On Rabbits and Smeerps

[Jabrosky]

I'm normally not a big fan of calling rabbits smeerps. If your characters are familiar with rabbits, then while realistically they may have their own name for the animals, realistically they wouldn't be speaking in English anyway, so you might as well use the term your readers are familiar with as a translation.

That said, I do make one major exception. I'm using a lot of prehistoric animals in my WIP, and all of these animals are known to readers by Greco-Latin names that are frequently cumbersome. Furthermore, when I have used Greco-Latin names for these animals in the past, readers complained that they sounded too scientific and hence inappropriate for the very pre-modern, non-Western setting. Therefore, I've created my own glossary of alternative names for my setting's fauna. I probably won't use all of these names in the story itself, and each time I do invoke an animal I will briefly describe it so readers can get a sense of what I'm referring to.

Triceratops = Mbogo
Styracosaurus = Ngombe
Allosaurus = Chui
Deinonychus = Fisi
Brontosaurus = Tembo
Brachiosaurus = Twiga
Dryosaurus = Swala
Psittacosaurus = Ngiri
Ankylosaurus = Nyati
Stegosaurus = Kifaru
Troodon = Bweha
Caudipteryx = Kuku
Oviraptor = Kukukubwa
Pterosaurs = Mwewe
Deinosuchus = Mamba
Titanoboa = Nondo
Mosasaurs = Mjusimaji
Plesiosaurs = Joka
Kronosaurus = Mjusikubwa
Spinosaurus = Korongo
Tyrannosaurus = Ngatun

 

[Queshire]

Hrmm... personally I think you'd be better off going with a simple, descriptive name of each instead of making up new words, instead of using the official name, why not simply use the english translation of those names? Like three-horns instead of Triceratops or tyrant-lizard instead of T. Rex or something else along those lines? I think that would be easier to do instead of having both you and the reader need to memorize some nonsense word.

 

[Jabrosky]

Hrmm... personally I think you'd be better off going with a simple, descriptive name of each instead of making up new words, instead of using the official name, why not simply use the english translation of those names? Like three-horns instead of Triceratops or tyrant-lizard instead of T. Rex or something else along those lines? I think that would be easier to do instead of having both you and the reader need to memorize some nonsense word.

Dunno, that would evoke The Land Before Time too much for my taste.

 

[Queshire]

*shrug* that's up to you. Just don't automatically decide against using something just because it's been done before, after all, just about EVERYTHING has been done before, most of it by the simpsons!

 

[BWFoster78]

I typically hate it when authors use too much made up jargon and hard to pronounce words. I can live with it if it's not overwhelming, though.

In your case, however, I don't like it at all. As long as something can be translated into English, it should be. If you create an animal that has never existed, feel free to call it an ajgiotgoa. On the other hand, you need to refer to a t-rex as a t-rex. Otherwise, the fact that you're translating all their other speech makes no sense.

One possible work around, if you really don't want to use t-rex, is to give them a reason to be speaking another language when they refer to the creatures. Say that they can only refer to dinosaurs in a special dialect for religious reasons. That way, you're translating from their normal language to English on a normal basis, but you're putting the words in italics and not translating when they're referring to the creatures.

Does this help any?

 

[JCFarnham]

I've seen people drop the 'saurus's' and 'don's' and so on before. Nicknaming the proper name.

I like the words you've chosen, nice african flavour, but I still wouldn't call a rabbit a smeerp.

 

[Jabrosky]

I've decided to go with the good old Latin names right now.

 

[Steerpike]

I like the African-sounding words as well. Neither choice would bother me, personally.

You do see the rabbit/smeerp issue a lot in Fantasy. It happens quite a bit with respect to races. People don't want to use "orcs" so they have a race virtually indistinguishable from orcs and call them something different, and so on.

 

[Jabrosky]

I like the African-sounding words as well. Neither choice would bother me, personally.

All of the words are derived from Swahili except for "Ngatun", which is Maasai for "lion". I like my original system too; I might revert back to it if enough betas are bothered by the use of Latin names for the dinosaurs.

 

[myrddin173]

In your case, however, I don't like it at all. As long as something can be translated into English, it should be. If you create an animal that has never existed, feel free to call it an ajgiotgoa. On the other hand, you need to refer to a t-rex as a t-rex. Otherwise, the fact that you're translating all their other speech makes no sense.

One possible work around, if you really don't want to use t-rex, is to give them a reason to be speaking another language when they refer to the creatures. Say that they can only refer to dinosaurs in a special dialect for religious reasons. That way, you're translating from their normal language to English on a normal basis, but you're putting the words in italics and not translating when they're referring to the creatures.

I would disagree with you on the call a T-Rex a T-Rex thing. I think that when appropriate its perfectly fine. In the Wheel of Time series, in about book five or six, some of the major characters come across elephants. Elephants however are not native to that continent, so the leader of the menagerie calls them boar-horses. Their handler, also from the other continent, calls them by their "proper" name, s'redit. As long as I can tell what the animal actually is I am pretty forgiving about odd names when appropriate.

 

[Ireth]

I would disagree with you on the call a T-Rex a T-Rex thing. I think that when appropriate its perfectly fine. In the Wheel of Time series, in about book five or six, some of the major characters come across elephants. Elephants however are not native to that continent, so the leader of the menagerie calls them boar-horses. Their handler, also from the other continent, calls them by their "proper" name, s'redit. As long as I can tell what the animal actually is I am pretty forgiving about odd names when appropriate.

A similar example is the elephants in The Lord of the Rings. Sam calls them Oliphaunts, while others call them Mumakil (singular Mumak). It's pretty obvious that they're just supersized elephants, especially since Sam describes them in detail via a poem early in the book. "Grey as a mouse, big as a house," etc.

 

[Jabrosky]

I've found a system that could work: use my African names for the dinosaurs most of the time, but have a "fish out of water" character stranded in the land address them by their more familiar (i.e "scientific") names. I had this character planned from the start, but it never occurred to me that he could be used as a translator for these terms.