[George Corley]: Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the [George Corley]: people who create them. I'm George Corley and with me over in Germany we [George Corley]: have CD Covington [CD Covington]: Hi.
[George Corley]: Yeah, so I had you on, you have a column for Tor that covers science fiction [George Corley]: and fantasy stuff for, from a linguistic perspective, and you've got a [George Corley]: YouTube channel that covers the science fiction fantasy linguistics, but [George Corley]: the most sort of important thing that we were going to, the most like [George Corley]: pressing thing we were going to cover is you are writing a book about world
[George Corley]: building, linguistic world building, for science fiction and fantasy properties. [George Corley]: So, um, I, maybe we can start out with what is your background in linguistics [George Corley]: and how did you get interested in this topic? It's sort of related to conlanging. [George Corley]: I'm sure you encounter conlangs [CD Covington]: Yeah. [George Corley]: as you are talking about all this stuff, but also like a broader world building
[George Corley]: thing. So like how did you get interested in this and involved in this [George Corley]: and you know give us a little bit of a background there. [CD Covington]: Yeah, I got my master's in linguistics from the University of Georgia in 2019. [CD Covington]: I wrote about German verbs.
[CD Covington]: But I've been reading science fiction since I was 12 or something. And I've [CD Covington]: been writing since forever and I started writing science fiction about 20, [CD Covington]: 25 years ago maybe more seriously than I had been when I was, you know, a kid.
[CD Covington]: And I love reading, obviously. And I was just finishing up my master's when [CD Covington]: I had the idea that I could write about linguistics in science fiction, [CD Covington]: because I was reading a lot of, well, let's see, Arrival had come out [CD Covington]: fairly recently, and The Expanse was just airing for the first time on TV, and [CD Covington]: you can see like [CD Covington]: the Belta slang, Belta Creole.
[CD Covington]: And I was like, well, maybe I could... do something interesting with this. [CD Covington]: And I was like, I wrote a little pitch and they were like, yeah, sounds great. [CD Covington]: So I wrote about Arrival, because it was kind of part of my pitch and I wrote [CD Covington]: about The Expanse. I wrote about Babel-17 from Chip Delaney from the 70s. It's [CD Covington]: like [George Corley]: Oh, interesting.
[CD Covington]: the computer, like it's a computer language that is being taking over people's [CD Covington]: brains and turning them into like, I don't know, computer, it was. very [CD Covington]: it was a Chip Delaney book basically it's very strange [George Corley]: Okay.
[CD Covington]: uh it was very well written with it just also very uh the brain is a computer [CD Covington]: and can be literally programmed by this programming language that this alien [CD Covington]: language he's gonna like um well it's fiction right [George Corley]: Yeah. [CD Covington]: Right, it's going to like like well it's fiction. [CD Covington]: That was a lot of... is how i answer a lot of things.
[CD Covington]: well it's fiction but um one of my favorite book series is CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series [George Corley]: Mm-hmm. [CD Covington]: and she's not super conlanger but she does invent at least surface level [CD Covington]: languages for her books. Do [CD Covington]: Are you familiar with her? [George Corley]: uh, I, I have read one of her works. I think mostly what she focuses on is [George Corley]: like these interpreters, right? [CD Covington]: Yeah, in the Foreigner series, yeah.
[George Corley]: That are between the aliens and the humans and have to like navigate the [George Corley]: culture and the language. But yeah, it's, it's sort of everything's represented [George Corley]: as English, except for some isolated words. [CD Covington]: Mm-hmm.
[CD Covington]: Yeah. And she has... She refers frequently to the structure of their language [CD Covington]: and how their verb forms require various math, lots of math, because you have [CD Covington]: to calculate the number of people that are involved in the situation, and that [CD Covington]: also includes the numerology of the room around you and all this other complicated
[CD Covington]: math just to conjugate your verbs and get your pronouns right. And that's [CD Covington]: pretty cool, but probably not working any sort of... reality-based anything. [CD Covington]: But it's really cool because they're aliens and they're very different than [CD Covington]: humans. They have different psychology, different biology. And that's one
[CD Covington]: of the things that I'm going to get into a lot in my book. How the... [CD Covington]: How you can do intercultural communication is a big issue at most of her [CD Covington]: books, really. But in Foreigner especially, the whole way that people, the [CD Covington]: humans and the atevi, can't understand the word friend. Atevi don't have [CD Covington]: the concept of love or friend or like.
