Okay, welcome to link time chat episode 12. In other words, this is a whole year now, a whole year.
Oh yeah I guess that is what that means, if we do this, once a month.
I mean by standard earth calculations, yes, but by other. World calculations it's just 12 podcasts that's all that matters.
that's right.
And today i'm going to be driving the topic and asking david's questions. it's very exciting. Okay, but first like. that the focus of this podcast is going to be on family things is that actually a term or did I just start using it, because it works.
it's both. So it was already a term but, nevertheless, I believe that you independently invented it. You know not like you hadn't heard it before you just independently invented it and it was fine because it makes sense that it works yeah.
Well that's what we're talking about today. Exercise because, to give like some context for the backstory here in case anyone's curious what brought this to my forefront. to the forefront of my mind, that would be more of what you would say in English. In my class this semester, I have more students than ever, creating families in the past it's been a lot more students, creating their own worlds, and you know just kind of doing whatever really speaks to them.
But in this particular class, there has been a major shift we're just so many students are creating your own languages for existing fictional fantasy worlds and so. Whether their game, some of them are doing it for games some for shows movies so like it's just like I find it very interesting. In on the one hand, like that makes it.
easier when you start the language, because you know there's all these preset elements that you don't have to make decisions about like you already know who your speakers are you already know what the world looks like what kind of words you're going to need because you've seen. where they live, how they interact and so on, but the downside is that there's preset elements you're kind of stuck with what.
The game, or the show gives you unless you want to do some sort of radical reconstruction of what you're working with. And so today's focus is going to be on how to create a language for an existing world and how to hopefully do it well. And so, my first question is more general because David, this is obviously just like what you do a lot is create languages for worlds that are just handed to you and it's like here's these characters here's.
What you have to have words for and what are some of the difficult things, especially things that you wouldn't necessarily think about whenever you go into a project like that. What are some difficult things you've had to work around because everything has been sort of handed to you and it's like this is how it is.
Let me. Let me begin this or, let me begin my the answer to this question by. showing you my compatriot over here.
Which on a podcast i'm going to go ahead and explain you'll see this when the YouTube video is released, but right now, Roman is sleeping in this great little tiny beam of sunshine hitting him right on the forehead. And now he's moving his head down like yeah. Very snuggled and happy. yeah.
He didn't stay with me last yesterday, but today he's so happy, and so I want to say things that will make him happy. Like he's a very good boy who doesn't like me and doesn't call on me and that's so nice anyway.
It is yeah so so back to the actual podcast.
yeah so the problems. There is always a either the risk of a problem or a problem when you are inheriting something that you have to give order to that was created, with no order at all. And that's and that's the that's the biggest issue and it becomes more and more difficult, the more and more material there is. Basically, the more material, there is the the top of your job is going to be no matter what, if there was no guiding principle.
To what was being created or if there was a guiding principle, but the guiding principle makes no sense, so, for example, like a lot of the Star Wars stuff was created by. You know, like just the names and the words and everything were created by finding two random words in a magazine and sticking half of one with the half of the other, and so, that is, you know it is a guiding principle it's a metric i'm sure William s burroughs would be a big fan but.
it's not great, when you have to come up with a system that lies behind it, because really the only thing that we can be absolutely certain. With respect to language is that there is it's basically one larger system with interdependent interdependent and interrelated. subsystem yeah and you know they may clash, at times, but there's there's order there and everything that we haven't found yet anything that qualifies as a language, where there isn't something that you can rely on.
And, and often the systems that are created do ahead of time that's precisely the case there's nothing that you can rely on whatsoever it'll just be totally random. So yeah the. I guess the amount of material is the biggest is the biggest impediment the biggest obstacle. yeah and i'm thinking of a specific project that I won't name. But. it's it's just too much is too much.
In specifically with thinking about like everything that they gave you that they're like we want all of these words to show up kind of thing or like trying to figure out what makes sense, given these names of places and people.
And that's The other thing, though that's The other thing that that you think it would be helpful, but it actually isn't. Often, what you're, especially with TV shows and movies. you're working with a third party. Third party who's adapting somebody else's work. yeah and so when they come to you like usually, when push comes to shove, they say, well just make something that like works for you make something that's consistent for us. And you don't have to take everything into account.
But like i'm not coming on two projects where it's like Oh, this is a an obscure little book that has like five fans, but the director whatever really loved it. they're. Huge franchises that have millions of fans over decades right and the thing is like that's who's going to care. And so it's fine for like the director and producer to say that, like because they have so much more that they're doing.
