Post #246 February 22 2021 “What Does That Mean? Making Up New Words for Your Story” “Litor’kel ge.” That’s what my Seomish friends from the Farpool stories say to each other. It means roughly: “Go with the flow,” or “smooth sailing,” or “may the currents be with you.” Where did it come from? I made the whole phrase up. One of the joys and challenges of writing in fiction is the chance to create and use new words and phrases. Think of ‘muggles’ from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. I do this a lot, since I write a lot of science fiction, where new words and phrases, even whole languages are pretty common. Did you know there are even dictionaries and grammar texts on Klingon? Before you go off the deep end on creating new words and phrases, take a moment to observe some common-sense rules of thumb about doing this effectively. 1. Your proposed new word or phrase should always look and sound like it belongs in the story. One of the best examples I can give is from my Farpool stories. The Seomish people are basically talking fish. They live underwater. Hard consonant sounds carry best underwater (try it!). Think of all the clicks you hear dolphins and whales making. That being said, when it came time to create a language and new words for the Seomish, I tried hard to make the new words with hard consonant sounds. Example: kel’vish’tu. In the world of the Seomish, a kel is a water nation or tribe. The word vish’tu means to roam about, to travel, to go on a trip. I joined these words into kel’vish’tu to refer to the Great Migration, where thousands of Seomish come through the Farpool from their oceans to the oceans of Earth. Another example is the medical/surgical procedure called conicthyosis. This is an English word denoting a procedure to make someone into an amphibious being. Note the root word: ichthyo…from the Greek ikhthys, for fishlike or relating to fish. The word sounds like its meaning. In my Appendix to The Farpool, I said this about the Seomish language…. Seomish is designed phonetically to carry well in a water medium. Hard, clicking consonants are common. The ‘p’ or ‘puh’ sound, made by violent expulsion of air is also common. Modulation of the voice stream, particularly at high frequencies (sounding much like a human whistle) produces the characteristic “wheeee” sound, which is a root of many words. Translation from Seomish to human languages like English requires some inspired speculation, since so many Seomish phrases seem to be little more than grunts or groans, modulated in frequency and duration. Most Seomish words are grouped according to several characteristics: (1) Who is speaking (the personal); (2) who is being spoken to (the indicative); (3) state of mind of the speaker (the conditional); (4) the kel-standing of the conversants (the intimant). Each classification has a set of characteristic pre-consonants, to indicate the nature of the coming words, etc. Thus: 1. k’, kee, t’ 2. tch, g, j, oot 3. m’, p’, puh’ (both anger, dislike, distaste, etc), sh, sz (both joyful) 4. each kel identifies itself with a unique set of capitalized consonants, like a vocal coat of arms. Example: t’milee, or CHE’oray…Seomish versus Timily or Chory…English. 2. Another point to consider in making up new words is that the word should always be understandable in context. One of my favorite examples of how not to do this is Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange. In this story, the characters all speak a sort of futuristic street-slang of British English and Burgess is so detailed with this that the book becomes almost unreadable. Remember that you are (I presume) writing for an English-speaking audience. Put the word in a context where the meaning becomes clear. Or just go ahead and provide a translation nearby. Your readers will thank you for that. 3. Your new words or phrases should be consistent with other new words in the story. If this doesn’t happen, you risk damaging or breaking that suspension of disbelief upon which all fiction, indeed all story-telling, depends. If you’re in the process of creating a believable alien language, like I did in The Farpool, you don’t have to create a whole new dictionary and rules of grammar. Maybe just an index of terms (I did that) like Frank Herbert did in his novel Dune. Just be consistent with your new stuff. Anything that breaks the spell that a good storyteller weaves over his audience is bad. 4. When you create new words or phrases, if done right, you can really deepen the sense of wonder that fictional worlds should have. You can transport your readers to a magical land where their ordinary, dreary daily real lives go away and they are exposed to altogether new words, new people, new places. Just about every reader wants that; we read fiction and tell stories in part to transport or be transported out of the ordinary and humdrum to places more special, and we want to live vicariously in those places. That’s the magic of storytelling. Making up new words and phrases is one of the great joys and challenges of storytelling. But to be effective, writers should observe a few simple rules like I’ve outlined above. Use your imaginations and let the sky and the stars be the limit (okay, that‘s a cliché, but you get the idea). And remember… “Litor’kel ge, my old friend.” The next post to The Word Shed comes on March 1, 2021. See you then. Phil B.