[CD Covington]: It's fine. They don't have the concept of liking or loving or friendship or [CD Covington]: anything like that. They have man'chi, which is sort of like a herding instinct [CD Covington]: that humans don't understand. So when they first met, the humans and the [CD Covington]: atevi were like, oh, this is great. They're just a little bit weird, but [CD Covington]: they're like us, so it'll be fine. And the humans basically assumed that
[CD Covington]: the atevi would all be their friends. And the atevi were kind of like, We [CD Covington]: assume they're going to learn manners someday. Humans never learned manners. [CD Covington]: It was like a war, and it was great. Humans lost. And they're like, the atevi [CD Covington]: said, you can stay on this island. Stay over there. And while you're staying on [CD Covington]: your little island over here, you're going to give us the technology that
[CD Covington]: you brought with you because you're from outer space. And we're not going [CD Covington]: to be living in our, they're in the steam age. At the time, they had steam [CD Covington]: locomotives. And part of the treaty was that humans would share the technology. [CD Covington]: But it had to be translated into the atevi's [CD Covington]: language using their math, which is a little bit different than human math because
[CD Covington]: there's a lot more of it. They do all the complicated math in their head. [George Corley]: Right. Okay. [CD Covington]: Yeah. So [CD Covington]: That was part of how I got into the whole writing about linguistics and science [CD Covington]: fiction because you really can. There's so much in there where people who think [CD Covington]: about it do it. And I want to get more people to think about it.
[George Corley]: Yeah. I mean, the that's an interesting thing when you're talking about [George Corley]: alien psychology is it can be very much a wide open slate because you [George Corley]: can predict, I said this on an earlier podcast, like you can, you can sort [George Corley]: of predict some things about phonology by knowing like what organs they [George Corley]: have and what, what kinds of either sounds or gestures they could produce,
[George Corley]: right? But the psychological aspect, we probably don't know enough about [George Corley]: human brain structure. influencing language to actually extrapolate out and figure [George Corley]: out how alien brain structure would influence language. Right. Um, I mean, [George Corley]: we can probably have some foundational things about what language does and how it [George Corley]: would have to work in order to function as a language, but otherwise it's
[George Corley]: pretty open. Uh, I, I do. So I did read a few of your articles for your [George Corley]: con. Uh, I did read some of your column. Uh, I have to take issue with [George Corley]: your take on Arrival. Or not, [CD Covington]: Hmm? [George Corley]: not Arrival... on Embassy Town for, [CD Covington]: Uhhh [George Corley]: from your video, but, uh, no, I, [CD Covington]: That's all right. [George Corley]: I mean, it's just a matter of taste. Like, uh, I think we agree that.
[George Corley]: The language of the Hosts is functionally impossible. It [CD Covington]: Hehehe [George Corley]: could not happen. I was able to accept that because I felt like the book [George Corley]: was self-aware about that, especially with the linguist character, like [George Corley]: pointing out like this doesn't make any sense and then becoming obsessed with
[George Corley]: it. But for you, it just wasn't working, [CD Covington]: Yeah, [CD Covington]: yeah, [George Corley]: I think [CD Covington]: it just [George Corley]: another [CD Covington]: didn't work. [George Corley]: thing. Yeah. It's another thing to think about is. [George Corley]: You know, like on this show, most of the time when I'm talking about things [George Corley]: and the way I'm thinking about things, it's in terms of making a language
[George Corley]: naturalistic and making the world building naturalistic. But what you were [George Corley]: talking about with the atevi, I think you, you have some idea of balancing [George Corley]: like the naturalism with the art of it. [CD Covington]: Mm-hmm. [George Corley]: Right. [CD Covington]: Yeah. [George Corley]: Can you talk a little bit about that?
[CD Covington]: I'm just gonna keep going back to CJ Cherry because she's really good at making [CD Covington]: aliens that aren't just like people that are painted blue or have pointy [CD Covington]: ears or whatever. And [CD Covington]: that's, I mean, like I love the Vulcans, but they're just like people with [CD Covington]: pointy ears and no feelings.
[CD Covington]: Yeah, the one thing she does that I wish I could do on my own writing a [CD Covington]: lot better than I do is just develop these societies and the way they work. [CD Covington]: And then they're just so different from the way people work. and she makes it [CD Covington]: believable that they make sense. If that makes sense. I don't even know if I'm
[CD Covington]: answering your question right now. But the. So the art part is figuring out [CD Covington]: how to make something realistic and believable that's not human, if that's
[CD Covington]: what you're going for. If you're just going for making two different human societies [CD Covington]: on a secondary world planet or whatever, that's... fine and different, [CD Covington]: but you can still kind of do this sort of thing because they won't have [CD Covington]: the psychological differences, but you know, whatever. [CD Covington]: Like the trick is getting your world building down, right? So that's what
[CD Covington]: I'm writing my book about. To get your character, your other culture to seem [CD Covington]: plausible. And we I we know how to we know how to do that. Writers already [CD Covington]: do that in things like history and geology, geography, maybe some do geology, [CD Covington]: I don't know. [CD Covington]: Your maps of your spacestations. You know, like we...
