Curiouser & Curiouser: Twentyish Questions with the Executive Editor — Part Three

Hello again, Beardies!

As you may recall, I've been attempting to interview our esteemed Executive Editor for several posts now, and my last attempt ended with a bit of a dust-up wherein he accused me of drinking his coffee (the scoundrel!) and nearly wised up to my use of truth serum.  Maybe that long-winded confession about how he ended up at the same college as me was needed, though, because after that, he became much more relaxed and more concise with his answers, and I wasn't forced to use the serum again.  (Thank heavens.  Interrogating my best friend felt a bit invasive, but I kept at it.  I am, I admit, quite shameless.)  This interview still isn't complete, but here's another part.


Elizabeth: How, if at all, does your rural New England background influence your writing?

Joshua: You could say that it had—still has—a lot to do with my writing. New England is saturated in Native American folklore and, of course, famous for its witch trials. The landscape, too, lends itself to great stories, whether they be set in the mountains, forests, swamps, or around the water—even deserts—Maine has it all. The ocean alone has its own mysticism, Maine's coastline dotted with spooky lighthouses and fog-drenched outcroppings of treacherous rock and cliff. And shipwrecks galore. The rivers and lakes even have stories of their own, swimming with life and curses both.

World Building Series: Language Construction -- Part III

Well kiddos,

As promised, here is the Third installment of the Language Construction Series, part of my larger World Building Series.

When creating written characters for your language, there are a few questions you must ask yourself:

• What will the characters of your language look like (runic, script, hieroglyphic, or other)? 
• Will there be more than one representation (i.e, a runic for one class [or a specific race/species] and a script form for another)?
• Will your language resemble any known languages (Futhark, Arabic, Cyrillic, Mandarin, Korean, Egyptian, Irdu, et cetera)?
• In what direction will your language be written (left to right, right to left, vertically)?
• What will the punctuation look like—if any?
• How will numbers be represented (digits, or symbols to represent specific quantities)?
• Will you use a different character for each sound, or will diacritics be used?

There are obviously more questions that can be asked, but those are a few to ask yourself in the very beginning stages of planning.

I'm not going to mislead you in any way.  Creating the language was the easy part for me; creating the written form of it, however, was no easy task.  I struggled with it for years, even long after I had nearly finalized the actual language itself.  So many times I scrapped sketches, never happy with the way it turned out.  Believe it or not, I finished my first manuscript months before I finally sketched out a set of characters with which I was happy.  

Although, not completely.

It took a few more months of tweaking, but I finally completed it...

Copyright (C) Joshua Allen Mercier (The Bearded Scribe)
Unauthorized Reproduction Prohibited

Please feel free to leave comments with any feedback or questions you may have on Constructed Languages, and Good Luck with your own languages!

Happy Scribing,

World Building Series: Language Construction -- Part II

Welcome Back :)

When I left off in the World Building Series--in particular, Language Construction--I was discussing the use of combination forms of words to create other words.  In the last post I touched on how I used combination forms, like Tolkien, to create proper nouns in my language.

Just like we have obvious place names in English (and other languages, for that matter) that comprise of two or more smaller parts to create a larger concept, i.e., Pennsylvania [Penn (Welsh surname meaning "head"... here meaning Admiral William Penn, to be precise) + sylvania (woods, from the Latin sylvan meaning tree): therefore meaning "Penn's Woods"].  Other examples include Montréal [Mount Royal], Philadelphia [Love+Brother=City of Brotherly Love], Springfield [self-explanatory], Hartford ["deer crossing"], et cetera.

I used the same principles when naming the places in my language, as well. Here are three examples:

Aesira·nyn {pronounced AY-SEER-RAH-NIN} is the name of the land in which my story takes place; its name is comprised of the elements: aesira (majick or enchantment) + nyn (from nuynos, meaning land)... therefore meaning "Land of Enchantment."

Aijir·heleg {pronounced EYE-YEER-HELL-LEG} is the name of the capital of Aesira·nyn and the city in which the Garnet Throne is located.  Its name is comprised of the elements: aijir (meaning city) + heleg (meaning holy)... therefore "Holy City."

Shann·yhmn {pronounced SHAH-NIN (think of the name Shannon, but with is the name of the longest river, located in the central part of the main continent (called Selest·erem).  It flows from Tyr·shyr (meaning "Pool of Blessings"), from which its name derives: shann (meaning blessing) + yhmn (from rohmyn, meaning river)--itself meaning "River of Blessing."

