Worldbuilding Day 11
Apr. 27th, 2011 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kayqyToday I'm supposed to pick one area (history, economics/politics, language) and spend a little time expanding it. Okay. I'm gonna do it right today. I might even do two areas if I get really ambitious. But I'll start with language. Fifteen minutes, go!
Language:
I heard a guy in a podcast say that he kept a list of names he thought sounded cool, so I started making one of my own— or three, really: one for the Western Valleys (WV), the Northern Forest (NF), and generic word-names, like Stag or Fern. And it gradually turned into a linguistic exercise to see how the two dialects changed from their common Ancient Culture (AC) language: you know, like how sch-words in Latin (schola, "school") became esc- in Spanish (escuela) and ec- in French (ecole) and so on.
In the WV's case, pride and tradition and a touch of longing for what was lost caused them to do their best to "preserve" the "purity" of the AC tongue. This gradually fell by the wayside in everyday language, but it was kept in naming systems to the point that they actually started making them sound more "pure", trying to reach an ideal that didn't actually exist. Thus the plethora of dipthongs, the removal of "rougher"-sounding consonants, etc. I kind of see it as the one luxury of a culture that had to drastically change everything else in order to survive, or something.
The NF was less romantically attached to the AC's ideal to begin with, being a distance from the lost capital. Which is not to say they did not remember it in their own way; they just chose to keep things that seemed more practical to them, such as certain rituals, dances, ways of fighting. They were more likely to drop vowels in order to mash consonants together for shorter, easier to say words and names.
There is also a lesser trend of naming some children after plants or animals, or qualities they hope the children will acquire as they grow into adults. Not sure if there's a traditional pattern yet, or if it just depends on the parent's personality. (I think the Eastern Nomads may use only these kinds of names, but I know even less about them than I do the others, so.)
Also, the increase in trade means the exchanging of names is increasing, too. More on the western side, mainly, b/c I see the NF and nomads as being a bit more insular, as a rule. Nomads being suspicious, NF just not seeing why they should change for the sake of some other far-off group of people.
Place names will depend mainly on the age, size, and purpose of the town/place, not to mention how the townspeople want to be thought of. I suspect there are many towns in this age of burgeoning trade that are changing their name from Swine Gully to Loren's Crossing, and suchlike.
Whew, that was even more than I expected. Awesome. :) I think I will still do economics/politics, though, if only because it's the first time that churches have been mentioned in the exercises, and I know that religion has to play a bigger part than one little hermitage-turned-temple.
Economy/Politics (major players):
-Beacon Merchants (need a fancier name): trade a variety of things, but their main moneymaker is the magic crystals, especially with their monopoly on the secret formula to make them absorb and emit sound. (They may just undercut other merchants on more basic commodities, too, just tobe jerks reduce the competition. Maybe.) Led by a woman, who, thanks to my nifty new name list, is called Virue (three syllables, tyvm): kind of like the woman in Princess Mononoke, only with fewer redeeming virtues, or something. She inherited a small family company, seduced the knowledge of sound crystals out of somebody, and turned it into a huge enterprise.
-Beacon Temple (also needs fancier name): offshoot of the main church, founded by a lone hermit, now dead. It was his first successor that began encouraging mining of crystals, on the theory that if it were organized, there would be less need to run people out of the truly holy places. And the second successor made the deal with Virue to make the formula for sound absorption— for slightly less noble reasons. *cough*
-Main Church (yes, we get the idea, fancier name): the Lady of the Light is almost universally worshipped as the Mother of Life and so on and so forth, but homage is also paid to numerous lesser spirits, and in some places one or two of those spirits may be venerated even above the Lady, at least unofficially. (However, the culture is only slightly matriarchal... wonder what balances it out?) Local churches have gone through phases of unity and independence over the centuries as they attempt to guide their "flock". (Probably not really called this.)
-Town Councils: Vary in formality according to town, but even small villages have a group of people who come together to make decisions about trade and bandits and such— or at least argue about it.
Whoo, two for two! Booyah!
Language:
I heard a guy in a podcast say that he kept a list of names he thought sounded cool, so I started making one of my own— or three, really: one for the Western Valleys (WV), the Northern Forest (NF), and generic word-names, like Stag or Fern. And it gradually turned into a linguistic exercise to see how the two dialects changed from their common Ancient Culture (AC) language: you know, like how sch-words in Latin (schola, "school") became esc- in Spanish (escuela) and ec- in French (ecole) and so on.
In the WV's case, pride and tradition and a touch of longing for what was lost caused them to do their best to "preserve" the "purity" of the AC tongue. This gradually fell by the wayside in everyday language, but it was kept in naming systems to the point that they actually started making them sound more "pure", trying to reach an ideal that didn't actually exist. Thus the plethora of dipthongs, the removal of "rougher"-sounding consonants, etc. I kind of see it as the one luxury of a culture that had to drastically change everything else in order to survive, or something.
The NF was less romantically attached to the AC's ideal to begin with, being a distance from the lost capital. Which is not to say they did not remember it in their own way; they just chose to keep things that seemed more practical to them, such as certain rituals, dances, ways of fighting. They were more likely to drop vowels in order to mash consonants together for shorter, easier to say words and names.
There is also a lesser trend of naming some children after plants or animals, or qualities they hope the children will acquire as they grow into adults. Not sure if there's a traditional pattern yet, or if it just depends on the parent's personality. (I think the Eastern Nomads may use only these kinds of names, but I know even less about them than I do the others, so.)
Also, the increase in trade means the exchanging of names is increasing, too. More on the western side, mainly, b/c I see the NF and nomads as being a bit more insular, as a rule. Nomads being suspicious, NF just not seeing why they should change for the sake of some other far-off group of people.
Place names will depend mainly on the age, size, and purpose of the town/place, not to mention how the townspeople want to be thought of. I suspect there are many towns in this age of burgeoning trade that are changing their name from Swine Gully to Loren's Crossing, and suchlike.
Whew, that was even more than I expected. Awesome. :) I think I will still do economics/politics, though, if only because it's the first time that churches have been mentioned in the exercises, and I know that religion has to play a bigger part than one little hermitage-turned-temple.
Economy/Politics (major players):
-Beacon Merchants (need a fancier name): trade a variety of things, but their main moneymaker is the magic crystals, especially with their monopoly on the secret formula to make them absorb and emit sound. (They may just undercut other merchants on more basic commodities, too, just to
-Beacon Temple (also needs fancier name): offshoot of the main church, founded by a lone hermit, now dead. It was his first successor that began encouraging mining of crystals, on the theory that if it were organized, there would be less need to run people out of the truly holy places. And the second successor made the deal with Virue to make the formula for sound absorption— for slightly less noble reasons. *cough*
-Main Church (yes, we get the idea, fancier name): the Lady of the Light is almost universally worshipped as the Mother of Life and so on and so forth, but homage is also paid to numerous lesser spirits, and in some places one or two of those spirits may be venerated even above the Lady, at least unofficially. (However, the culture is only slightly matriarchal... wonder what balances it out?) Local churches have gone through phases of unity and independence over the centuries as they attempt to guide their "flock". (Probably not really called this.)
-Town Councils: Vary in formality according to town, but even small villages have a group of people who come together to make decisions about trade and bandits and such— or at least argue about it.
Whoo, two for two! Booyah!
