Talk like a Wolf

[Palladion]

Hello there,

I'm writing a story that while it is mainly fantasy I am basing the traditions and languages of the clans in a very real world type of setting. Meaning I am using old clans from history and appropriating them into my own story. Already I have secured the Scottish accent I want to use, but I want to have a clan based off The Wulfings of Sweden and I have no idea how I can make their speech differentiate.

I was wondering if there were any kinds of phrases that they might use, or if their pronunciation had some sort of inflection upon it. I'd like this story to be authentic in the respect that the accents and general culture is sound based on what they were back in the day of Beowulf though this will be written in English.

 

[Ireth]

From the title, I thought this was about actual lupine body language. Would have been useful for one of my stories. ^^ This is interesting, though I'm afraid I can't help you.

 

[Phietadix]

Well for actual wolves communacation is based heavily on tail postion and howling. As well as body postion

 

[Palladion]

Oh I'm sorry if I was being confusing. While Lupine body language would be useful for mine also, I'm actually interested in Geat-like or Swedish accents.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Our accent really doesn't sound particularly cool, I'm afraid. Maybe it sounds more interesting to non-Swedes, but I've always been jealous of the Germans and French and Spanish for their awesome accents. >_>

But, more to the point, modern Swedish is basically a completely different language these days, so I don't think it'll be much use for you. The Geats and Wulfings go back to the migration period, which as far I can tell means they would have spoken Proto-Norse. I have no idea what that's even suppose to sound like.

 

[Palladion]

Hm. Well one of my main concerns would be that their speech would not blend with the feel of the story as the people from the Scottish inspired kingdom speak with Scottish accents. I am still interested in some phrases though, even if they are modern. Or a place to look up some sort of cultural references and maybe even armor and weapon types.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I wrote that short story for Ankari's "Chopped" from a wolf's perspective. That was fun...

Oh, sorry, I don't have anything useful to add to your dilemma. Cool title though, but I just like wolves...

 

[Graylorne]

You could try here:

www.yorku.ca/inpar/language/English-Old_Norse.pdf for an English-Old Norse Dictionary

 

[SeverinR]

How about talk like a dog?

Dog tease - Bing Videos

 

[OGone]

"Lets go," he said, wolfingly.

???

In seriousness though, I know nothing of Wulfings. Why do these guys have to speak like wolves? Are they still just men in your story or are they shape-shifters (I guess not as you said it was a real world type scenario?) I can't say I know much about wolves but I know that they communicate with scent which I assume, unless you would like your clansmen urinating on their land, is not very practical. I would suggest to just make a list of the animal's characteristics and try to match them through speech and try have them use a semantic field of words related to wolves - pack, howl, hunt, etc. Choose a Norse dialect, add some snarls... Or maybe you could just try to have your men mostly rely on facial and body expression, as wolves do?