And it's like yeah for them it's not just a we remove this character right there we're talking like characters character design setting the story like. Everything they're trying to do, plus producers breathing down their neck with with me right, like when i'm coming out of a project it's like this is the only thing i'm doing i'm just doing the language so at the very least, I should try to get that right.
And also, and I can't undersell this I am incurably lazy, especially the larger the project gets and so, if it's just me like working on the project, I am much more than likely to push things off to later and then throw my hands up and say, well, I did my best to end early I didn't. It helps to have somebody responsible. Somebody you respect. And someone who will do the hard work. That I am just not willing to do. to work with. I mean I don't know who that person might be. No idea, you know.
that's that's The crucial thing, I think.
I think. That leads into my next question, which is what advice, do you give someone if they're choosing to work within an existing world or fantasy land, and so the first piece of advice is obviously find a partner. yeah that was. That piece of advice.
yeah and so you know, obviously I have a very good partner and little Rome and he doesn't say a lot, but he does what I need him to do.
It he's dependable.
yeah poor little guy. who's never, never bitten me ever. Go ahead and say that.
You go on record to lie I guess you can go on record and that's perjury i've seen me. A photo evidence, otherwise as anybody who's seen, I think you posted on like Twitter oh wait. No, there we go he's showing it right.
Okay, look at this, I mean at a certain point, you might think i'm one of these people that cuts themselves, but no it's just you it's just you you little rat.
So, in terms of advice for somebody. else who is doing it on their own and they don't have a producer or a man base of you know, decades old fan base. What are some things that that they may want to watch out for are things that you know things you may have advice about for how to how to create a nice fan language that feels real.
I mean at the at the macro level, you could just. I could make the suggestion, even though I don't I say i'll say this but, like I don't do it. You could just draw a circle around what your cannon is going to be and exclude everything outside that circle and then make what order you can. And it feels to be like that is good advice and it's the healthy thing to do, it's going to make your life a lot easier and it's going to lead to more satisfying results, but I don't do that.
I never do I. Take everything and then. When I discover I miss, something that I feel really bad about it.
As you.
feel yeah I still feel bad that I unbelievably somehow lost how barreto and called porno for death rocky which. I got like the major reason that I excluded BNP from the phonology aside from the fact that they're ugly sounds that I don't like. Is that I didn't have evidence of their existence, but I did the they were there and I missed them, so I still feel bad about that, even though I satisfied with my explanation that you know, there was a merger right.
There was a merger and there can be it can be like a dialect continuum kind of like the the tk thing and hawaiian where you will still get people pronouncing the t's there that have been shifted a case elsewhere. So you know i'm i'm fine with that, but it's not like i'm ever going to forget that and be like oh that was fine that was a good decision, even it's like now I missed it I missed it and I feel bad.
But if you are the type of kightlinger who is able to do that and say like you know the material that comes from these three books that's going to be my canon because everything that came afterwards was terrible and that's great. And it'll probably make your life a lot easier.
Now beyond that and I don't know if this is going to run into a follow up questions even tell me like, there is the practical advice of what do you do with you have, if you like, here's your book in here are some words right where you ask that later, or can we get.
That that was like another part of this question, because this question actually. Is question and then like Part A, and Part B and you just hit on Part A, and that is yeah that you. Use you have one straight hair. Or it wants to section. But yeah so, given the fact that you may have anything from place name and character names to even sometimes those you know I tell us ice words that just randomly show up as like part of the language.
yeah advice for figuring out what to do with all these little pieces that are kind of scattered.
mm hmm.
In the book or show if it's not a written text, of course, it could be a show as well.
yeah so I started off with a lot of macro general advice, but here I want to delve into some like gross stuff because I think that there is a very. There are some very useful things that. Everybody learns as they go through linguistics as an undergraduate. That are quite useful.
Which is it can be kind of glossed over but it's like, especially if you're the type of crowd linger has been at it for a little bit, and so it just feels more natural to kind of do things but it helps sometimes to go back to the very, very basics. And one of the one of the cornerstones I think of any type of of linguistic analysis is as minimal pairs or near minimal pairs.
And so it's like yeah it's gonna be a really, really hard thing if it's just like a whole bunch of a mess of data, because ultimately that's what you're working with you're working in beta. But you know whether you're working with sounds or whether you're working with meanings you can always just say all right. here's the sentence and here's what it's supposed to mean let's write it down.
