The roots of fantasy are pretty well planted in Tolkien; and a very important part of Tolkien's work and interest was linguistic -- he developed complete languages for his books, including elvish, multiple human languages, Entish, and more.
Other writers have used languages -- real or fictional - to help create their worlds. Just a few key examples from my own bookshelves:
And, of course, there's Klingon. And a ton more.
So, language is an interesting tool in fiction -- and it's an important tool for understanding different cultures.
Don't Bring up The Snowflakes
Languages are an expression of the way a culture thinks -- concepts that are important to them will have a wide variety of names for different flavors of a concept. Ideas that are not important to them may be very difficult to express when translated from another language.
[video=youtube;Km9-DiFaxpU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Km9-DiFaxpU[/video]
Check out this video -- it's a quick profile of a kid who speaks 20 languages. He says a couple of interesting things about language in there -- some interesting ideas about how the language you're speaking can make subtle differences in who you are and how you think -- but also that you can see the entire history of a culture in it's language.
Languages in RPGs
So, yeah. Then we turn a corner and land on D&D, and see "Common." And there really isn't anything wrong with common -- it's a convenience, a way of handwaving away the problem of language so it doesn't get in the way of the story and the game -- and that's a very real concern. For one thing, not all players are going to be interested in complex linguistics in their games.
At the same time, we can use real or invented language to inject a dash of flavor and texture to our game worlds. After a while, how do you differentiate between Orcs and Hobgoblins and Bandits and Gnolls in your games? What sets them apart? A little flavor of their native language might help differentiate.
A Study in Profanity
Battlestar Gallactica gave us "Frak." If you're watching Defiance, you've heard "Schtako." Farscape invented "Frel." No one had any trouble understanding the "real" word that was being referenced here -- there's a 1-to-1 relationship between these words and the words we might use. The actors seem a little silly saying them -- and rather than helping us understand the gravity of a scene, we have a little smirk -- we are reminded that they're doing this little bit of sleight of hand to get by network censors, and then have to make our way back into the story. It's a terrible idea.
Now, consider HBO's Deadwood. David Milch, the show's creator, talked in the DVD commentary about the really foul language* used by the characters, and explains that in a lot of cases, those are not exactly the words that would have been used at the time, but he's essentially translated them to our contemporary analogs so we get the feeling of the moment -- that truth of the story, rather than a less important factual truth.
For my money, that's the right way to handle it.
*Seriously, go watch Deadwood, you might learn a few new insults. It's an education.
Don't Wookiee It
I'm a rabid Star Wars fan, but one of the disappointing things about Star Wars is that, by and large, the other languages that we encounter in the movies -- like Shyriiwook (Wookiee) or Jawa -- tend to be incomprehensible, unrepeatable. We get a Threepio -handled translation when we need it, but the hoots and roars that make up these other languages don't really add the same sort of depth and texture that Klingon adds to Star Trek.
So, what we don't need is translations -- what we want is something else.
Valar Morghulis
So, then, when characters in George RR Martin's work pass around terms like Valar Morghulis -- why is that so good? Why is Ta Havath (from Joel Roseberg's The Sword and the Chain Series) evocative?
Valar Morghulis is translated for us as "All men must die" -- but we understand that those words themselves are an imperfect expression of the real meaning of the phrase. It's an imperfect translation because a true translation can't be made. And not just because it's an idiomatic expression, but because there isn't a good translation. It's an idea that can only really be expressed correctly in valaryan.
And that, I think, is a way to try to think about the use of other languages in your game. If you're developing a culture that your players need to interact with, spend a little time thinking about the concepts and ideas that this culture might have that will stand out as new or unusual to outsiders. What idioms would come naturally out of their culture
The Importance of Idioms
An idiom is a phrase or expression that has figurative meaning beyond the literal translation. The Wikipedia page about idioms offers a good explanation, and uses "kicked the bucket" as an example. Anyone who doesn't speak English who hears a translation of that phrase will have no idea what that means, but it's pretty well understood by English speakers.
