Worldbuilding and Linguistics

[ellenmillion]

Language is a topic I'm rather weak on, and I'd love a little input from you folks who know a lot more than I do.

Specifically, there are two imaginary cultures that have been separated for some time. One of them has advanced ~1500 years from that time, the other only about 250 years. My premise is that people from these cultures would be able to communicate with each other, with some effort. I assume there would be some pronunciation shift, and lots of new words that have come about due to specialization and technology... but that with some patience, they would be able to speak with each other. Do you see flaws with that idea? How pronounced would you imagine the differences would be? I imagine something like comparing North American English to thick Brittish Cockney.

The base language would not be English or earth-based, but I had no real intension of developing the language. I'm not a linguist, and I like to play to my strengths. Is this a mistake, in your opinion? Does the addition of made-up words enhance the illusion of a made-up culture? Is it critical, optional, or unnecessary? (Personally, I find that the way most writers use non-English words tends to drag down a story and overwhelm the flow; I prefer a very light touch with language sprinkles.)

In a related topic, I would love to recruit a beta reader or two - someone(s) willing to critique firmly and knowledgeably on some world-building topics, short stories, scripts and overall concepts.

I am willing to return time spent in kind - I can give critiques on fiction, non-fiction or artwork, do artwork for you, or offer various products/prints/originals - whatever you'd prefer. (Plus, you get a sneak look at my [not-so-]sekrit project while it's developing!)

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

How well they would be able to understand each other could vary considerably.

I once heard, on a folk music program, a song in German of which I understood every word -- the singer/songwriter had carefully chosen the words for that purpose. And a song in Scots of which I understood only a few words -- even though I knew several English and American versions of that song.

What I consider likely: They could understand each other if they worked at it -- which might require speaking what both would consider an archaic form of their language(s). Each could also deliberately speak in a way which the other wouldn't understand.

You might find the links here useful: http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/amerdial/links/C185/

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

That is an enormously useful link! I will be bookmarking several of those pages - thanks!!

[puffbird.livejournal.com]

When you mean "advanced", do you mean technologically? :)

It seems to me that the culture that had only advanced 250 years would have fewer changes in their language than the one that has advanced 1500 years. Think of how English has evolved to describe all the technological advances just in this past century. What would someone from the 1800's make of it?

Chances are, the more advanced culture would have an easier time communicating with the less advanced... but they would both have to go back to archaic words and usages to do it. Meanings can change pretty quickly. (Just consider the word "gay"...)

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Not specifically technologically advanced, no, but in linear time; imagine that one culture is frozen out of time after 250 years while the other has 1500 years to muck around, and then are re-introduced.

And yes, these are excellent points! Thanks!

[kirinqueen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if 1500 years have passed for one group while only 250 have passed for the other, that will affect what kinds of changes happen. Each group is as likely as the other to adopt new words and drop old ones, but semantic and syntactic shifts are also important to consider. All of these will usually take more change steps the more time passes.

It's also important to consider what kinds of other languages--separate from these two diverging from a common source--may effect changes, depending on trade/conquest/etc. That kind of linguistic interaction can cause syntactic shift which can have a huge mutual*-intelligibility-confounding effect.

I say there's nothing with a light touch of made up words, because language is an important element of world-building. It's easy to muck up, though, so I'd always recommend consulting with a linguist when it comes to constructed language in a story. :)

* between the two original groups of speakers, of course. contact between speakers of two distinct languages leads to greater mutual intelligibility, for example through the development of a pidgin.

[curvature.livejournal.com]

I think the gap is too long - just reading some of the writing from a few hundred years ago, alot of it seems like a completely different language.

Mind you, it depends what language you're talking about. English is a hard one because it's made up of several languages originally, and constantly evolves.

Something like French might have less of a variation over time, because they're so strict about not changing it.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, there won't have been other languages muddying the waters - no gaelic/latin/germanic/whatever roots to combine, just one common source language. But still, really good points! And it would make some sense if they were actively *striving* for language purity...

[curvature.livejournal.com]

You also get cultures where the monks and other religious people still use origin words for their texts, so maybe they'd have more of a chance to speak to people from the past and understand them?

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Hmm! This actually works in quite neatly. Thanks!

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

In theory, and officially, they're strict.

What happens to a language in the real world is another matter.

[winterswitchery.livejournal.com]

I am love and hate on made up languages in fiction. On the one hand, I love it in things like Tolkien. But he really built his story around myth and language. And then the other, sometimes it's just too much to stumble through the words and then possibly flip to a guide in the back and breaks up the flow of the story. That being said, I messed around with creating languages when I was in high school so I'd be a total hypocrite if I said it was OHNOOMGSUCK.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! Ditto - though I gave up on my language creation exercise after about two hand-written pages.

I generally find that if I can figure out the meaning of the word from the context, I don't mind it... but when I have to look something up, or flip back and figure out where they defined it, it totally messes with the flow of reading. It *can* be done subtly, but too often isn't.

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

Ditto about all the variables involved in their ability to understand each other, as to the time factor...well to me 14th century Italian reads easier (and better) than its 17th century counterpart, but that is more a matter of style (longer, convoluted, complex sentences) than of lexicon.
Not having influences from other languages would definitely help.