[CD Covington]: Think about that. Sometimes people even throw [CD Covington]: in music and whatever, but what people don't really think about as much as [CD Covington]: I think would be cool is how people use language because that's something [CD Covington]: we do in day-to-day life. Like I don't, I mean, I'm a linguist. I do think [CD Covington]: about it all the time, but your average person probably doesn't sit around
[CD Covington]: thinking about, oh, why does that sound like that? And why is, why did, [CD Covington]: does this dialect work? How is that compared to that dialect? Because that's [CD Covington]: like what I do all day. Not all day, but... [CD Covington]: So your characters will be aware of this. Like, you, general, people watching [CD Covington]: this podcast or listening to it, are aware that people who sound like me
[CD Covington]: are probably white, probably from the East Coast of the United States. kind [CD Covington]: of thing and probably getting developing, I don't want to say prejudices, [CD Covington]: but sort of just a sort of like a picture in your head of me. But if I talk [CD Covington]: kind of like the way I did, I lived in Georgia for four years and I lived [CD Covington]: in North Carolina for like 20 before that. So I did pick up a bit of Southern
[CD Covington]: in my life. And you get a different picture if somebody talks like that. It's a [CD Covington]: different person. And so we're aware of this. And if your characters are also [CD Covington]: aware of this. you're adding that extra layer of something cool. That's [CD Covington]: kind of the art that I'm trying to get to, I think. People kind of add that [CD Covington]: extra layer of... [George Corley]: Yeah.
[CD Covington]: verisimilitude. I've never been able to figure out how to pronounce that word. [CD Covington]: But does that make sense? [George Corley]: Yeah, no, you're, you're totally [CD Covington]: I'm gonna [George Corley]: making [George Corley]: sense. And I, I totally agree. And I see, uh, I mean, you've pointed out places [George Corley]: where authors have done very well with their linguistic world building,
[George Corley]: but very often it is like a side note. Uh, just like something that is [George Corley]: mentioned. in a character description once and kind of left or it is, you know, mentioned [George Corley]: on the side. Sometimes there's very, you know, there's, you know, ways of [George Corley]: describing language that I wish would go away. I, I have said before, [George Corley]: when an author says a language is guttural, I do not know what that actually [George Corley]: means.
[CD Covington]: Mm-mm. They're probably, [George Corley]: It's [CD Covington]: they're like, yeah, like they mean it sounds like German probably, but like. [George Corley]: Yeah. I, but like, yeah, it's, it's just, you know, guttural kind of has a [George Corley]: meaning in linguistics, but not really. [George Corley]: And then [George Corley]: the, the languages, the real world languages that I have heard described [George Corley]: as guttural are like, really?
[George Corley]: Like I've heard Cantonese described as guttural. I'm like, really? I'm not sure [George Corley]: about that, but, uh, yeah. there's [George Corley]: There's so much like untapped potential in a lot of works for that. And you know. [George Corley]: We're here, you know, my podcast is geared towards conlangers and there's a [George Corley]: lot of linguistic world buildings that can go behind the conlangs, but you don't
[George Corley]: necessarily have to have a full conlang. Right? [CD Covington]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [George Corley]: Um, uh, let's back up. So your plan for, for your book. So. What, what kinds [George Corley]: of topics do you, are you going to cover? And like, is there going to be mention [George Corley]: of conlanging specifically, or is it going to be mostly just all of this [George Corley]: like background sociolinguistic stuff?
[CD Covington]: Yeah, so I will probably touch briefly on conlining. I am not a conlanging [CD Covington]: expert, and there's definitely much better guides out there already in existence. [CD Covington]: It's like they're all behind you on the shelf there, I think. [George Corley]: Uh, yeah. Yeah. There's, [CD Covington]: Yeah. [George Corley]: um, this one. Yeah. [CD Covington]: Yeah.
[CD Covington]: I think I'll probably haven't really found that part out yet. But probably [CD Covington]: talk about a few that are like probably mentioned Tolkien and like Klingon [CD Covington]: and a couple of things that say, Hi, people have done this. You don't [CD Covington]: have to. If you really want to [CD Covington]: g read this book or read that book, go to this website and find the resources
[CD Covington]: there is a community have fun. But yeah, what I'm going to focus on the part [CD Covington]: I have not quite completely finished yet. is, I haven't done the morphology [CD Covington]: section yet, because I'm like, is phonetics? Morphology, and like, morphology [CD Covington]: is really cool, but I never take it, I didn't, they didn't offer morphology
[CD Covington]: class at Georgia when I was there. So the only class I had was in morphology, [CD Covington]: was phonology and morphology of German. [George Corley]: Oh. [CD Covington]: So it's very, very specific. I have a very, very limited knowledge of morphology. [CD Covington]: So I mean, I need to find a nice textbook to bother, or just be like, here's [CD Covington]: how it works in English and German. Not really useful or broadly applicable.
[CD Covington]: But so the verdict, I've written the most of the phonetics section. And so it's [CD Covington]: basically half of my semester of phonetics and phonology. So the phonetics [CD Covington]: half, in 10,000 words. It's super crash [CD Covington]: course. No Praat, [CD Covington]: none of that. But, [George Corley]: and so [CD Covington]: yeah. [George Corley]: are you talking just like introducing people to phonetics, like actual phonetics
[George Corley]: of human language? Are you also talking about like speculative phonetics [George Corley]: of alien languages? [CD Covington]: Yeah, yeah. I have a section that I'm probably going to expand all of this [CD Covington]: in the future as well, once I have a full draft together. [CD Covington]: I want to talk about how mouth like phonetics, the vocal tract is affected
[CD Covington]: by the... phonetics is affected by the shape of the vocal tract, right? Because [CD Covington]: the mouth, the vocal tract is a tube and it's a differently shaped tube. [CD Covington]: It's a weird tube and the length of the tube determines what sounds you can [CD Covington]: make, blah, blah. And the human mouth, the human, what's this called? palate, is two,
[CD Covington]: two and a half, three inches long. What if [CD Covington]: you have like a Wolfman and you've got like a four or five inch palate, [CD Covington]: how many more sounds can you make? How many more palatal, [George Corley]: Right. [CD Covington]: like stops can you do? How many more different tongue positions can you get? [CD Covington]: What if you've got like jowly dog things? Actually, I do talk about Scooby-Doo [CD Covington]: in the draft I have right now?