Come up with an idiom for that phrase. So, for example, I want to make my Orc culture a little more interesting in my world. I think about the barbaric, nomadic, raider culture that they have. Perhaps I want to accentuate their penchant for ambush tactics (and their related fear of being surprised themselves). I pick an idiom that makes sense for them -- let's say "Sleeping buffalo has no horns." That's a good start, but I also need to try to 'translate" that into Orcish.
Tools & Gadgets
So, unlike an Oxford Don with tons of time on his hands, we need to come up with a translation in a jiffy and we probably don't need a whole defined language behind the scenes. There are a bunch of different tools you can use to try to come up with a translation of your phrase.
I'm especially interested in the power of a quick combination of these tools. We've come up with the Orcish idiom "Sleeping buffalo has no horns." Lets come up with a unique, interesting translation of what the phrase sounds like in Orcish.
I want to uses the Risus Monkey generator to create the actual phrase, but that requires a chunk of sample text to generate the cypher -- and for that, I will rely on Google Translate to create a block of sample text.
So, here's my recipe. I take the section of this article titled "A Study In Profanity" and I take it to Google Translate. There, I paste it in as English and pick a language to translate it into. I picked "Khmer" because it seems to have some sounds that fit what I want. So, I get a translation of that section that looks like this:
[sblock]Battlestar Gallactica bratan yeung " Frak " . brasenbae anak kampoung meul Defiance anak banlyy " Schtako " . Farscape bangkeut " Frel " . kmean norna mneak mean banhhea knong karoyl peaky " pit " del trauv ban yong now tinih namuoy - vea mean tomneaktomnng tow 1- 1 - rveang peaky teangnih ning peaky del yeung ach nung brae . tuoangk del meul tow hakdauch chea la techtuoch daoy niyeay tha puokke - ning cheacheang chuoy aoy yeung yl pi pheap thngonthngor nei chhout muoy noh yeung mean smirk techtuoch - yeung trauv ban romluk phng der tha puokke kampoung thveu nih bantich nei sleight nei dai daembi ttuol ban daoy b ntanh truotpinity , haey banteabmk mean daembi thveu aoy vithi robsa yeung tralbmokvinh chaul tow knong rueng nih .
ilauvnih chaur pichearna Deadwood HBO robsa lok . lok David Milch , anakabangkeut kar bangheanh robsa noh ban niyeay nowknong attha thibbeay dividi ampi pheasaea foul pitchea ban brae daoy tuoaksaar ning ban ponyol tha nowknong chraen karnei muoy del minmen chea pitchea peaky del nung trauv ban brae now pelnoh te bonte keat ban bakabre chea sarovont puokvea tow ana lauk sahasamy robsa yeung dauchneh yeung ach ttuol ban arommo nei pel bachchobbann nih - karpit nei ruengreav del cheacheang chea karpit factual minsauv saamkhan .
champoh louy robsakhnhom tha chea vithi khangosdam daembi krobkrong vea .[/sblock]
And I use that as the model text for the Risus Monkey Cyhper, and that gives me a translation of "Sleeping buffalo has no horns" as "nuekkoh pektire ching ve cheang." What's fun about that is the "ching ve cheang" strikes me as the sort of alliterative sounds that could easily make a phrase become an idiom. Perhaps "Ching ve cheang" will become the shorthand for the phrase as Orcs talk about the value of taking opponents unawares.
What I'm left with, in my finished product, is a snippet of "orcish" that I can use to add a little flavor to an encounter with orcs in an upcoming game session. By keeping my block of model text handy, I can always go back to Risus Monkey and generate more phrases based on the same cypher.
So, now it's your turn. What are your favorite fictional/fantasy languages? What have you done to create language-based flavor in your games?
Edited: To make corrections called out by DarkCyril in his comments, below.
Other writers have used languages -- real or fictional - to help create their worlds. Just a few key examples from my own bookshelves:
- Latin, used in magical rituals in Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels
- Lapin, from Richard Adam's Watership Down
- Valarian and Dothraki from George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones [http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/06/language-creation-for-game-of-thrones/?hpt=hp_mid ]
- Parseltongue from Harry Potter (nevermind the phony-baloney Latin used for spells)
- Chinese in Firefly & Serenity
And, of course, there's Klingon. And a ton more.