Now let's see if there's any of these words that have been used anywhere else throughout text and then let's pull that out and pull that meaning out. so that you can just look at the two and see what's the same what's different and try to both assign meanings to different pieces and also figure out how shades of meanings work so like this is, I mean this is exactly what I did with with rocky.
And it's it's very helpful because it can help you make decisions that are actually quite advanced that you might not have thought of like, and this is not this talking about meeting more than then sounds the moment but like there. There are these two phrases that are in the first game of thrones book. And it's a lucky death Ray which is translated as the Prince is writing Okay, then there's another one, I like a dearth right Moran hat and that's translated as a Prince rides inside me.
So first that's a beautiful minimal pair because you can see all right, however it's going to work, obviously the button high powered is going to be inside me but beyond that there was something that was even more of a gift, I thought, when I was building this. Because the words don't change it with rocky words don't change, but you have holocaust, which is clearly both the Prince and Prince.
And that was great because all it told me it's like all right there's probably not you know definite marketing, I mean if I had really wanted it I could have found some sort of wild you know exception to do whatever I wanted, but.
Right.
The simplest explanation was that okay this this language just doesn't care like Russian or land. And then the next part was delta, which was translated at one point in time, as his writing and then at the second time as rides. And so, then there again I could say all right, maybe this language just doesn't make that distinction, you know it's not going to have like some distinction between your present progressive or general present it's not going to have different marking.
And I could tell that because of the translation right and that the translation was. taken to be accurate right and that I had these two sentences to compare so you're not always going to get that and you're not always going to get like total minimal pairs often there won't be near minimal pairs but it's kind of like with. figuring out which part was printed which part was ride you couldn't actually figure that out from those two sentences.
yeah you can figure out the inside me part of the other one you didn't know which was which, but you pull it out, knowing that are right there, called the death rocky they write a. lot of horses there's this place called by stuff rock and so it's like you can kind of figure out Okay, it would make sense if they were like the writers, or something like that. Right and then you have words like how Kelly see and then how like they all have to do with some sort of like chain of command.
And so you can figure it out right that it makes the most sense for that to be the Prince and so that's the type of specific work that you're going through. And you can do that both for me, and you can do it for sounds as well, where it's like you can just say it here are all the words let's find all the sounds that you see there. And then you can separately go and say how many sounds occur at the beginning of the word.
How many sounds occur at the end of a word, how many sounds can occur next to each other and next to each other at the beginning of the word, at the end of the word or in the middle of the word, and as you kind of write all these things out. One or two things are going to happen either patterns will naturally emerge.
mm hmm or.
you'll bring your own patterns to it and say Okay, is there anything that disproves this with what I have called canon. Right and if it does, you need to revise if it doesn't you could just say this is going to be a pattern moving forward and write it down and then move on.
So when you had these forms because, obviously, these are the modern forms yeah and you needed to create proto forms, did you create for these specific ones, because you knew they were going to be cannon and they have to look this way in the modern form to match what was there.
Did you end up like doing proto forms that that really like stayed the same for these particular routes or did you have to then like as you created all the rules have to like work back to say, well, what would do three have been to fit all these other rules.
yeah that was that was more difficult, and it was less satisfying i'll tell you, because it's always less satisfying to start with something and work backwards, it just doesn't work out as well, but you know I did I did my best and yeah a lot of times the pro forums look very, very similar. that's fine it wasn't going back that far anyway, it was just going back to to a time where. You know, there were some grammatical differences there were some phonological differences but.
You can look at what I created as this older form of rocky and say yeah that makes a lot of sense, in other words it wasn't like it wasn't like looking at English and then looking at proto Indo European it was more like looking at said anish and then. Old Spanish not even going back as.
far as Latin.
Okay right. And that wasn't too bad. But yeah so a lot of the protocols to look similar but also this is where this is where disappearing sounds can really be your friend. So it's like the rocky is a formal system, but it came from a six bell system. To send central Valley, because of course you can always delete central Dallas and nobody will miss them.
and All of our preachers i'm sure. will vary, with all the. Central valley annihilation series that you have done, yes.
yeah it was delightful so yeah the the proto form of rocky has a shot that it has barred I and they're just gone they're gone different things happen to them when they were stressed when they were unstressed when they were part of a paradigm, it was just. So Nice.