[George Corley]: Hahaha [CD Covington]: Because original Scooby-Doo is actually probably not that far off from [CD Covington]: how a dog would talk if it could speak. because [George Corley]: Oh really? [CD Covington]: that's what I'm thinking. Because, I mean, we don't have, you don't know. Great
[CD Covington]: Danes can't speak, but they're Jowly dogs. So you might notice, I'm gonna [CD Covington]: talk about the 70s Scooby, the more modern Scooby sounds like an actual person [CD Covington]: talking, which is kind of not great, but so [CD Covington]: early Scooby, the one I grew up with. So like, "Ruh roh, Raggy." And he doesn't [George Corley]: Mm-hmm. [CD Covington]: really round his lips very much. [George Corley]: Oh, [CD Covington]: And... [George Corley]: okay.
[CD Covington]: Yeah, because the great Danes can't, they've got like a jowly, so they can't [CD Covington]: do this. They're just kind of jowly. And like using an R for that or a rhotic [CD Covington]: for that, any sort of sound that the dog can't pronounce. Why not? R is [CD Covington]: kind of just this default, we don't know. It's a rhotic. [George Corley]: Hehehehe [CD Covington]: Because we don't, we don't know what, we don't know what R's are. It's just
[CD Covington]: everything that's else. It's not a stop, it's not anything else. It's just [CD Covington]: an R sound. So, "Ruh-roh, Raggy" kind of makes sense.
[George Corley]: Yeah. Um, if you are, if you do one thing when talking about like an alien [George Corley]: language, an alien or a language for something that's not human, um, how do [George Corley]: you feel about the balance of like making it to like what that would actually [George Corley]: sound like what the actual creature would be able to do versus making [George Corley]: things that won't lose a reader.
[CD Covington]: Hmm. [George Corley]: And I, I understand that, you know, different writers might be, might have [George Corley]: different thresholds on that, but like making it, you know, do you think [George Corley]: you should be concerned about whether it's going to be pronounced or comprehensible [George Corley]: to the human reader or, um, like focus more on like the accuracy of the [George Corley]: physiology you're constructing.
[CD Covington]: Hmm, I think it depends on what you're trying to do with it and like your personal [CD Covington]: Goals, I guess with how you're writing it and also if you ever want to get [CD Covington]: an ebook made or not an ebook audiobook Because if you're having an audiobook [CD Covington]: narrator, you've also to be able to pronounce the letter It's right You [CD Covington]: know on [George Corley]: Yeah.
[CD Covington]: in it be like, well, this is we can't do this down or just like if they [CD Covington]: have like there's a lot of like aliens that have extra speech organs or whatever, [CD Covington]: and like some sort of resonance chamber, and you're like, well, we can't do [CD Covington]: resonance chamber with this human speaker here, so we'll [George Corley]: have to do [CD Covington]: just, [George Corley]: some audio engineering on that.
[CD Covington]: Yeah, we'll play with audio and, or just get like a kazoo or something, [CD Covington]: I don't know. Actually, that would be hilarious. Every time they have to [CD Covington]: do the thing that honk a kazoo. [CD Covington]: It's difficult and I haven't figured out how I want to explain that yet. [CD Covington]: That's in the future part of the book that I'm written yet. [CD Covington]: Yeah, the. [CD Covington]: Like you want to be able to spell it for people.
[George Corley]: Right. [CD Covington]: And that's part of part of that is deciding how you want to spell it. And that's [CD Covington]: an author's decision. And then you get into like, yeah, do we want it to be [CD Covington]: pronounceable? And I admit, there's a bunch of books that I've read, and [CD Covington]: the character names are just sort of look like a really bad Scrabble draw. [George Corley]: Hahaha
[CD Covington]: Sometimes they do, so like this is a really bad scrabble draw. And I just kind [CD Covington]: of look at them and go like, that's that name. And I just kind of remember [CD Covington]: it as that's that name for the rest of the book. And I'm like, I'm not going [CD Covington]: to pronounce it. It's just S in a bunch of letters or whatever.