So, language is an interesting tool in fiction -- and it's an important tool for understanding different cultures.
Don't Bring up The Snowflakes
Languages are an expression of the way a culture thinks -- concepts that are important to them will have a wide variety of names for different flavors of a concept. Ideas that are not important to them may be very difficult to express when translated from another language.
[video=youtube;Km9-DiFaxpU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Km9-DiFaxpU[/video]
Check out this video -- it's a quick profile of a kid who speaks 20 languages. He says a couple of interesting things about language in there -- some interesting ideas about how the language you're speaking can make subtle differences in who you are and how you think -- but also that you can see the entire history of a culture in it's language.
Languages in RPGs
So, yeah. Then we turn a corner and land on D&D, and see "Common." And there really isn't anything wrong with common -- it's a convenience, a way of handwaving away the problem of language so it doesn't get in the way of the story and the game -- and that's a very real concern. For one thing, not all players are going to be interested in complex linguistics in their games.
At the same time, we can use real or invented language to inject a dash of flavor and texture to our game worlds. After a while, how do you differentiate between Orcs and Hobgoblins and Bandits and Gnolls in your games? What sets them apart? A little flavor of their native language might help differentiate.
A Study in Profanity
Battlestar Gallactica gave us "Frak." If you're watching Defiance, you've heard "Schtako." Farscape invented "Frel." No one had any trouble understanding the "real" word that was being referenced here -- there's a 1-to-1 relationship between these words and the words we might use. The actors seem a little silly saying them -- and rather than helping us understand the gravity of a scene, we have a little smirk -- we are reminded that they're doing this little bit of sleight of hand to get by network censors, and then have to make our way back into the story. It's a terrible idea.
Now, consider HBO's Deadwood. David Milch, the show's creator, talked in the DVD commentary about the really foul language* used by the characters, and explains that in a lot of cases, those are not exactly the words that would have been used at the time, but he's essentially translated them to our contemporary analogs so we get the feeling of the moment -- that truth of the story, rather than a less important factual truth.
For my money, that's the right way to handle it.
*Seriously, go watch Deadwood, you might learn a few new insults. It's an education.
Don't Wookiee It
I'm a rabid Star Wars fan, but one of the disappointing things about Star Wars is that, by and large, the other languages that we encounter in the movies -- like Shyriiwook (Wookiee) or Jawa -- tend to be incomprehensible, unrepeatable. We get a Threepio -handled translation when we need it, but the hoots and roars that make up these other languages don't really add the same sort of depth and texture that Klingon adds to Star Trek.
So, what we don't need is translations -- what we want is something else.
Valar Morghulis
So, then, when characters in George RR Martin's work pass around terms like Valar Morghulis -- why is that so good? Why is Ta Havath (from Joel Roseberg's The Sword and the Chain Series) evocative?
Valar Morghulis is translated for us as "All men must die" -- but we understand that those words themselves are an imperfect expression of the real meaning of the phrase. It's an imperfect translation because a true translation can't be made. And not just because it's an idiomatic expression, but because there isn't a good translation. It's an idea that can only really be expressed correctly in valaryan.
And that, I think, is a way to try to think about the use of other languages in your game. If you're developing a culture that your players need to interact with, spend a little time thinking about the concepts and ideas that this culture might have that will stand out as new or unusual to outsiders. What idioms would come naturally out of their culture
The Importance of Idioms
An idiom is a phrase or expression that has figurative meaning beyond the literal translation. The Wikipedia page about idioms offers a good explanation, and uses "kicked the bucket" as an example. Anyone who doesn't speak English who hears a translation of that phrase will have no idea what that means, but it's pretty well understood by English speakers.
