Conlangery #111: Interview with JS Bangs

Conlangery #111: Interview with JS Bangs

Published: Mon, 03 Aug 2015 06:39:02 +0000 \

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Transcript

utterance-id1 hey uh <unk> uh <unk> [noise] walk 'em to calm larry potshots languages people create them <unk> with me down the road ways whether you man that's [noise] and over i forgot to ask where you are you going to me that's what that's like where i am [noise] okay we have ah as a gift on the show today j. a. s. banks also known is jessie bang hello and uh where are you jesse i'm actually in western minnesota uh somewhere in the vicinity of fargo oh okay all i know about fargo is the movie sorry yeah it's basically a documentary so [laughter] we expect you were boggles from you [laughter] the trick there i wasn't actually raised in this area so my my accent is much closer to the kind of the generic american um yeah i i i grew up in colorado so that's my accent no no i i can i can tell because i watch the movie and i know how those people are talking in the movie i don't know how accurate the movie is but it sounds like they're they're definitely are people that talk like that in the movie it's not everybody talks like that you know as with most of the regional accents in america there gradually being worn away as my great <unk> and b._b._n. stuff replaces it with the the standard generic american accent uh but there are there is definitely um there there is definitely an accent people who live <unk> hear their whole lives you can hear it they do they're they're <unk> they're little strange they have fewer goals and they use the strange um some strange certain locations like i was i was so this is something that i do do that i was told by somebody else's non standard and blew me away which is that um the state of you're going to come by and it's going to come by his house or something is actually an upper north west regional as him and it's not usually people from other parts of the country which i had no idea right it's a little borrowing from german yeah william has talked about that on the show before 'cause that happens in wisconsin people yeah hi in a lot of uh in that sort of meaning so yeah i'm out here okay so uh but i knew you were in the same time zone 'cause that's uh that's that's the thing that i need to know when i'm scheduling things but uh yeah yeah that's interesting so uh uh jesse is a um has been in the <unk> muti for a long time and i think this is something we usually ask for anyone who's who's coming on the show for the first time but um you know what got you into <unk> what what what are your general well just what's your story with <unk> what got you <unk> what do you like to do <unk> <unk> for that sort of thing [noise] sure well i got into <unk> and i believe the sixth grade as a result of ah i i moved to a private school and uh i had a classmate who is this incredibly precocious linguist they use the term nicely he in the sixth grade was studying latin and classical greek basically on his own or cognizance um and he was a huge aficionados talking and had studied clinton ya and send her in to some extent and he had been taken up the habit of trading languages in me and he became very close friends and he introduced it to me and so i was when i started making up a uh making up a a language and the language i initially made up was [noise] i honestly the first or second language i made up was what eventually became you bring in which is the one i still when i still have and still develop and this is my oldest <unk> although my concept of what the language actually is his changed dramatically repeatedly over and over to the years um yeah my very earliest calming attempt were mostly headed towards <unk> idealistic languages me that it was the language we're just supposed to be privy regular and perfectly um represent philosophical concepts quite precisely and have all those kinds of meat things um and then it really is it that is boring and what we did and decided to go to war towards naturalistic on line and that's what i do now so you everyone was sort of retrofit it but they naturalistic frame on top of some idealistic under paintings which still shore shows through a little bit it's a little too regular in a couple of places um [noise] but yeah so at this point i um i mostly do naturalistic and historical <unk> where i had a poodle language and i have some changes and i <unk> i i uh derive new <unk> yeah that kind of a process [noise] um and a lot of the stuff is set in a fictional setting a bill larger world which i referred to as <unk> which is uh on my <unk> that's the title of it [noise] and um uh be first published novel set in the world of our i toss uh called storm ride was released uh late last year at the very end of two thousand fourteen uh yeah um i believe i looked and um just uh a couple of things first first of all so you're you're kind of one of those people who will revise one language for a very long time yes as opposed to you know there's some congress to produce tons and tons of sketches and then there's other con lawyers that focused and do one language for like decades yeah and i'm pretty much in the second cat although i branched out i have a language family that i'm working on now instead of just the one mhm yeah and i guess you can be like a little bit into in both camps but i always find that interesting that sort of divide um between the the different types of coddling years [noise] and i spent just every freaking out i did find that when we had previously talked about <unk> and that was in november of two thousand and uh yeah it it was really been doing this for almost four years yes ah [laughter] whoa okay certain that seems great twenty six on quote unquote emphasis also has a discussing <unk> yes um back when we did we did uh topic in a calm lying on the same episode yeah right so when you talk about they're doing historical did you go back and like retrofit <unk> retrofit <unk> into this system have you produced <unk> from your <unk> and then get going forward it backwards so yeah really copying token yes so my my internal lexical on where i have all my like the one that ain't that just for my personal use which isn't on line anywhere i have i have my <unk> which is about two thousand batteries and then each of those [noise] has a total for except for ones that are borrow but you know all one good our native vocabulary having total form and then a a deep ancestral form so that would be the first war was already pretty was common <unk> um is roughly the distance between say spanish in latin is be intended kind of [noise] amount of time in about two change it's in there and then there was a deep <unk> which is roughly uh portland or european at that sort of <unk> from you bring in um so i have all of those and uh in that either retrofit it is that they mentioned was originally just created <unk> hello and so what i did then i did a couple of things one is i did that kind of um and this has been an ongoing process i did it kind of internal reconstruction of things that were already in your <unk> to see where i could suss out like on half formed regularity and then you know stipulate that they actually work computers regular in parent language and vice versa working for them to regular uh one of the ways that i rationalize those was to assume that they were very recent innovations and that in fact in the <unk> the language you did something completely different for say uh the future cats um the future tense and your brain is is completely regular as clear rebuilt off of the present tense so i i i still be there that's actually a a different thing and then i just didn't have deep past kind of just looking at that it sort of our arbitrarily making up some south changes which i thought [noise] gave me fun things to play with so that my <unk> were different enough we're we're substantially different from the ukraine forums so that i could drive in a different direction and wind up with something that looks entirely different but still had pleasing non obvious historical connections because that sort of thing pickled <unk> um yeah and so with price sale which is the language in the bookstore would ride uh <unk> if they sister of <unk> it had its derived from common you're breathing so it has a relatively recent ancestor and um there there's a there's a fair a decent number of surface similarities between the two languages so if you just more to compare the the <unk> side by side you see that they're they're they're very similar in many cases and the and the vocabulary pretty similar as well do i hear a nasal bowl and per se i think i do ah no the it depends on what if what you're asking too so the the name of the language is <unk> we had any news about the name of the people are the <unk> what'd you does have a nasal bell on the second level okay okay i always remember to remembering 'til does from looking at the gap or document there are abundant 'til does in [laughter] um i actually turned it down a little because my early versions of the rules was just nasal i think everything i was like this this hideous so i treat them and so it so it looked a little better what um natural language is have you study there speak uh well i'm fluent in romanian uh aside from english obviously i'm fluent in romanian uh my wife is romanian and we speak primarily romanian home [laughter] uh i have been studied in the usual <unk> a whole bunch of different languages to upgrade or or less are usually lesser degree of competence um [noise] i know a little bit of i i'm actually pretty good at ancient greek um in that with the help with the dictionary i can actually wade through classical authors pretty pretty well um huh and i have studied a little bit of latin a little bit of spanish a little bit of russia and a little bit of thai and a little bit <unk> [laughter] i'm just trying to figure what the nasal i suppose it's i don't think for many romanians you're not having these lifestyles i believe it's about what white so i can't <unk> these things out they have to be derived from some kind of <unk> [laughter] i know [laughter] and general in general put layers avoid that they have a hard <unk> oh okay well the pronouncing just fine so the answer your question of where they came from the answers actually portuguese <unk> so the reason like the sort of the <unk> the idea that originally tibet they turned into <unk> was that i want something which kind of sounded like portuguese <unk> decided to turn albany's confidence which are really abundant in every in into just need to lighten the preceding vowels and then do some other about religion and that that actually get you basically what you have in <unk> with with any of those asian everywhere and it's particularly important in grammatical forums like that than down morphology has lots of nasal nasal <unk> as part of the as part of the morphology <unk> yeah okay okay interesting if we we uh do you mean what are you from the world building talk but i wanted to get a few language questions in their first i i think it was done with the world building but basically that's that's where they came from so um we end up within the book store and bride the uh <unk> and <unk> both appear as people are much smaller rolled the book takes place primarily around to the city of <unk> um which is of course where the line but the languages named after um but <unk> do show up and in fact some of the only like an translated con laying is actually <unk> the problem that the reason of course being that the characters all speak <unk> so their speeches rendered as english in the context of the story that you bring the which is a foreign language that that means rendered on translated um but you get what it means from context so how'd you get to the editor uh that was not too hard when i said it's only a little i literally mean i think there's two sentences okay um and in context it's very clear what they mean and it's dial up right sort of a character who does not speaking of <unk> is it not sharing it with somebody and the <unk> speaker who's next door says something and <unk> and then the cherry driver goes forward and so it's obvious that he's just you know telling a driver to get started um so that's you know that that is that about the extent of it and that's you know because most editors well rightfully uh attempt to prevent you from putting lots and lots of <unk> and your book <unk> but they're quite happy if you put it up on line as a as a companion which is