[CD Covington]: That's that works for me as a reader sometimes but a lot of maybe there's [CD Covington]: other readers who that wouldn't work for they're like no, I've been able to [CD Covington]: pronounce it and [George Corley]: Yeah. [CD Covington]: It is hard finding that balance and sometimes it's just kind of well, I guess [CD Covington]: that's not my target audience if they're just gonna skip it because they
[CD Covington]: don't know how to pronounce a word. You're like, probably not my target [CD Covington]: audience. But if it is your target audience, target audience, why can't [CD Covington]: I pronounce that? [CD Covington]: They'll stick with you probably, right? Because if, maybe if you're the kind [CD Covington]: of person who's writing that sort of book where you actually are thinking [CD Covington]: about a lot of these things, or game situation, or whatever. maybe you're
[CD Covington]: making it be more about language. And maybe your audience is gonna want to read [CD Covington]: that because they're interested in reading about language. [George Corley]: Yeah. And [George Corley]: It does depend on what the audience is and your thing about names like [George Corley]: You do have to have character names, right? And [CD Covington]: Yes, usually. [George Corley]: it's reasonable to say that your character names, if possible, are going
[George Corley]: to be from the language. There might be cases where they are just impossible [George Corley]: to render in Roman script, like they're from a sign language or the sounds [George Corley]: are too radically different and maybe you do translated names or something,
[George Corley]: but usually you want to have character names from the language. Um You said [George Corley]: that you're not really going to do a whole lot of mention of conlanging, but [George Corley]: like one thing that could be useful -- I don't know if you are going to [George Corley]: mention it is the concept of a naming language where it's [George Corley]: just a limited conlang with just some phonology and morphology just so [George Corley]: you can make names, right?
[CD Covington]: Yeah, I think that's what I'm, I didn't know it was called that. So... [George Corley]: Yeah. [George Corley]: Well, it's nice to have some exchange of ideas. [CD Covington]: Yeah, yeah, I love learning things. Why I'm here. [George Corley]: Yeah. Um, but you know, that's, that's something to, to make names within a
[George Corley]: culture consistent. Uh, what about issues of like prestige dialects and, [George Corley]: you know, you, you mentioned about having this world building set out can
[George Corley]: help with understanding about characters. Well, here's the question is that [George Corley]: so you have prestige in sociolinguistics, we have stereotypes about different dialects, [George Corley]: like one thing I would ask is, what are your thoughts on how to convey [George Corley]: character perceptions of that without necessarily endorsing the [CD Covington]: Hmm [George Corley]: idea that that's like a real thing, like, or [George Corley]: that's, that's like a valid thing.
[CD Covington]: Yeah, because one of my professors in grad school had a personal vendetta against [CD Covington]: the word prestige. Anytime somebody mentioned prestige language, like, there's [CD Covington]: no such thing as prestige. I was like, well, true. But because the way I [CD Covington]: like to think of it is a prestige language, like, prestige has nothing to do [CD Covington]: with the language itself. It's how society [George Corley]: Right.
[CD Covington]: gives to the language. And that's. It's a real concept and it's a real world thing [CD Covington]: and it's not a good thing. But it's a thing that exists and we have to deal [CD Covington]: with it just like everything. [George Corley]: Ha ha [CD Covington]: Um, [CD Covington]: everything [George Corley]: Everything.
[CD Covington]: it's, it's a thing where just, if we live in society, we have to take, we [CD Covington]: don't have to take it, but we know we have to deal with what we live with [CD Covington]: in this society we live in. And. Yeah, in the book I'm, the novel I'm revising, [CD Covington]: well I will be revising after I finish all of this, because this is going
[CD Covington]: to be my first priority if my Kickstarter funds. [inaudible] Is the main character, [CD Covington]: the two main characters are working class people, they work in a Waffle [CD Covington]: House, but it's in space, and they have to-- They want to save their favorite [CD Covington]: bar from being gentrified. So they crowdfund to get the license for it. And
[CD Covington]: the way they talk is normal, I guess. I mean, it sounds normal to me, but [CD Covington]: then there's another person who they interact with who's a manager and [CD Covington]: her, the way she speaks is just different. Like she speaks at a more academic [CD Covington]: level, which is... how I talk, if I'm writing. That's my writing [CD Covington]: voice. She speaks in my writing voice, [George Corley]: Mm-hmm.
[CD Covington]: which is kind of funny. But like, that's kind of one way to do it. You [CD Covington]: can kind of, I don't have any comment on it. [CD Covington]: I don't think have any comment on it, but somebody could. But like that you [CD Covington]: can do that kind of thing, give characters different voices, different registers [CD Covington]: of formality. And maybe something somebody can comment on it like, wow, she talks
[CD Covington]: fancy. And I don't know how to talk fancy like her. I'm glad she's dealing [CD Covington]: with all the fancy stuff. Cause if we went up to them and started talking like [CD Covington]: us, it'd be, they would ignore us because we sound uneducated because we just [CD Covington]: baristas [George Corley]: Mm-hmm.
[CD Covington]: and waitresses. And so there are ways of doing that. And if you're like, [CD Covington]: if you're writing a book about language, which I also really endorse, I think [CD Covington]: it's a great thing to do because I want to read them. I want to read books about [CD Covington]: language. Is have people actually explicitly comment on it, just kind of do [CD Covington]: like. So if it's somebody who has to register shift or style shift in different
[CD Covington]: locations. They can comment on, "Man, I hate putting on this voice. I hate [CD Covington]: putting on the businessman voice. I hate putting on the ... whatever." [George Corley]: Yeah. [CD Covington]: voice kind of thing. Cause there's, yeah, like there's ways to do it. [George Corley]: Yeah. [CD Covington]: subtly and less subtly.
