Re: fictional worlds

On Friday 09 August 2002 05:54, Herman Miller wrote:

> I have a question for you all... I'd like to know to what extent are
> the cultures behind your conlangs absolutely fictional... I mean,
> what sort of words you didn't include in your langs, because of
> referring to human-made objects or concepts so closely related to
> human cultures that they cannot exist in your fictional cultures...
> Have you thought of the physical appearance of your langs' speakers?
Well, Valdyans are absolutely human and their technological level is
about 14th century, so they don't have words for anything beyond that.
Not because I have chosen not to include the words, but because there's
nothing in the world they live in that the words are needed for.

> Should I do away with those terms, and try to create a whole culture
> with their own objects and then name them with the lang?
If it's in the culture, it's likely that there are words for it; if it's
not, it's not. What is your question, what kind of culture you should
make? You are the only person who can decide that, unless you're doing
it on demand (you *do* make languages for money, don't you?).

> Well, some of my languages are spoken by humans, especially the early
> ones, and even some of the non-humans have technology similar to
> television and computers. But I think it's more interesting to do a
> bit of culture building along with designing a language.
If you think that's more interesting, go ahead and do it by all means.

And why do you think a human culture can't be fictional? Mine is as
fictional as they come; I haven't tried to avoid things that also exist
in real-world cultures, but I haven't copied anything on purpose
either. All fiction is made from what the creator knows.

   Irina

--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin.          http://www.valdyas.org/irina
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.

Reply