PhoenixF2B
Dreamer
Hey all!
I apologize if this has been posted previously, but I was just curious how different writers attacked different techniques.
I am working on a novel, which hopefully will be the first of a series, and one thing I want to keep authentic is language barriers. I understand for communicative reasons having characters all speak "Basic" or a general language but it is something that always bothered me a little. Even in Lord of the Rings, everyone seems to speak everyone's language.
In my story, or rather in the series the story arcs across a fair amount of land, in with that comes a clash of cultures. I have been spending a lot of my world building time trying to develop a distinct cultural feel for each region, and that includes having characters that speak different languages.
Since writing is showing and not telling anyway, I thought on occasion it would be interesting and a creative challenge to have language play an obstacle in communication and figure out how they could communicate in other ways. I also have characters with mixed backgrounds and I wanted their syntax and speak patterns to be different.
My solution was to create a few different languages. Now when I say create, I mean a VERY GENERAL Basic language with fundamental grammatical rules and structure and a minimal vocabulary that I can expand when needed. TECHNICALLY, these can be spoken and written (and I even made a typable font for each one) but what I ended up with was a least a foundation for characters to have a distinct set of sounds and speak patterns, and something that when used doesn't sound like I'm making up words on the spot.
I attached a picture with these four langues side by side for comparison. You can see that they all share some similarities as well as some stark differences. (for example, in Gesel, all they have are consonants, vowels are used as accent marks in various places in their text).
I would love some feedback as well as I am curious how all of you tackle languages and cultural differences in your stories
Languages for Book - Imgur
I apologize if this has been posted previously, but I was just curious how different writers attacked different techniques.
I am working on a novel, which hopefully will be the first of a series, and one thing I want to keep authentic is language barriers. I understand for communicative reasons having characters all speak "Basic" or a general language but it is something that always bothered me a little. Even in Lord of the Rings, everyone seems to speak everyone's language.
In my story, or rather in the series the story arcs across a fair amount of land, in with that comes a clash of cultures. I have been spending a lot of my world building time trying to develop a distinct cultural feel for each region, and that includes having characters that speak different languages.
Since writing is showing and not telling anyway, I thought on occasion it would be interesting and a creative challenge to have language play an obstacle in communication and figure out how they could communicate in other ways. I also have characters with mixed backgrounds and I wanted their syntax and speak patterns to be different.
My solution was to create a few different languages. Now when I say create, I mean a VERY GENERAL Basic language with fundamental grammatical rules and structure and a minimal vocabulary that I can expand when needed. TECHNICALLY, these can be spoken and written (and I even made a typable font for each one) but what I ended up with was a least a foundation for characters to have a distinct set of sounds and speak patterns, and something that when used doesn't sound like I'm making up words on the spot.
I attached a picture with these four langues side by side for comparison. You can see that they all share some similarities as well as some stark differences. (for example, in Gesel, all they have are consonants, vowels are used as accent marks in various places in their text).
I would love some feedback as well as I am curious how all of you tackle languages and cultural differences in your stories
Languages for Book - Imgur