So, so, at least on anyone listening right now will know that this has been a long standing pattern for David and his colleagues is. Central valley's just to kill them.
that's what they're there for.
or they're there to be vowels in your language but I mean what. Other that's cool.
let's I mean come on it's just the two of us, we can talk seriously right now, these things are the red shirts at phonetics.
shirts of fanatics.
yeah it's like all right we're we're picking some balls it's like Okay, he s ah Oo come on over. yeah and we're also going to take. Why did you come to and they're like oh boy my first away mission i'm sure nothing's gonna go wrong.
Yes, Okay, so I mean listen central bowels have a place and like whatever that's why languages have them there's a reason they exist, David, but when.
They place it's it's just like. You know it's just like that character that needs to die in order to move the plot forward, you know.
And so, do you is your prediction, and this is a little off track here, but do you predict that central valley's will die and natural languages is this a prediction that eventually they'll all just be annihilated because that's what they're there for.
Well, all of our systems are in a state of flux let's. let's yeah.
that's a good way to put it, I mean I and honestly. val's one of my least favorite things to teach the students when working with IPA because it's like. yeah I mean you say you're you know, a sound different than I say my a sound and, in a word, yeah that does sound actually more like ad and I think it should sound more like you know, like it just.
yeah. Sorry dolls are the verbs of fanatics consonants are the nouns.
down on the burbs and okay were you done with that one or. Did you have more to say.
Probably not.
Okay, because actually to go back to something you had said, because that sentence was a Prince rides inside of me and i'm guessing that it's like a way of saying i'm pregnant in depth rocky. yeah Okay, so that, like matches up well so apparently what you were given in the books actually was kind of Nice in terms of how certain things matched up, but then also how you have these these great.
parallels with like okay writing is important to them so important that this is actually how they say something like i'm carrying a child. But with that. Did you have you been in a situation where you looked at the meaning and you're like there's. Just no way that that sentence a should mean this and then sentence be should mean this totally other thing, have you ever been in a situation like that, or if you've been lucky enough to not have to. worry about.
So, so what advice, do you have when that happens when you're looking at these two things and you're like there's just there's no way.
fucking cry.
Okay, so that's the advice go ahead and. Take your moment.
All right, you know um. i'll give you an example, because I was able to I was able to find a way to do this. The. libra do go bless her heart dear friend good friend good friend, but you know, I was trying to you know build out the the rockin language, for the first season of shadow and bone and. there's just. We have these two phrases soul quarter lever which means the sun Queen. and sold that soul, which means son soldiers. and
yeah.
and And I understand her methodology, which is it sounded better because otherwise you're saying Sol Sol that and that's. Right yeah but the truth is like if If, however, those constructions work they're like identical. right and it wouldn't sound bad to the speakers of that language. Right. And so it was like.
I there was like no way I could distinguish between these two phrases they work exactly the same as just oh God, what do I do with this, so I did something I did something and I think it kind of fixed it. So it's like this is a is a language were two things going to happen when you go to just have something that a noun that acts upon another in opposition sure.
And then it's a language that is cases, and so I was like it was also going to be a language that has genders, it was just going to be some of that was going to happen, it was from the books there's we're going to have to be rolling with the masculine feminine and neuter. And so, this is the word for son, and I was, like all right well if I just make it so that this word is in a gender where the genitive looks like the nominative for this particular type. Then this can work.
So that is exactly what I did, and so, for one of them it's a noun acting in opposition to the other one is a noun and the genitive.
So. You know there's things you can do beyond crying.
yeah.
it's right here, but yeah that's got to be like a really difficult thing, and I know that it happens. A lot because, and I, not just because it's not necessarily a linguist making the words but I mean that helps if linguists are actually helping. But also like anyone I think who's written a creative work knows that at some point in the book if you don't have good enough notes.
you're going to like write down the wrong thing and you're not going to remember to go back 300 pages and look to see wait what order did I put it in here. And so, like that could be especially because, like the language wasn't the focus of the book, so it wasn't like that was the the driving force behind it, and so you know you're just you're gonna get mistakes like that so.
yeah I.
want to keep in mind.
And one of the big problems with this is that. If you make a decision like the like the one I made if you make that decision it's like you only get so many of those right. Right it's like there's only going to be so many genders, and once you set up that case system that's like the there's only. it's like so it's like all right, well, I made that decision to make this thing work.