[George Corley]: Right, right, right. That's a good point is have a character explicitly [George Corley]: do that because there are people who have to think that way. [CD Covington]: Mm-hmm. [George Corley]: It doesn't, it's not necessarily always automatic. And It is, it is interesting [George Corley]: to think about like, how would the characters be perceiving it? It has to [George Corley]: be, you know, from their perspective, but also, you know, maybe a variety of perspectives
[George Corley]: on what it is. Maybe some people buy into the prestige and other people like [George Corley]: reject it, or they are uncomfortable about it or recognize that it's arbitrary in [George Corley]: some way. Um, [George Corley]: it is, and if you do, you know, write about linguistics in the story, that [George Corley]: that's definitely something that I would like to see more of too. Um, uh,
[George Corley]: what else can we, um, so This book is going to be on a Kickstarter. When [George Corley]: is that Kickstarter kicking off? [CD Covington]: August 15th. [George Corley]: August [George Corley]: 15th. [CD Covington]: it's gonna run, yeah, it's gonna run for about, for a month. So until September [CD Covington]: 14th or 15th, whichever 30 days ends up being, I'm not sure exactly how, [George Corley]: Yeah, [CD Covington]: Kickstarter counts that.
[George Corley]: well, so I will definitely get this up before in time for people to contribute. [George Corley]: What is what is your like first goal for this Kickstarter?
[CD Covington]: 1500. [George Corley]: 1500 yeah so that's doable guys we can uh-- I don't know if my audience [George Corley]: by themselves can do this but we can try because yeah these publishing [George Corley]: uh Kickstarters tend to be pretty low because it's just you're just doing [George Corley]: enough for what like a print run or what? [CD Covington]: This book is going to be... there's ebook rewards and print and hardback.
[George Corley]: Yeah. [CD Covington]: And I've got some really cool limited edition rewards that I'm not going [CD Covington]: to spoil until it's live. [CD Covington]: But I've also got like, if you're not interested in the book tiers, I've got [CD Covington]: a three euro level... everything's in euros because I'm in Germany... that's going [CD Covington]: to be a collection of my Tor essays. It's edited. [CD Covington]: And the higher we back, the more we get funding we get, the
[CD Covington]: more essays there will be. It'll be edited, have a nice little book cover, all [CD Covington]: that kind of thing. And it's only like, it's like what, $4 right now, I [CD Covington]: think. [George Corley]: Yeah, [CD Covington]: I'm not sure exactly [George Corley]: well, [CD Covington]: the exchange rate.
[George Corley]: that's, that's great. And, uh, so, and it will be, uh, A Writer's Guide [George Corley]: to Linguistic Worldbuilding. Um, that's, it sounds like something that a [George Corley]: lot of my audience would be interested for doing the background world building [George Corley]: work behind the conlangs. Uh, [CD Covington]: Mm-hmm.
[George Corley]: and also for a lot of, you know, writers out there who are interested [George Corley]: in how language interacts with the world and want to include that in their [George Corley]: writing, which I presume is your primary audience. Um, yeah. Uh, let's, [CD Covington]: Yeah, like I'm hoping to write a book that's interesting to more
[CD Covington]: people than just writers, books, games, and that sort of thing. Because I'm [CD Covington]: hoping to make this kind of like, I want to learn more about linguistics, [CD Covington]: where can I start? And [George Corley]: Right. [CD Covington]: also, like these are some really great books. What books does Connie like that [CD Covington]: did it well? What books can she [George Corley]: Right, [CD Covington]: recommend? [George Corley]: right, right.
[CD Covington]: Because [George Corley]: CJ [CD Covington]: I'm [CD Covington]: CJ Cherry, A+. [George Corley]: and [CD Covington]: Um, Arkady Martine, also A+. Um, Ursula LeGuin, but she's just amazing [CD Covington]: anyway. I don't think [inaudible] worldbuilding. I just think she's [CD Covington]: an A-plus writer. But, uh, some of my favorite books that just are like, that [CD Covington]: do it really well, I think, and I've written about many of them for my
[CD Covington]: Tor column, actually. But, no, [CD Covington]: they're different examples [CD Covington]: and more detail. [George Corley]: a different context. Yeah. All right. What really... [George Corley]: What about like the integration? [George Corley]: Okay, I need to think. [George Corley]: when you're integrating this into the narrative, like... [George Corley]: I know that there's going to be all kinds of different ways that it goes
[George Corley]: into the narrative. Like how much like, do you like things where the language [George Corley]: is a part of the world building and it affects things, but it's like, like [George Corley]: a secondary plot versus things like Arrival where language is the, the main [George Corley]: thing. [CD Covington]: Mm. Yeah, I like both. [George Corley]: Yeah. [CD Covington]: One of the, I'm just going to grab this book off my shelf.