Alright... please bear with me while I shift back to the first part of my first post on Language Creation for the next part of this one...
If you don't remember, I'll refresh all of your memories:  Using an existing language to create your Constructed Language (or Conlang, as it's colloquially known).

As I mentioned, I used several.  More specifically, I used the roots of words from various languages to create my own by attaching my own "SET" endings, which I worked out separately.  For example:

My own noun endings (one of a few possibilities) are -yn (singular) which changes to -un (plural).  Deryn or derun {pronounced DAIR-RIN or DAIR-ROON}, meaning pheasant, is borrowed from the Welsh word for bird, aderyn.  In this case, my SET noun ending happened to be the ending of the original word, though that is a rare case.  The Welsh pronunciation wasn't important to me, as I used my own set of characters, which come with a set pronunciation.  No exceptions.

Let's look at another:

By chance, this example uses the same noun endings as the previous.  Aeryn or aerun {pronounced AIR-RIN or AIR-ROON}, meaning copper, is borrowed from the Old English word for copper, ar.  Of course, the plural of copper is theoretical and rarely used, but that is for another discussion.

Now let's glance at verbs (always the most fun, in my opinion).  Verbs in most Latin-based languages comprise of a root and an ending, which has its own standardized conjugation for tenses and for the pronouns for which they are conjugated.  Being of French heritage and also a non-fluent speaker/writer/reader of the language, I decided to borrow this idea of verb endings with standardized conjugations.  In Teangriel, there are four (4) different verb endings.  I won't bother getting into all of them, but I will show you an example of a verb and its conjugation for the present tense (I have my own non-standard set of tenses, which might irritate some of you, but they are the tenses that suited the needs for my novel):

The pronoun suffixes are only used in formal speech.  In the rural parts, only the pronoun and the conjugated verb is used.  On a side note, there is only one irregular verb in Teangriel, and its present tense conjugation is  the origination of the pronoun endings you see above...

Well kiddos, I've probably bored your heads off!  I will end this post for now, but stay tuned for the next part in the series, in which I will discuss how I created the "TRUE" form of my language as it is written and seen by the native speakers.

World Building Series: Language Construction -- Part I

Hello Readers :)

I decided to do yet another post within my World Building Series, this time focusing on language construction.  Being a lover of language, especially in Fantasy, I believe this is one of the many elements that sets the genre apart from the rest.

I mean... How exciting is it to open up a new book and find a glossary?!?  I love the challenge and the 'secret' invitation to get inside the head of the author.  How the author forms the language, how it is used by the characters, and how the author incorporates it into the book are all things that make for a stimulating read.  At least for me.

{Please leave a comment on this.  I want to get to know my readers, and not only their thoughts on my posts, but also their thoughts on this in particular.  Having created two different languages for my series The Chronicles of Aesiranyn, I want to also find out if my audience is as receptive of constructed languages as I am.}


I spent years trying to perfect my first language (Jeremiah can attest to this).  At first I got in my own way.  I was just creating words--with truly no fluidity or method of organization.  I even complicated things by trying to incorporate too much complexity into the language.  I was my own worse enemy.

I finally had a breakthrough when I realized I needed to simplify.  A lot.  It was overhaul time, but where to begin?  Sure, the words I created were wicked neat (as we say in New England) and evocative of their true meanings, but there was no cohesiveness to their styles or potential etymology.  I almost scrapped it completely, but I ran across something that changed my outlook on Tolkien's genius and fantasy languages altogether.

 Jeremiah and I took a sojourn to Lansing, Michigan one chilly winter's afternoon and our paths led us to a newly finished outdoor mall.  I can't recall if we went there specifically or happened to stumble upon it, but at any rate, they had one of the largest bookstores I had ever seen (I've seen much larger ones since, but this was a great find for us at the time).  While browsing the shelves, my eyes were drawn to the bright red binding and the title of the book pictured above: The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth by Ruth S. Noel.

The image is perhaps too small to read the block of text under the title, so I will oblige all of you with a transcription: A complete guide to all fourteen of the languages Tolkien invented.


Yes.  You read it correctly.  Fourteen!  I figured if it gives me even the slightest inclination as to how he did it with fourteen, then surely I should be able to create at least one!

I read that thing from cover to cover.  Twice.

And then I re-read it with a journal and pen to take notes on all the helpful information it contained.  It is in no way a reference guide to how Tolkien did it, but it contained enough clues for me to discern a pattern and methodology.  And with my journal now full of notes, hints, and questions for me to ask myself about my own language, I decided to jump in head first.