And you're hoping that you don't come down the line and find something else that's in Congress, where you don't have any decisions left that you can make there's no other areas of grammar that you haven't mapped out yet. right that you can pull in to save you somehow. And that absolutely has happened with another project not not with shadow, but with a different project where everything is just. I did my best some places I screwed up and some places there was just nothing, nothing to be done.
Right.
That can hurt sometimes. um. OK, so the next part of this question actually goes away from looking at the the words and the whatever constructions or structures that you have in the meetings, you have to deal with, but turning to, and I know you've talked specifically.
About D amp D before and so i'm going to bring in a little dungeons and dragons reference here, because sometimes what you get is a world where the way they described the languages or how the languages work just doesn't make sense linguistically. And so, for anyone who's not familiar with the end they have like in the official. guide by character race so like if you have an org an Elf a gnome a dwarf the each speak different languages, but it's like separated by race.
And that doesn't really make sense unless they all lived in the same area and spoke that together, but the concept of the D amp D world is that you know, not every work came from ork towns. and not every known lives in nome ville it's instead they're like all mixed together so regionally it doesn't make sense and also it doesn't give the.
It doesn't say that you know, like Oh, the gnome who lived in nashville may speak a different language or dialect than the gnome who lives in nome land right so like even then it doesn't necessarily map out. And that's, not even to consider the descriptions of the language with how they describe them to say like how they sound or whatever.
And so, because I know like specifically, I do have a lot of students right now super into doing D amp D languages and so like I know that's the thing too that a lot of complainers enjoy doing, as you know, if they're a dungeon master or whatever.
But that also means you're given this world that doesn't really make sense, with how they create the languages, so what advice, do you have for people who are working in that kind of thing, maybe not necessarily D amp D, but that kind of setup where it just doesn't make sense.
Well, let me start with a giving some praise to D amp D for For this reason, because this is something I actually didn't understand about it before. I started playing with it, you know, like I, my understanding and B and D, it was like you know because, like they have these books, with all these rules. And so it's like my thought was you have to read these books and memorize them and then you have to play by them, otherwise you were playing RON.
But it becomes clear as you're reading these things it's like here's a bunch of stuff that we've set up for you. Now if you're creating the game, you can create it and tweak it, how you like it's like that's part of the entire ethel's. I don't think they expect anybody to be playing the game exactly the way that they've written it written it and I think that's a really I know I think it's a really good way to go about it.
You know, and the yeah obviously if you're working with something like you know book series or anything that's going to be really, really different and that's a shame that's a shame, I think. It would be nice if. Not if it could be more collaborative but I don't know just. If there were a different understanding of what cannon meant and what it had to be. You know.
If there wasn't a constant feeling like you know you have to be stuck by by what was created, I know that that's I think a lot of what people enjoy about fanfiction. But then. At the same time, I know that's what a lot of people argue about with fanfiction means like the whole point of adventures like you're doing your own thing, but then you'll get people arguing it's like. Like know Harry wouldn't do that because of blah blah blah blah blah and it's like you've already moved beyond that.
Right, how is this even a discussion, you know. But. Anyway, so yeah if if you're working within Congress world. Ultimately, the question that you're going to be wrestling with and it's a very high level question is how much do I care about like how important Is this what am I acceptable or what, what can I accept. as being an acceptable change and what is not. And so I think it's a it's a good and important discussion to have at the beginning to figure it out, and then you can decide all right.
These these are my fence posts everything else, I can feel free to change, and if you give yourself that permission, then you should really feel free to change it and and yeah so like, and there I. I both love and hate how you will see fans try to rescue in in congruent. I love it because it just shows you how ingenious people can be where it's like here are these absolutely irreconcilable facts and there's no way.
That anybody could possibly have any different interpretation and then suddenly here's five different people with five different fixes for it. Some of them aren't great, but some of them can be quite clever and I love that ingenuity. But at the same time I wish they didn't feel they had to do that.
Right.
That it's like this drive it's like well I love this, and so this thing must be perfect, and so I have to put in all of this mental energy to preserve its perfection, and so that everything that was written is exactly 100% true. And I still feel people should have to do that it shouldn't be necessary.
Right it shouldn't be but like based on what you had said about how you took you know all this data and it had to be like everything, not just like. yeah part of it, would you be able to ignore those incongruities.
Well, the thing is like it was different for me because, like i'm i'm not the fan right.
mm hmm.
it's just a different level of responsibility. it's winning if you're doing your own thing because that's what you love and that's why you're doing it's quite another thing if you're one. of potentially many people who have been plucked out and are being paid.