[CD Covington]: It's out of print, I got it used. Hellburner. Actually, I think it's [CD Covington]: back in print and ebook only. I don't have my glasses on. [CD Covington]: I know that in this book, one of the things she did was they had a very big, [CD Covington]: oh no, it was heavy time. There's a book that she wrote in the 80s. I should
[CD Covington]: have my glasses on. But they're very slangy, 1992. And a lot of the slangy [CD Covington]: is just very, it sounds like somebody from the 80s, [George Corley]: Uh huh. [CD Covington]: super dated, but that's part of the world building because the people who [CD Covington]: speak it are living on ships and they've got their own little thing going [CD Covington]: on. So they have their own little language This sounds kind of 80s. But it's
[CD Covington]: also, oh, god, on this page, I'm looking at it. The new readout says, CAF, [CD Covington]: MKT, and MSFUNC. Priority MS was blinking. I'm like, oh, Christ. He keyed [CD Covington]: MS in the hash mark. And it's just keyed. He keyed the button. And keyed [CD Covington]: isn't a word I would use for that, but it's the one they use in. this book. [CD Covington]: And this isn't really about linguistics at all. [George Corley]: Right.
[CD Covington]: Yeah, it's kind of... it's Company Wars, I think. Yeah, I haven't [CD Covington]: read this book in a while. Yeah, [CD Covington]: so you can you can kind of do that. Not so easily, but like you can make [CD Covington]: it part of the world building without being. About it, that makes sense.
[George Corley]: And so when you're thinking about like representing these different dialect [George Corley]: differences, how do you feel about it's not uncommon for authors to like [George Corley]: take a real world English dialect and use that to represent a a dialect of whatever
[George Corley]: world they're doing. How do you feel like about things like that? Like [George Corley]: the these places where you're like using the stereotypes and associations [George Corley]: in the real world to reflect the other world? [CD Covington]: I have complicated feelings on that. [CD Covington]: When I read that, I'm just kind of depending on the context, I guess, I get
[CD Covington]: irritated by it. Eye dialect is just one of those things that's just sort of [CD Covington]: out of fashion for good reason. [George Corley]: I hate [CD Covington]: Right now, [CD Covington]: it's not great. [CD Covington]: But so. On the topic of eye dialect, when you have people who are from [CD Covington]: that dialect, writing in their own dialect and spelling it, writing in their [CD Covington]: dialect, that's a different matter than being [George Corley]: Yeah.
[CD Covington]: like, writing, 'enry, 'iggins or whatever. Because that's, that's what I'm [CD Covington]: talking about. Like 'enry 'iggins, "Oh, Henry Higgins, just you wait." "The rain [George Corley]: I- [CD Covington]: in Spain falls mainly on the plain. You can write it like that. [George Corley]: The, the, I mean, there, that's a story that was about that particular dialect, [George Corley]: but like the, [George Corley]: the thing with [CD Covington]: bad example.
[George Corley]: eye dialect and, um, if, if people aren't familiar with the term, eye dialect is [George Corley]: where you respell words in order to reflect pronunciation in another dialect, [George Corley]: um, although I mean, that's, that's the, the basic point, although sometimes [George Corley]: I question whether the respellings are actually necessary for that because sometimes [George Corley]: they like I've seen your spelled as y o r e and i'm like what exactly Is the
[George Corley]: different pronunciation that they're trying to represent? but um [CD Covington]: of your. [George Corley]: Yeah but um basically This was very common in like 19th century and early [George Corley]: 20th century literature. It [CD Covington]: all [George Corley]: still [CD Covington]: over the place [George Corley]: happens. [CD Covington]: in Dickens.
[George Corley]: Yeah. It, it still happens in a lot of places, but, um, to me, it's like [George Corley]: an unnecessary barrier to your reader because like I see it and I don't know [George Corley]: how to pronounce this stuff. And also like. It often gets into stereotypes [George Corley]: and stuff. It, it's really interesting to see historical examples because [George Corley]: I have seen like where you have like what, and it's spelled W apostrophe
[George Corley]: AT. So that was telling somebody that it was, [CD Covington]: It's [CD Covington]: not [ʍʌt]. [George Corley]: Yeah, it's telling somebody that the default expected by the author was [George Corley]: the [ʍʌt]. Whereas like nowadays people might do the opposite and do like hw [George Corley]: for someone who [CD Covington]: Mm-hmm. [George Corley]: actually says [ʍʌt]? instead [CD Covington]: Yeah.
[George Corley]: of [wʌt] but uh you know, it's interesting in a historical perspective if [George Corley]: you like research it but like maybe try not to do that, especially if your [George Corley]: Dialects you're doing are not actually English [CD Covington]: Yeah, or your own, because there's been, there were two, two or three stories [CD Covington]: in the Nebula nominees this year. The Nebula Award Science Fiction Writers
[CD Covington]: of America. Those are the Nebula Awards every year, in case no one knows. And [CD Covington]: at least two of them were written by Black writers [George Corley]: Right. [CD Covington]: that were written in their particular variety of English [CD Covington]: And it was great because [George Corley]: Yeah. [CD Covington]: they were represent... It's... when it's written by a Black writer, it's underrepresented.