Come up with an idiom for that phrase. So, for example, I want to make my Orc culture a little more interesting in my world. I think about the barbaric, nomadic, raider culture that they have. Perhaps I want to accentuate their penchant for ambush tactics (and their related fear of being surprised themselves). I pick an idiom that makes sense for them -- let's say "Sleeping buffalo has no horns." That's a good start, but I also need to try to 'translate" that into Orcish.
Tools & Gadgets
So, unlike an Oxford Don with tons of time on his hands, we need to come up with a translation in a jiffy and we probably don't need a whole defined language behind the scenes. There are a bunch of different tools you can use to try to come up with a translation of your phrase.
- Google Translate [http://translate.google.com/]
- Babelfish [http://www.babelfish.com/]
- Risus Monkey [http://www.risusmonkey.com/p/rosetta-stone.html ] A fake translator - it uses a selection of model text to create a cypher to translate a phrase you provide.
- Wise and Otherwise [http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2652/wise-and-otherwise ] a board game of phrases and idioms from a wide variety of world cultures. Great as a resource for ideas.
I'm especially interested in the power of a quick combination of these tools. We've come up with the Orcish idiom "Sleeping buffalo has no horns." Lets come up with a unique, interesting translation of what the phrase sounds like in Orcish.
I want to uses the Risus Monkey generator to create the actual phrase, but that requires a chunk of sample text to generate the cypher -- and for that, I will rely on Google Translate to create a block of sample text.
So, here's my recipe. I take the section of this article titled "A Study In Profanity" and I take it to Google Translate. There, I paste it in as English and pick a language to translate it into. I picked "Khmer" because it seems to have some sounds that fit what I want. So, I get a translation of that section that looks like this:
[sblock]Battlestar Gallactica bratan yeung " Frak " . brasenbae anak kampoung meul Defiance anak banlyy " Schtako " . Farscape bangkeut " Frel " . kmean norna mneak mean banhhea knong karoyl peaky " pit " del trauv ban yong now tinih namuoy - vea mean tomneaktomnng tow 1- 1 - rveang peaky teangnih ning peaky del yeung ach nung brae . tuoangk del meul tow hakdauch chea la techtuoch daoy niyeay tha puokke - ning cheacheang chuoy aoy yeung yl pi pheap thngonthngor nei chhout muoy noh yeung mean smirk techtuoch - yeung trauv ban romluk phng der tha puokke kampoung thveu nih bantich nei sleight nei dai daembi ttuol ban daoy b ntanh truotpinity , haey banteabmk mean daembi thveu aoy vithi robsa yeung tralbmokvinh chaul tow knong rueng nih .
ilauvnih chaur pichearna Deadwood HBO robsa lok . lok David Milch , anakabangkeut kar bangheanh robsa noh ban niyeay nowknong attha thibbeay dividi ampi pheasaea foul pitchea ban brae daoy tuoaksaar ning ban ponyol tha nowknong chraen karnei muoy del minmen chea pitchea peaky del nung trauv ban brae now pelnoh te bonte keat ban bakabre chea sarovont puokvea tow ana lauk sahasamy robsa yeung dauchneh yeung ach ttuol ban arommo nei pel bachchobbann nih - karpit nei ruengreav del cheacheang chea karpit factual minsauv saamkhan .
champoh louy robsakhnhom tha chea vithi khangosdam daembi krobkrong vea .[/sblock]
And I use that as the model text for the Risus Monkey Cyhper, and that gives me a translation of "Sleeping buffalo has no horns" as "nuekkoh pektire ching ve cheang." What's fun about that is the "ching ve cheang" strikes me as the sort of alliterative sounds that could easily make a phrase become an idiom. Perhaps "Ching ve cheang" will become the shorthand for the phrase as Orcs talk about the value of taking opponents unawares.
What I'm left with, in my finished product, is a snippet of "orcish" that I can use to add a little flavor to an encounter with orcs in an upcoming game session. By keeping my block of model text handy, I can always go back to Risus Monkey and generate more phrases based on the same cypher.
So, now it's your turn. What are your favorite fictional/fantasy languages? What have you done to create language-based flavor in your games?
Edited: To make corrections called out by DarkCyril in his comments, below.
