Firstly patterns of
speech now what I mean by this is how do people arrange their sentences or
phrase certain questions or statements and do certain people use specific colloquialisms
and contractions. Arrangement of
sentences and phrasing can be informed by the base language that you chose in
so far as the way that they manipulate sentence structure still makes relative sense
in English. For example in English you may say Amy is a skilled carpenter but
according to the conventions of your base language you may wish to make a
character say Amy carpenter is skilled, which is unique and still is still
understandable in English, however note that this will not work in all cases.
You can also come
up with your own rules and you can do so in several ways. By way of ellipse, He
was the only person I saw vs. He was the only person who I saw. Transposition,
Happy is he who is simple vs. He who is simple is happy. Subordinate clauses,
When I got home, I ate dinner vs. I ate dinner when I got home. And finally you
can place the verb second, This book I read yesterday vs. Yesterday I read this
book.
If you have different
social hierarchies you may want to assign certain ways of speaking to each of
those groups by way of conjunctions. For example often I will assign the use of
contractions to common people while the nobility or those who are highly
educated will talk in full words.
“I can’t see why we’re
made to do that.” Vs. “I cannot see why we are made to do that.”
I will also
typically use older forms of words for nobility and more modern forms for
commoners.
“I shall not.” Vs “I
will not.”
To add a sense of
culture to your people you can also come up with some common sayings which they
use, influenced of course by the way they phrase their sentences. For example
they may say I thank you not rather than no thank you, my thanks rather than
thank you. You can even come up with more specific sayings such as, lucky are
some as a way of saying someone has good fortune. Basically the choices are
limitless you can construct expressions for exclamations of shock, disbelief, or
relief. You can construct people specific swearing, and even religious sayings.
Finally you will need to decide on what titles certain
groups of people will hold and how they will be addressed. For example a king
when being introduced may be introduced as such, His/Her Majesty Full Name of
Kingdom, and thereafter be referred to as Your Majesty or some variation of
Sire. You may also wish nobles to be introduced as such First Name of the House
Last Name followed by whatever position they may hold, member of the Privy
Council, House of Lords, etc.
All of the above will help to enrich your language and the
cultural identity of those who speak it. Well that’s all for language stay tuned
for next week when we move on to constructing the world beginning with mapping.
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