I also discovered something important.  Tolkien didn't create his languages from scratch, he had a little help.  I am not saying that Tolkien wasn't a genius because he didn't create his language from scratch--because he absolutely was one; I am saying that perhaps the fact that he decided to use an existing language for guidance proved his very genius.  Why not borrow parts of a language that already has all of the 'kinks' worked out?  It made perfect sense to me, so that's what I decided to do.

As Tolkien based his language upon Finnish (whether it was just one--or perhaps all fourteen--I am not certain), I, too, decided to structure [at least parts of] my language on an existing one.... well, many, actually.  Parts of my language are derived from Gaelic, parts from French, parts from Latin, parts from Finnish, parts from Hebrew (the list actually goes on, but I will spare you from its entirety).

Also, like Tolkien, I decided to use combination forms of words so that I could create better-formed proper nouns--names of characters and places and important things.  The name of my language itself is a perfect example, so let's take a closer look at that.

The word [pronounced TAY-AHN-GREE-EL] is formed from two combination forms to create a single word:  teang (from the word teangos, meaning tongue, or language) + riel (the word for silver)... which means that the word "Teangriel" actually means Silver Tongue.

All of my characters names, place names, and proper nouns are formed this way, the only difference is that the combination forms are usually separated by a "·" symbol--an unpronounced, but needed, separator.  The word Teangriel, of course is one exception and is formed irregularly... though at one point in my world's history, before it was dropped because the two parts of the word became one over time, it existed between the "G" and "R" of the word.

Here is an example of a regularly-formed proper noun :

Quin·riel [pronounced QUEEN-REE-EL] is formed from quin (from quielan, meaning holly) + riel (the word for silver).  You guessed it: the name means "Silver Holly" and is the name of the Tzandas (or, for the closest English term, Princess) of Aesiranyn.

Since this post is getting rather long, I will end it and continue where I left off in a future post.  Keep your eye out for it! :)

Until then,

World Building Series: The Rules of Majick

Hello Again Everyone,

Welcome to the third installment of my World Building Series of posts -- The Rules of Majick.

There have been many fantasy books out there that include their own majickal system--rules, principles, limitations, et cetera--that govern the usage of majick and its consequences... and each with unique answers to specific questions their authors were forced to ask in order to set the basic building blocks for the systems.

Some books that come to mind, just to name a few, are J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (of course), Larry Niven's Warlock series, and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series.  In the first and third series, the majick is driven by language: Harry Potter by a Latinesque (if only that were a real word) language--specific words spoken to evoke specific purpose (Rowling also requires the use of a wand or staff in order to produce the spells); and in Earthsea, Le Guin uses the concept of an original, primordial language by which the creators of the world originally named things. People who learn these names are able to control the things named, an ability shared by both the wizards who study the language, and the dragons whose native tongue it is.  And in the second series mentioned above, the majick is derived from mana--an exhaustible resource in the environment surrounding the caster which can be depleted.

In creating the majickal system for my first series, The Chronicles of Aesiranyn, I asked myself question after question in order to narrow down how my characters would use and manipulate majick and also what the results and consequences of that usage would be.  Like Rowling and Le Guin, I decided to use language (perhaps for the mere fact that I am a self-confessed linguaphile).  I also, like Rowling, decided to require a wand or staff in order to produce a spell (more on that later), and like in Earthsea, the spells are derived from an Ancient (even protected) language that must be learned in order to produce the proper spells.  There are limitations (as there should be), though if the character is a member of the Imperial family, then their limitations are less--and even more so if they are the ruler because their majick is derived from the throne upon which they [figuratively] sit.

My majick system is simple, yet it is complex in all of its different parts. It is elemental majick, of sorts, and it is also broken down into general color categories and then more specific types within the category.  As I mentioned before, the majick in Aesiranyn requires a wand or staff, which is crafted by a wandmaker.  The intended recipient of the wand/staff must make a blood sacrifice, and then the majick within his/her blood chooses elements, which also hold their own majickal properties.  Aside from wands being required, there are other specific spells as well that require other majickal artifacts in order for them to work.  I've probably given away too much... but hopefully it was a teaser for the future readers of the books!   :)

The greatest advantage a writer can have is to know their own world inside and out (without overbuilding, of course), and in order to do that, they must constantly ask questions before beginning to write their stories--and just as importantly, while they are writing it!

Below is a link to the list of questions I asked myself (a page that will remain a permanent resource on this blog), which I am offering to all of you in your own quests for the ever-illusive realm of majick.

As always... any Comments, Feedback, and Questions are Welcomed, Needed, and Encouraged!

Good Luck in this and all of your quests,