounced and maybe even figure out how to speak it
in a fluid manner so that you can write it in a fluid manner.
Don't
get me wrong. The occasional curse or animal/plant/thing name sprinkled in by a
"foreigner" or to make up for a fantasy creature that is nothing like
what we have on Earth is fine, but it shouldn't be overdone. It's a fine line.
rexarooo said:
Tolkien.
ALL
modern fantasy comes back to Tolkien. He is the first one to do epic fantasy
well and all epic fantasy since has followed his lead.
Tolkien
was a MEGA nerd and also a linguist and he included many languages in his work,
not so much for realism, but because languages came naturally to him... they
were a natural extension of his expression of HIS elves and HIS dwarves and HIS
men.
keep in
mind that Tolkien wasn't "writing novels" or "creating epic
fantasy" he was creating a mythology for the english who, being such a
hodgepodge of peoples, lacked a unifying set of myths. he is very upfront about
that.
EDIT:
spelling
I've
never even heard anyone talk about this before. Most fantasy that I know
doesn't have its own language beyond a few words. There's no reason beyond the
specific needs of a specific plot for it to be necessary. Lord of the Rings
didn't need the languages Tolkien spent so much time developing.
Personally
I don't think it added much, and I could've done without listening to
conversations I couldn't understand. I understand he went into far more detail
in developing the languages than was remotely necessary for the stories, and I
suspect it was necessary for his writing process. I've also read that the language
was the main point for him, and the stories were a by-product, but I have no
idea if that's true.
Lord of
the Rings didn't need the languages Tolkien spent so much time developing.
Yes, it
did.
You can
look at any one of the elements that makes Tolkein's work so immersive and say
"well, it really didn't need THIS one thing", but what made his work
so amazing was ALL of those things.
Take
away the language, and the poetry, and Tom Bombadil and soon you are left with
a half assed action movie with (the beautiful and talented) Liv Tyler in it. It
still might be good, but it isn't great.
All the
little things, the "I can't believe he spent this much time on this"
things are what make the work capture the imagination of generations.
Lord of
the Rings didn't need the languages Tolkien spent so much time developing.
The
conlangs were the point....
Does a
fantasy story inherently NEED its own languages? No. But fantasy, more than most other genres, tends to
be in more, well, fantastical worlds, often in made up worlds during made up
time periods, inhabited by made up races and classes. With these kinds of
worlds, you tend to have more creativity involved in making them up than if you
used a "real" setting. I believe the type of people who write and
create these types of worlds are the type who enjoy those little details, such
as language or unique races. And I believe the fantasy reader who enjoys these
made up worlds also enjoy the authenticity given to these worlds by the
addition of some languages.
Can they
be a hindrance to the story and an unnecessary complication? Of course. But
personally, I like a little touch of things like language in my fantasy worlds.
It just adds to the experience, the immersion. Does it need to be Tengwar-esque
levels of complexity? Hell no.
Akpan
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