what i've done right so so if you don't it what it's interesting that there yeah so we've seen in the last few years it was a growth of homeland in film and television where it's harder to get away with taking it right <unk> <unk> in a novel in my opinion i could never required 'cause a good writer ten white around it right and as you say probably most editors object to large chunk on digested call on line or anything [laughter] in in a novel <unk> the idea that they like it it's a tie in that interesting to me that they recognize the value in that as another way to engage fans you know you'd have to talk to people who are editors i'm actually not sure the degree to which they necessarily wanted to tie in and it says that there's something that they look for but some of it they recognize as an item of interest like editors into authors in general are are interested in in knowing that you have additional things to offered to fans so you can be hidden scenes deleted scenes or just extras like photographs or or <unk> stuff for the people who are interested in come get engaged with work have something that they can look at which provide some extra d. background for it i mean i have attempted it but a lot of that stuff up on by calling site where it's warm out of the <unk> as a nice way out and it's easy enough to read for people who are you know who are interested in learning about the language and seeing uh what's going on there um so in yeah ah my my editor never made a single comments about um about the <unk> appears into it and it um except she actually originally uh one of them was <unk> one of those kind of comes his was translate into she actually said take this out it's completely obvious from context what he said oh good nice yeah yeah i think it's going to <unk> a little bit on your story and on what exactly you know the economy's doing people just communicating you can easily right around that but like you know if you're using a particular language for magic or something you might have a little bit more of it but definitely i i can see like you don't necessarily want to overload readers with right with ah <unk> <unk> and then you also have you <unk> if i'm pronouncing that right which obviously has very little detail but is there to let you come up with names that writing systems yep i'm actually very proud of of <unk> um i i think that there is a lot i think that there are a good naming language is an under appreciated art form for containers and um it's a good name related is like a good pencil sketch right i mean there's obviously a difference in time and scope and detailed between a pencil sketch in like a full blown uh you know painted oil campus or something but they're still uh you can do a lot in a good sketch that that that goes a long way and that's i actually like yeah 'cause a lot has just enough lexical material and just enough sun logical material to create something that looks consistent in convincing and where if i ever decide i want to <unk> not entirely i i'm pretty sure that i haven't done any picture myself because it all like i know the allergy and i have some basic uh basically is about morphology i think it's <unk> really nice [noise] i can i can say that makes a lot of sense to me a good naming language you still need to do a fair bit of work 'cause you need phonology you may need some morphology you may even want to do a little bit of historical stuff if you like have an idea of this is related to other languages but you're developing further or you might want to develop further so right yeah it's it's it's it's something you have to think about yeah and it's i mean if you've heard of the honest so here's the ranting part starts you know most books which are not written by people specifically interested in language fantasy books written by people not specifically interested in language have a ridiculous amount of of just wrong <unk> in terms of how to language those are put together oh yeah [laughter] that that could really be the topic of an episode all its own um if you're looking looking at the like the names in george <unk> books right often make no sense to me at all right yeah the fact that david <unk> peterson was able to put together with rocky as well as he did given that he was just starting from a non language was making up names is really impressive and he deserves full kudos for that 'cause that is that a try to be difficult and yeah um i recall some time ago somebody on the common must actually reconstructed a vampire language for um [noise] what was it it was done with wesley snipes blade delayed yes and didn't incredible amount of work and just really really beautiful work on that and i was i was really impressed by by he had and then they didn't want to pay him to that uh that thought that he was asking for too much money um how much they regretted with like which and it was yeah they look both him seriously terrible yeah recall yeah which is you know i think that if that were to happen today i think that they even have a lot more credibility because the notion of having a whole language or you're a science fiction series or or in a movie is so much more credible it so much more widespread <unk> um <unk> maybe a little bit before it's time last yeah i think it took the lord of the rings to really pushed it over the edge of the rings definitely just because they have all that <unk> <unk> <unk> subtitled but but raw uh syndrome mostly in there [laughter] um well there's a couple of other i mean game of soldiers another big one but there's another one that that's escape my mind right now oh of course not me yeah was it was i think the other one where because of course talking thing with his worrying existence before they made the movie's words not be one specifically done just for the movie and kind of i think created the bass line is that if you're making a big sigh fire fantasy <unk> people kind of expect you to put some effort into the language sure sure i think what the lord of the rings movies convinced directors and producers where's that large quantities of non english was okay and these sorts of movies but the audience would not be put off by that right um yeah so um there was round [laughter] uh uh groundwork <unk> already there or david <unk> oh so this