Re: [wolfrunners] Languages & SF/F (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 02:24:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: requiescat@bigfoot.com
To: wolfrunners@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [wolfrunners] Languages & SF/F

Mind if I forward this to the conlang list, BTW?  It's mostly linguists
there who probably aren't aware of market considerations, so they'd
probably find it interesting.

On Sat, 19 Aug 2000 CFVici@aol.com wrote:

> requiescat@bigfoot.com writes:
>
> << someone wondered why sf writers don't use
>  constructed/extrapolated languages more often in their works (though the
>  question applies to fantasy, too).  You know--future versions of major
>  languages today, or creolized variants, word-borrowings, etc. >>
>
> Anyone ever read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn? Sure, Mark Twain got away
> with that sort of language play, but he's not competing in today's market.
Well, there are ways of suggesting dialect without getting *that* extreme.

> I think I have a pretty good background in languages myself (two years each
> Latin, Spanish, and French). However, Americans on the whole are generally
> ignorant/intolerant of other languages. I'm talking here about *real* modern
> foreign languages. If we (generic) hold real languages in this sort of
> "contempt", it is reasoned, then extrapolated or concocted ones can only
> annoy us (generic) more. It may not even BE true in practice, but if the
> publishers PERCEIVE it true and act accordingly, the effect is the same. SFF
> writers are limited by "the market".
Actually, now that you mention it, I do remember running into this
intolerance issue.  I have a decent background in Korean (for basic
conversationals), French, German and English (the only language, alas,
I'm fluent in); I also know enough *about* Japanese to have an idea of
how it works.  I went to an international HS and elementary school (I
hopped schools a lot), so other languages and "weird" names don't bother
me.  But I find that monolinguals have all sorts of strange notions about
language due to inexperience, not to mention the (incorrect) assumption
that most of the world is also monolingual.

> I felt this very acutely when I was at the Writer's Conference and the editor
> that had the first ten pages of my manuscript had a problem with nearly every
> word I made up. How is "Botlop" a difficult name for a character? Does anyone
> really stumble over reading it like they can't figure it out?  What could be
> easier than two syllables with simple short vowel sounds and unambiguous
> consonants? It doesn't seem hard to pronounce or remember to me.
<wry g>

> The same editor also called me to task for giving made-up names to my flora
> and fauna. It's like she wanted everything on my made-up world to be just
> like Earth. "If a koopchuk is 'somewhat like' a mule, why not just call it a
> mule?" GRRR! Because it isn't* a mule!
Depends.  You don't want to overload the reader with too many "foreign"
terms.  Assuming you've worked out the phoneme sets and everything, a
good transliteration system really helps.

Also, the advice I've heard given for made-up names is: if it fulfills
the same ecological/cultural function as Earth creature X, for pity's
sake *call* it that.  (It's pretty likely that humans in contact with an
alien culture, frex, would import their own descriptive terminology.)
OTOH if there's something significantly different, the name is
"allowable."  I treat any sf/f I'm writing as a translation.  I use
"jenar" (from the morpheme-root jnr) for "dagger" only because it has
significant cultural significance, and the weapon is peculiar to that
society.  I use vra and ves instead of yin and yang because I modified
the philosophical system, etc.

The usual workaround I've seen for this is to include a "translation"
term, e.g. "she looked at the cho tree" (in Korean, this results in
redundant translations, like "Mt. Sorak-san"--"san" means mountain) *or*
to make it clear via context, and not to overload.  I save "foreign"
terminology for the most salient features.  It's an imperfect system but
you do have to consider your market.  :-/

> Now maybe if you're Tolkien (or another living writer who's already
> established) you can go places with language, but I don't think publishers as
> a whole are much interested in anything too risky. I'd be willing to bet that
> there are writers out there who've got mss lying in drawers that can't get
> published because of issues like this.
Could be.  Cherryh's Faded Sun trilogy used Tuareg for the mri, but by
then she probably *was* established.  I think the trick is to use
language bits sparingly, and with in-text "documentation."  After all,
I'm facile with languages and you are, and many others as well, but I
know a number of intelligent people who have trouble learning foreign
languages, and we should be thoughtful for their sake, too.  :-)

YHL

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