To do a.
Right it's a totally different level there.
So you're saying, if you had created both rocky as a fan line like just totally because you loved it so much that you wanted to create a language just for your your own edification you're saying you would have been able to ignore some of the things. The thinker.
it's hard when you have this textual evidence and there's and it's so clear, because that was the thing for me it was so clear what everything meant. Because of the way it was written in the way it was done. And because he did put a level of care into it, where it's like the sounds weren't random. Very meanings weren't random. So that it would have been much harder to justify because, of course, what I wanted to do with rocky.
Like if I just wanted to do something was I wanted a gluten native language. With great big verbs and probably not many cases, but like if he just looked at it it's like there's no way, this is, this is an spl standard average European language, and so it was like taking that, as my baseline is like what else can I do, possibly, what can I do with this.
Were you tempted to say that the Th is actually just like don't Turkey, you know, to get rid of that were you tempted.
Now I mean you couldn't you couldn't it was it's right in the name of the language. that's that's like looking at it and saying it should be pronounced stealth Rack, I.
Apparently that's how some people look at it and say it. And it's not me in case you're wondering if you're listening. yeah. cool okay so fan links if you're doing it. Make it make it work, how you want to. Do you know of any existing fan links that are available online like descriptions of them available online that are what you think would be like good examples for other people to draw inspiration from if they're like.
Trying to see like well you know what's what's possible, especially if they want to create a language for the same world just to kind of see. what's out there.
i'll say this it's harder to assess the quality visa V how good a fan like it is if you're not up on the fan.
yeah yeah.
So so that's going to be tough, for me, because the first the first one that came to mind, of course, was the gear ruto language. But I don't know anything about it it's from it's from link. A legend of zelda. yeah and. And I know it's got it actually does have quite a following and. And you know so it's and it's pretty big but like I don't know like I I kind of checked out after a link to the past, which was the third game that was on sts.
And so, like, I know I know I know exactly what you're thinking you're thinking wow this guy's just a total casual I get that.
And I guess that's exactly what i'm thinking.
yeah but it's like. I didn't play majoris mask I didn't play or kareena time so I don't know, and these are these are things that you just know obviously just off the back of your head. Obviously. So I don't know what material she was drawing from so I can't like assess how good a job she did, but I know that it's out there it's big and it's got a lot of YouTube videos and the thing that i'm trying to do now.
And that's in Christine Johnson right forgive you to.
Thank you for remembering that because that's what I was looking up, I was looking up the name and i'm going to try to find. You know, so we can just say, like a social media.
I know she's on Twitter. Yes. And so I can find that if you want to think or say any other language.
I mean i'm trying to find it too yes and Christine Johnson.
And it's. Good rudolph's in if. I say that right that's.
The people are the Garuda tribe. and So it's kind of funny of course try Slavic tries melodic words that you chose initial. I would do that don't die. mm hmm.
Is that how it's supposed to be.
I don't know.
And i'm typing it out so that way, I remember to also put that in the post whenever I post this podcast. yeah that way if you're on Twitter, you can find.
yeah her Twitter, by the way, is at your router's so G, are you do, and then a handmade a sorry did the pronunciation there he he he and I be so G, are you do s eh E and IV. Yes, okay so that's one I mean obviously one of the biggest I don't even know if you want to call us a fan line, but it wasn't a star the Star Wars extended universe was the Mandela language.
That was created for by an author for one of the novels in the Star Wars extended universe, but then released and still a lot of people. are familiar with it.
and enjoy that name again.
Mandela and a and do apostrophe a cool yeah. And then I know that it wasn't used in the man delorean. And so, some people were miffed by that. And then, well, I guess, depending on your definition of family, you know. The.
Yes, I do know that one.
Andrew Andrew Smith created his language Britannic right. In this universe, where he supposed that the Romans stuck around in England much longer than they get. And so they left a. romance language there, and that was pretending a romance language with Celtic sound changes yeah.
So um and Andrew Smith, he said linguist and Kentucky right.
No, no, no.
No that's Andrew bird.
nevermind yeah. No, he said he's from New Zealand, and I know I was looking forward to meeting him too, but the net New Zealand trips cancelled because it. Right yeah. and
By the way, I call those if links.
Oh, I like that.
I was going to go for alt Lang but like.
I don't know i'll get used in a lot of different contexts.
So if Lang.
Lang is used actually.