As to languages in fiction, well I'm absolutely crazy about them, the way Tolkien did it. If you're going not to build a whole language, then keeping it light is definitely the best choice IMO.
One thing I absolutely hate is when a writer picks words from a foreign language, changes them slightly and uses them in fantasy, when I recognize the 'original' language it totally destroys my suspension of disbelief.
I've a couple of suggestions for 'made-up' languages:

1) Choose a 'feel': decide if the made-up language is, for instance, full of glottal sounds or rather of liquid ones, rich or poor in vowels, and be consistent with it.

2) Leave out some sounds for instance you could decide that a language doesn't have the sound 'b' or the 'w'...

3) choose some recognizable 'roots'and use them in multiple words of similar meaning, for instance (silly example) if 'kah' is 'light', kahly could be 'sun'.

4)Make up some words for 'realia', that is: things that are culture specific and cannot be translated because there's no exact equivalent in other languages (that could happen with foods, animals, or things that are fundamental to one culture but not really important to another, for instance different names for dry or wet snow or for shades of color).

When I read, things like that tell me that the authour put some thought into his/her world and didn't just slap some random sounds together, it gives me the impression that there's some depth in the language, even though it's just a few words.

...and you have a beta-reader if you want.

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

I meant 'things like those' of course. Sorry for the awful English, I was too busy with getting my points across, and decent form went out of the window.

[metasilk.livejournal.com]

I wholly agree with this advice on making up words. The doesn't-sound-like-a-real-language words really interrupts a story for me too.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful advice. It definitely helps to have a starting place like this. I will certainly be leaning on you for some further input, thank you for the offer!

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

If the comment was meant for me, Ellen, you're absolutely welcome. :-)

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

It was! :)

[octoberdreaming.livejournal.com]

I read a Star Trek novel once called Uhura's Song (still one of my favorite books ever) which told the story of a single people that diverged. One left the "homeworld" to colonize another world, and the other stayed put.

The time-span of separation was several centuries, and each group's language evolved into a separate language altogether. However, when they were reunited, they were able to communicate with an older form of their language in which old songs, ballads, teaching rhymes common to both cultures were recited and sung.

This was likened to two scholars of completely different cultures and linguistic origins (let's say, in the Romance languages) being able to communicate because they had both studied Latin, the root language of each of their languages. If your two cultures preserve the older form of their language in ancient texts or songs, it's possible that they would be able to communicate in the older form of the language.

As for "made-up words"... as a reader, I tend to like them only when they describe concepts or objects that don't have an English counterpart. Like the word ta'veren from The Wheel of Time, or quirunha from Marley's Sing the Light. Otherwise, using a non-English word for something like, say, "husband" or "cheese", sounds cheesy to me, unless it is done with a very specific effect in mind. Less is more. Although, Mercedes Lackey does it nicely in her Oathbound series, though at times she lays it on a bit too thick. These are my personal opinions, though, and I know many readers who absolutely LOVE the strong illusion of a foreign language as part of world-building. People study Klingon and write poetry in Klingon - who am I to argue with that?? ;)

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent point - if there's no need for the word because we already have one for it, why confuse the issue. But I imagine that they will have several specific words!

linguistic folks

[metasilk.livejournal.com]

I don't have an answer, but I know whom I'd ask:

ozarque, a linguist and author of Native Tongue and others.
Jed Hartman [jedediah], editor at Strange Horizons
and Elliott Moreton, a professor of linguistics at UNC Chapel Hill.
Jed and Elliott are friends of mine from college, and you can tell them I referred you, if you email them. (I just got to see them both last weekend -- Yay!! -- Elliott started the impromptu hall seminar/discussion I mentioned...)

[april-art.livejournal.com]

Take out the great influence of other languages and go to England post-1066... I doubt anyone from there would be able to communicate easily with someone from modern-day England... One-thousand years is a very long time. It can depend on what had actually happened in that 1,000 years, of course, and the type of society it is, and if there are outside influences. It's possible that an isolated, plateau culture, particularly one intent on tradition and with a written language that they wish to preserve at all cost, can retain their language... On the other hand, if the language is very dynamic and there are huge technological and cultural changes and lack of any feel to maintain tradition, and if the written language has only recently be standardized, etc., etc., then things can be not only different in phrasing and accents and terminology, but distinct dialects or even entirely different languages...

Interesting question! You know, I had a story where 1,000 years had passed and I hadn't thought about language shifts... hmmm. There's always a way to explain that problem away, of course, but thanks for reminding me about it! ^___^

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Glad I could give you some food for thought!

You've returned the favor!

[metasilk.livejournal.com]

By the way, I just remembered that some languages are more prone to change than others. Lemme jump up and find the book... OK, can't find the reference (except for the note that writing and literacy and later, audio recordings slow language shift)

The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John McWhorter. Two chapter titles: "Some Languages Are Crushed to Powder but Rise Again as New Ones" and "Some Languages Get Genetically Altered and Frozen".