[CD Covington]: When it's written by a white writer who's kind of being a stereotyping, [CD Covington]: not [George Corley]: Yeah. [CD Covington]: super great. So there [George Corley]: I am. [CD Covington]: is fine grain distinct... like, what's the word? It's not black and white. [CD Covington]: I don't want to say it's not black and white, but it's...
[George Corley]: Yeah. I mean, uh, and if you're going to represent, if you're going to be like [George Corley]: in the real world and represent, um, a real world dialect or, um, I mean, there's, [George Corley]: there's cases where things that look like eye dialect aren't actually like, [George Corley]: uh, Also, cause like there, there are these conventional spellings that
[George Corley]: are used for African-American English. There's also like people, people do [George Corley]: write in Scots with Scots [George Corley]: spellings and things like that. I think in those cases, it's like consult with [George Corley]: someone who actually speaks it. [CD Covington]: Yes. If you do not yourself speak that language, please [George Corley]: but [CD Covington]: contact someone who does.
[George Corley]: it might not be something to like grab for your fantasy culture. But yeah. [CD Covington]: Yeah, no. [George Corley]: Wrapping up here. So the Kickstarter is coming up everybody, August 15th, check [George Corley]: that out, get this book out because it will be useful to writers. It'll
[George Corley]: be useful to a lot of people. And I think that a lot of people listening [George Corley]: may want to hear a perspective on, you know, how to incorporate some like social [George Corley]: linguistics and, and world, world building of like the stuff around your [George Corley]: language into things. Uh, so go check that out and, uh, Connie, do you have [George Corley]: any final thoughts, final advice before we tap out? [CD Covington]: kind of in general or about the topic.
[George Corley]: Well, I mean, yeah, just like any advice about linguistic worldbuilding that [George Corley]: you would like people to stick with people here. [CD Covington]: There was one, I did a little Q&A and there was one I thought of and I can't [CD Covington]: remember what it is right now. [CD Covington]: If you're coming up with names for a culture, coming up with for people, places, [CD Covington]: and things, and you're looking at the letters and it looks like a bad Scrabble
[CD Covington]: hand, start over. But [CD Covington]: Think about sounds that make sense together. Not that make sense together, [CD Covington]: but if you have like Ghirardelli, there's a little bag of Ghirardelli chips right [CD Covington]: here, and like cherry. They probably don't come from the same language, [CD Covington]: right? They don't sound very similar to each other. But like, also, that's [CD Covington]: a really bad example because cherry comes from cerise, which is French,
[CD Covington]: so it's more closely related to Italian than English. But it was just two [CD Covington]: things I had closest to hand. Or like, bottle. Bottle and Ghirardelli. Don't [CD Covington]: sound very familiar. [George Corley]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [CD Covington]: Or flask. come with better examples. I'm really bad at improvising. This is why [CD Covington]: I'm a writer, I'm not an improvisational speaker. [George Corley]: Yeah.
[CD Covington]: But like. Readers may or may not notice if you do that. But if a reader [CD Covington]: does notice that it's being consistent and the names sound like they could [CD Covington]: plausibly come from the same place, or follow at least the same rules of [CD Covington]: phonetics, like same syllable structure, same allowable consonant clusters, [CD Covington]: if they're allowed at all, all that sort of thing, people might, if they don't
[CD Covington]: notice, fine. If they do notice, they will love you for it, right? Be like, [CD Covington]: "Oh my gosh, they made the words that make sense. It sounds like they're from [CD Covington]: the same language." And like, if you borrow words, change them a little bit. [CD Covington]: So like we don't say tsunami [tsɯnami] in English, we say [sunami]. [CD Covington]: We don't say angst [ɑŋst], we say [æŋst]. [George Corley]: Right.
[CD Covington]: We don't say zeitgeist [tsaɪtgaɪst], we say [zaɪtgaɪst], but. [CD Covington]: everything matches the phonology and phonetics of the recipient language. [George Corley]: Well, that's that's, uh, useful advice and you've [CD Covington]: I hope [George Corley]: used, [CD Covington]: so. [George Corley]: you've said a lot of useful advice today and, [CD Covington]: Oh good. [George Corley]: uh, I am excited for that book. I hope I can get a review copy, but, uh, well,
[George Corley]: let's, uh, everybody go. I will link to that in the show notes or the [George Corley]: description on YouTube. to the Kickstarter for when it goes live. And [George Corley]: we're going to, uh, and, um, check out. The column over on Tor as well. [George Corley]: It's got a lot of useful, uh, information, you know, well, reviews of books [George Corley]: that people listening to this podcast or watching this podcast probably will [George Corley]: be interested in.
[George Corley]: And you also have your YouTube channel. So we can send people to that too. [George Corley]: So thank you, Conni, for being on [CD Covington]: Yeah. [George Corley]: the show. And [CD Covington]: Thanks for having me. [George Corley]: yeah, and thank everyone else for listening or watching. and our patrons [George Corley]: for funding this show and I'm going to say happy conlanging. Special Thanks goes to our patrons Conlangery's theme music is by Null Device.
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