Oh, is it okay. yeah okay.
yeah but okay so here's the thing, so I mentioned that one but that one wasn't the family. Now the family was when he presented this to the con like list people liked it so much that they just wanted to create languages in his universe, and many did.
wow so ranching off okay.
yeah like not even necessarily related just in different parts of that universe like phonetic was by him and Stan Bergman.
And that is one that's.
set in the bath Assad universe. There were several others but phonetic is probably the most well developed. Of all the ones that i've seen. So yeah was. And that's kind of a cool thing, just like because you know Andrew Smith he's just a con linger but created something so cool that people just wanted to jump on board. that's that's Nice and it's been. yeah there have been a number of Tokyo spin offs as well. Yes, so you can consider those to be bad links, but con lengthen legs. And then.
there's one that's just on the tip of my little itty bitty praying and I can't get it.
guide your brain has. A tip Thank you my head.
it's a it's a cliff and then for some reason there's a smaller brain that has arms and legs that kind of like sits its legs over the cliff and just you know sits and watches watches the sunset.
glad to know that's how your brain works. yeah um we know those are those are all really great examples and I tried to take note of them all, but I can always ask you later if I miss something. For the post, no. we're not talking after this any more.
minutes and that's it.
that's it on a timer that's good that's good. Okay, so here's The next question what fan links. Would you like to see. Would you most like to see developed and done well, so, in other words like. What book series. game, whatever. you'd like to see it language created for, and I have two answers of my own so i'm very curious to hear yours first.
And then.
i'll give mine.
Oh yeah number one is absolutely Avatar the last airbender.
Okay yeah that was mine okay.
Well, that was one of my two one. yeah I mean it's it's it's tough, I mean. It was. it's so wild the world building was was very interesting to very good, even if. Some of it was a bit appropriate. But like it was just the writing that was so good, the writing and the action of this that just made this story so good, and so compelling. That I mean it just it begged for this type of treatment and it didn't get it and it just kills me. yeah.
There was no way, it would have happened it started to relay yeah but.
yeah yeah.
it's something that. In for that wizard a proper treatment yeah.
And for that one I could definitely see each of the you know bending groups, having a different language, because they actually were isolated from other areas and people. But like it wouldn't just be the vendors, it would be like the humans in the region to would probably have that same language and so like that could be really cool, because then you also get like the the north and the south water bending.
areas and so it's like.
How you're going to treat those, whether they came from the same source of originally are like two completely separate things. I just I don't know I just think that's like really exciting in terms of like what you can do, plus the visual imagery like Could you imagine creating an orthodoxy that looks like it belongs in that world like that. yeah really fun.
And not only that knowing like you also know that they actually have that history right for all the peoples and where they migrated from they actually have that history, unlike you know, unlike you know a lot of these books series where it's just you know they only have so much. All right. They went all the way back because you saw a lot of it in legend of Cora. In in the in the in the sequel series.
So it's like it could have been done right, it could have been done really well, it could have been the greatest common linking project ever. Yes.
It really could have So yes, a family are actually multiple families for that world would definitely taught my list, do you have any others, that you would want to see them. well.
If i'm just talking about myself as a fan, just as a total fan and things and something that really speaks to me it's labyrinth. which of course is one of my favorite movies, of all time. Of all always wanted to be yeah i've always just wanted to see that set.
But the second one, I was thinking of maybe harkens back to roughly the same time. Because I want to see Florin in gilder from princess bride. Because they talk about Florida, and they talk about gilder the language I forget, whether they specifically just call it gilder or like.
gilda Nice or something, but it Florida needs is specifically mentioned in the books, the two languages are mentioned, but never like there's no phrases, everything is you know, besides just names, I guess, but even the names are translated into English like.
huh.
cliffs of terror, or whatever, and so, like, I think that would be super awesome to actually have those languages fleshed out.
would be. So you've read the bark created.
The book.
book. you've read the book. I didn't even know that there was a book.
i'm like why. The book came before the movie. Obviously, and at the beginning of the movie that's like. Literally the grandpa was reading the beginning of the Princess bride.
yeah.
To the boy he's.
Speaking Oh, by the way, speaking of fanfiction in labyrinth of course it's something that's so maddening. Sarah has a book called the labyrinth. But it doesn't exist, like it's it's not real and not only that, like the book that she has, you know that it's not actually supposed to be the story of what is happening in the movie. it's a second book. about this labyrinth, that is slightly different and it's so tantalizing.
