Thursday 24 March 2016

You say tomato, I say bagayi

In the comments in the last post I felt somewhat chided by the notion that if you want to get serious about thinking about fantasy languages you are some sort of rabid elitist who wants to foist incomprehensible and unpronounceable gibberish on the unwary. I don't agree with this at all: it's generally a good thing within reason to think things through and I'm not sure why words should be any different.

A long time ago I wrote a post about the Yellow City Trade Tongue. (You may also recognise this from one of the Appendices to Yoon-Suin.) The basic idea behind this language is that it is a kind of simple lingua franca (like the Chinook Jargon or Tok Pisin) to allow slug-men and humans to communicate with each other. Since slug-men are the rulers of the Yellow City, the language primarily suits them; it does not recognise gender (because slug-men have both sexes) and it is designed to be pronounced by a mouth that does not have teeth or much of a palate, and very rubbery lips.

You can read about my conclusions as to how the language would operate in the previous post. The main thing is that the number of sounds or syllables available for use is fairly clearly defined, and is as follows:

pa
ba
qa
ga
fa
ya
xa
wa
la
ha
pi
bi
qi
gi
fi
yi
xi
wi
li
hi
pu
bu
qu
gu
fu
yu
xu
wu
lu
hu
pe
be
qe
ge
fe
ye
xe
we
le
he
po
bo
qo
go
fo
yo
xo
wo
lo
ho
pá
bá
qá
gá
fá
yá
xá
wá
há
pí
pé
pó

Most vowels are as they are in Spanish and consonant sounds are largely as they would sound in English; "f" has to be pronounced very lightly, just using the lips (no teeth); "x" is like the Spanish "j" or Scottish "ch" as in "loch"; "q" is like a "k". The only difficult one is "w" but just assume that is pronounced the normal English way for the sake of argument. Elongated vowels do not mutate (so "é" is an elongated "e" sound - pronounced like the English air rather than English feed). There is strict vowel harmony, so all vowels in a word are either all normal or all elongated. 

So you can see that once you have the sounds created you can very easily come up with whatever noun you want and it will sound roughly consistent. Tomato? That's a bagayi. Painting? That's a híxá. A giant squid? Yá means "big" and "squid" is bufala, so "giant squid" becomes yabufala (vowel harmony being enforced). You don't particularly need to use the Yellow City Trade Tongue words for "tomato" or "painting" in a game, but you get the point - you can create all sorts of consistent-seeming proper nouns with this sort of approach, no bother. You can also throw in weird sounding words to amuse and intrigue the players - isn't it more interesting and atmospheric if they are warned about the presence of a "yabufala" in the lagoon over there rather than a "giant squid"? What's a yabufala? Hope it's not dangerous! 

Try it - it isn't difficult. Get hold of a phonetic alphabet with sounds (like this one), choose about a dozen or so consonants and a few vowels, and then you have the soundscape of a made-up language. Think of a way of transcribing the sounds if necessary. (In the Yellow City Trade Tongue, the IPA symbols pbqgɸʝχ,ɰl, and h are transliterated into p, b, k, g, f, y, x, w, l and h.Then think about who is speaking the language and what that might imply. Hey presto! Consistent-sounding proper nouns. 

12 comments:

  1. Regarding this post and the former, I'm totally down with creating consistent artificial languages, and being analytical about the components you use and working them into a system is an awesome approach. I've created artificial written alphabets using a similar method. (I.E. letters are composed of a certain set of components. Pick the pieces you want to work with and start building different combinations, then match 'em to phonemes you want to use. (or just match 'em to the letters in the English alphabet and make yourself a font). Think about how the culture or species in question makes marks and roll from there. (Take the dinosaur footprint alphabet from James Gurney's "Dinotopia" for example.)

    I think the difference between adding a level of immersion for your created world and "annoying your players with gibberish" is how much trust and buy in you have with your group. A lot of budding linguistic world builders find their ship of dreams dashed on the rocks of players who insist on referring to your carefully and historically accurately named, ancient lich arch-villain as "skull guy". You gotta know your audience.

    Also, on the text/literature front, I've noticed of late that young folks aren't learning phonics as much these days, so trying to convey language phonetically can be a mixed bag.

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    1. Dinotopia! There's a blast from the past. I loved those books.

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    2. Brontosauruses in plate mail. How can you not? :)

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  2. "A lot of budding linguistic world builders find their ship of dreams dashed on the rocks of players who insist on referring to your carefully and historically accurately named, ancient lich arch-villain as 'skull guy'."

    If you get "skull guy" you've lucked out. They'll usually give him a much more offensive nickname.

    http://shawntionary.com/chainmailbikini/?p=15:

    "An evil obelisk and an ancient wizard named Deuse Baaj!"

    "So we're going up against Douche Bag? Got it."

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    1. Yeah. The question with that sort of player is: Are you there to "take the piss" or to take the ride? I suppose it's a way to demonstrate your character's bravado, but the question is begged: If we're supposed to suspend our disbelief that you're some sort of heroic tough guy and not just some regular schlub sitting at a table stacking funny dice on his character sheet, then why can't you stop shattering the GM's illusions? Hecklers are a loathsome breed.

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    2. I think a small dose of that sort of thing is fine if done affectionately. Sometimes it's important for DM with delusions of grandeur to be brought down to earth a bit. If it's done in a mean-spirited way it's a different matter.

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    3. This is very true. Sometimes folks are in the mood for a "beer & pretzels" type game where all you need is "In the room there are monsters. Fight!" I think it behooves both DM & player to get on the same wavelength that way.

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  3. Creating your own languages is definitely nerdy, but I wouldn't call it elitism in any way. I have plans to write articles along the same vain. D&D languages have always annoyed me because, even in the structure of the game, the rules of linguistics don't make sense. Looking at names in the forgotten realms, for instance, they aren't uniform, even in the same regions. Names are always the offender because the vowels don't behave themselves. In a region where everyone specks a common tongue, such a the Dales, natives would have the vowels make specific sounds, and the don't. If one reads Tolkien's elvish, as complex as that language is, it still makes sense and can be pronounced in a uniform way, unlike D&D where everything is just thrown together by thousands of minds that don't care for such basic considerations. Should one pronounce the C as a K or an S, or is the C silent? This stuff drives me absolutely crazy! (It is always the little things) You also bring up a point that I do as well, I never give monster names because all of my players know the MM stats, it just happens when you play the game for so long. Using a foreign word for something is a great go too when you want too preserve an element of mystery.

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    1. "Should one pronounce the C as a K or an S, or is the C silent?"

      This sounds like someone complaining about a certain actually extant language...

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  4. I've recently purchased your book and I have been thinking about the *biology* of slug men... do you know their digestive system and breathing system are not connected *at all*? This has interesting roleplaying consequences Slug men literally have an "eating mouth" and a "speaking mouth" - ie their breathing pore, the pneumostome. As this is located somewhat near the right shoulder, I would assume that slugmen when speaking put their right foot forward to better "aim" their voice. Speaking to a slugman with your *left* foot forward would be an insult, as that is the side the anus is on...

    Other cultural/roleplaying aspect certainly jump to mind too.

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    1. Cool ideas. Reminds me of how in some cultures it's an insult to offer somebody your left hand to shake, because that's the one you wipe your arse with.

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  5. You can also appropriate existing human alphabets to write your new words in; poke around omniglot.com for inspiration!

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