I'll send it to you if you send it back when you're done. Dad gave me another book on language at Christmas, but he's reading it (before I got 'round to it *laugh!*)

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Oh! Thank you for links (above, as well!) and offer - but it actually looks like something I'd want to own. I shall see if they have it available in town. :) :)

Hi!

[jdmills.livejournal.com]

Hi Ellen, I found you by accident here. I didn't know you had a live journal (you might know me better as astraldreamer).

Re: Hi!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Hey! Great to see you here! :)

Re: Hi!

[jdmills.livejournal.com]

yeah, it's a great place to voice my thoughts. And you seem to have loads of really intelligent friends.

language

[jdmills.livejournal.com]

You seem to have chosen an interesting subject which is sparking conversation.

The only thing I can add is that I agree absolutely with avoiding too much new language. It really does slow a story down. The last thing I want is to wade through language to find the plot.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I volunteer for the beta job! Here's my two-sentence resume: I'm a big hobbyist with constructed languages. I'm also two days away from my BAs in linguistics and anthropology.

I'm taking this to mean that the cultures advance those many years. In that case, divergence is certainly going to happen. A whole lot of factors will affect this, some of which I present in convenient bullet-point form:

-new technologies creating things we don't have words for yet (think of all the words we've made up to deal with computers--and how those creep into other areas of language)
-shifting paradigms within a culture's social, governmental, or political ideals
-external influences--English is a Germanic language, but it's got a lot of borrow words from all through history--from the big influx of Romance language words in the the Norman invasion of England all the way up to our modern vocabulary that gets words like "safari," "karate," and "ketchup" from other languages
-laziness--no, really. People tend to shift sounds to facilitate ease of pronunciation. Sound changes can lead to morphological changes (which are changes in the way you set up how you can construct a word, like adding -ed to something to make it past tense), which can lead to syntactic changes (although all these changes can occur separately of each other, too).

... And that's just the very basics.

HOWEVER! You've got a bit of a possibility here. Somebody on this page mentioned a pidgin, which could work, but here's another thing: these two cultures started from the same root. If it was a literary culture, it's possible that both new ones have preserved some samples of a version of the old root language--we have some examples of Old English, after all. If that's the case, then it would make figuring out what the others are saying a lot easier.

If you want to dive into constructed languages a little harder (and who doesn't?), I've got some resources for you. Langmaker is a wiki with resources and a whole list of constructed languages, and Mark Rosenfelder's Language Construction Kit is an awesome jumping-off point. Let me know if you have any questions. I could go on for hours ...

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Juicy, juicy links! And, you're hired. I will polish up a few things and set you loose on them!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Also, congrats on your degree! Woo! One more day!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Thankee! For the hiring and for the congratulations. (Granted, the latter means that it's gonna be a hectic weekend, so if you're looking for beta reading in, say, the next week or so, you'll be SOL with me. But AFTER that ...)

Do you need an e-mail address, or is LJ good enough?

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

I'll probably set up an LJ filter, and definitely no rush - this thing isn't set to release until 2010 and I've got PLENTY of other work to do on it, too.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

I need to memory this! Lots of fascinating links and food for thought! I *love* this stuff.

One interesting anecdote that comes to mind has to do with my husband's grandfather, who was stationed in Italy during WWII. At one point, he was ordered to interview some Italian prisoners. He didn't speak Italian, but he'd taken college Latin, and he was able to make himself understood to them in Latin! I imagine this sort of thing would work quite well in the situation you're working from, especially if the "root" language is still taught as an antiquity or a religious tongue.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

I think it will work! I knew half a college class of Sweden and some very rusty high school German, and when we went to Norway, there were conversations that - if I listened to them sort of sideways, I could figure out what was being said. I think I can make it believable, with a little work.

[curvature.livejournal.com]

Oh and also, something else springs to mind as far as diverging language.

Look at what's happened with English. There are starting to be some distict differences between British English, American English, and that spoken by other countries (like NZ and Australia for example).

If it weren't for things like tv, movies and internet, I think the differences would continue to grow.

I heard a Jamaican speaking on tv the other day and couldn't understand a word of it. But when I checked the subtitles, alot of the words he was using were regular English ones, just *said* in a different way.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

That's a great example! I wonder what kind of 'TV' equivalent I could fabricate in this world...

[valdary.livejournal.com]

Just as an example for you here is a quote from an Old English poem less than a thousand years old. You might well recognise and understand it because it was heavily drummed into most of us at school but it gives you an idea of how much language can cahnge over that kind of timescale.

Whan that Apprill with his shouris sote
And the droughte of marche hath percid þe rote
And badid euery veyne in suche licour
Of whiche vertu engendrid is the flour
Whanne zepherus eke with his sote breth
Enspirid hath in euery holte and heth
The tendir croppis / and the yong sonne
Hath in the ram half his cours y ronne
And smale foulis make melodie
That slepyn al nyght with opyn ye
So prikith hem nature in her corage
Than longyng folk to gon on pilgremage
And palmers to seche straunge londis
To serue halowis couthe in sondry londis
And specially fro euery shiris ende
Of yngelond to Cauntirbury thy wende
The holy blisful martir forto seke
That them hath holpyn when they were seke