Monday, June 4, 2007

Creating a New Language

It gets pretty difficult at times to work, when all I can think about is the book. I did go through a bit of discouragement a few days ago as I read through the first draft, but then the writing improved, and now I'm excited again.

The article I mentioned in the previous post by Holly Lisle has really got me pumped. I was thinking this editing process was going to be a long drawn out affair, but she makes it sound so easy. Of course I know that isn't true, but it does give me hope.

One area I know will bog me down is creating some languages. (Which I know Holly does BEFORE writing the book.) I used what I always considered a spacer language for the first draft. It was really just a "code" I developed in high school, swapping out various letters with each other. "Af e zhutho af quzho nquifl quzhogo thapol e zhukkaquo." Which I still think is pretty cool, but not quite what I'm going for. (By the way this is the first sentence from The Hobbit)

Now I really want to put some development time into creating actual languages. Again Holly Lisle to the rescue. I bought an e-book called the "Create a Language Clinic" it has some good stuff in it. I have four main languages in Crimson Swarm, and Holly's ideas will go a long way in helping me flesh them out.

The first language I started work on, was the one I considered the easiest because the race are pretty simplistic in their world view. I used to call them the Voormarg, but after working through the language development, I now call them the Vurmierg, and their language is "Common Gzuri" There is a "High Gzuri" that is spoken by the main villain in the book, but his grunts only speak a very simplified version. I'll post some samples of their language as I develop it, but in the meantime, here is a sketch of what a vurmierg looks like.


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