And just nothing so so there could be a fan fiction. Book created for. Be yeah in the movie book okay it's.
it's a book that God you just wish existed, and of course the funny thing is that the movie labyrinth was an adaptation of a book, but it was a children's book like a picture book. It took some leaps to get to the movie because this children's picture book and i'm trying to imagine how this would be appropriate for children. But you know, a young girl named Sarah goes to the land of the goblins and in order to escape them she becomes their Queen and instructs them to dance until they die.
I mean, there are some fables though isn't there the. Famous ballet that's based on a fable where it's like literally people are dancing until they die. I can't think of it off top my head, but anyway.
that's all good.
it's good thanks how.
Was it. Was it the ankle cracker.
Anyway, anyway. You didn't have to add a syllable that would have been better.
I know well, I thought of the foot cracker but you know.
Just snow yeah. So one thing about everything that we have said in this podcast like and I understand that everybody's interested in doing families are using existing worlds. But everything that we've said, is totally applicable to somebody creating their own fantasy world in terms of things to think about and. Especially with like, I know that some people are like why don't we have names yet for these things and it's like well actually naming practices are.
hard to settle on sometimes and that takes a lot of language creation to get up to that point and so like. In terms of advice beyond like my piece of advice is don't go naming you know people in locations until you're really ready in the language for it if you're creating your own fantasy world.
But do you have any other advice just general off top of your head advice, beyond that, in terms of specifically to you know, making your world and languages that you're creating really work together well without shooting yourself in the foot.
You know the a lot of the advice that I can think of, is more general coddling advice. Because like especially. Well, maybe this, this will be applicable. I really encourage for somebody that's that wants a fan Lang and wants to really sound good and be special really try to rein things in because one of the biggest problems with.
With you know, especially authors just creating something on the fly and not thinking about it is it's just it's way too expensive in terms of its phonology in terms of its grammatical structure and basically that causes a language to lose character. You know it's just like. it's like it's like a when you ask you hey what's the phonology of your language and they just hand you a chart of the IPA. And it's like Okay, what can come at the end of the word anything.
Little anything like what about any consonant clusters any. race, just like. You know, and so like when you're you're going to be stuck with a bunch of words, and I really encourage you to try to find patterns and say so it's, not even to say like what you can do to really define what you can't do. that's what's going to give it its character so try your best. try your best to rein it in.
Because that'll help it feel like it'll help it feel cohesive like a language and it'll help it to feel special.
Everyone wants their language to feel special. that's great Okay, so that is my full list of questions we're at the end, I believe you said I had four more minutes, I think I hit it right on the diet, maybe. And so, do you have anything to add, since you always have something kitty to say at the end of every podcast we do.
Yes, I have many things, many things to share, but the truth is nothing that I say is going to be as powerful as what this little boy says. isn't that right Roman isn't that right actually you want to maybe maybe we'll be able to hear this, do you want to see what happens when I tried to scratches billy.
I mean, really, I think. Right. Now biting. I mean really David i'm starting to think that any scratches have been self inflicted because you know what he does.
And you still recruiting so mad. So mad. You shouldn't when he was sleeping people I know. But its belly was so spiritual.
Anyway, anyway, so nothing to add, is what i'm getting from that other than here is why you have all the scratches on your arms because we're Roman is trying to sleep and you wake them up.
For a little boy.
that's. Well, we hope you enjoyed, and we look forward to seeing you in the live streams and seeing you on discord been great watching all the very active conversations going on and. Did you have something to add wait.
yeah, no, no, like this is kind of a new venue where there might be some of our patrons that like only listen to the podcast or maybe don't pay attention to other stuff we should actually mention the discord.
Oh yeah so Okay, so if you're a patron who primarily uses the podcast then, yes, we have a discord just for patrons now. And if you link up your your patreon account with your discord account, so you need to do it on patreon if you link your discord account to it, then you will automatically be added at the. tier where you belong. into the server and you can join in with other conversations.
yeah and it's pretty active so that's cool.
Yes, it is. So okay so that's a great thing to add any other last minute things before I do the official sound off.
um. You know, there might be.
This is the best way to do a podcast to stop and silently stare at the camera.
i'm here oh i'll try to do something here we go.
Also, not necessarily effective unless you're just trying to do some sort of meditative soundscape. pocket.
Okay, all right.
Well yeah. Nothing in that case, everyone stay grammar and we'll see you around.