is like they were creating something new on what i did finally in as a tour but yeah between the two of them they've released had an interesting time yeah i mean it's a great mind to be a counseling or you've got lots of high profile <unk> out there [noise] um yeah and and a high profile calming or which is i think it didn't even exist until about unless you <unk> [laughter] right but she wasn't really that high profile it was right it was the cleaning on people knew him but not very many people outside man right [laughter] so but for literature it's a different set of challenges because you can't there's no such thing as subtitles on a book so you can't put in tons of <unk> and and and then you know quote unquote subtitled it or do side by side translation although it wouldn't be really interesting thing to try maybe as a gimmick or or or a a [noise] in in some book but also on the effort but honestly i don't know that i want to go through i think are having some self published things where if somebody wrote like a whole story and a con lying and did a translation right but it's yeah it's a very very <unk> audience it's extremely nation the thing is so if you're trying to sell to us like a broader audience there's a limit so i miss can take my own book again as example there's a limit to how much a rock hall now you can put in there so i make no attempt to discuss the grammar of the languages or either historical relationships or to give you more than like i said two sentences of on translated every in the book just because <unk> <unk> a general reader a general leadership is not that interested in it hard core fans maybe but you don't want to get uh put all the stuff in there where everybody has to kind of wade through it brittany because you can't provide subtitles has the elected he would uh uh on a television show or a movie [noise] but what you can do well i tried to do is justin describe a realistic linguistics situation [noise] so if i'm i i believe there are actually five different named languages within store bride which is for more than exist in most fantasy books right [laughter] and the reason for that is just that i you know every time that there were people together who had a reason to not speak the same language i had them not speak the same language and then i just put a little bit of effort into figure out okay these people have different languages but they do also communicate so what language they use to communicate and so that's why you have this language called goes up what'd you wheel there no no words <unk> including the word good though which is actually the <unk> say a word foreign language appear anywhere in the book it's just stated that that is the trade language which is used for communication between these couple of different tribe and that and then it becomes actually a plot point did a couple of places that two people from different tribes can't talk to each other because i don't remember bother to learn good um aside from like some very very basic vocabulary that one of the people's notes and so they do manage to like not kill each other but they that's about the extent of it [noise] um so <unk> and then like i said and i put a little bit of effort so when a language is a character was hearing the language that's not their native language they sometimes they comments on what the spinal article quality of it is like yuk how to describe it as the scratches growling and rumbling and uh per se i was talking about <unk> slippery um which comes back and it has a lot of <unk> and it has has a lot of different um places articulation for the <unk> um it hasn't applicants laminate let a retro flex and uh and uh uh <unk> um and you know so things like that so basically i tried to <unk> linguistic situation is realistic and is fully uh fully developed even if i don't actually dive into the details other language itself in the text [noise] right i feel like that um having your characters describe another language is going it must be a very difficult thing that's that's something i think about when i'm reading stuff i'm reading fantasy novels and they talk about a different language and like you know it's always got our old yes guttural definitely do not just got her olympic not english yeah guttural just doesn't mean anything [laughter] so many contacts and i've seen it describing real languages in that are different enough that i don't i don't know what you mean when you say that [laughter] um but like and then there's uh there's there's an issue of you know there's there's also authors who like um [noise] how pick on um patrick <unk> who i love but like he describes what's the name of those those those guys the mercenary guys um he described their language in this weird way talking about how the the quote unquote <unk> affects the meaning of a word in every word has three meetings and i'm like [noise] home with me was that <unk> that so yes it's like is it is it stresses pitch accent is tone what is it so if we're going to put the most favorable possible spin on this 'cause keep in mind that were in in in those books and i've only read the first one that serious so i don't recall that some thinking about coming to second book yeah if you meet some of these these right so that our p._o._v. character could vote is not is i think modeled well no because he learns what's the one that like was that called electric or whatever so he knows a couple of limited i'll take that back [noise] but that may be a linguistically an sophisticated way of describing i would guess pitch accent or possibly tone or pasta now it's like if the meaning is supposed to be changed right but then there are three everywhere and has three meanings is as soon as it literally the scriptures is british <unk> i got that then yeah well you could take it as something something like that he's exaggerating or something and <unk> is uh storyteller he's like a professional almost in storytelling because of his background so he might be doing selective exaggeration and things but i yeah it's but i just think of and that's the thing that you <unk> <unk> that i'm thinking about is like you have to have an idea of what the language is and then talk in a way that the readers might understand somewhat what you're talking about and in a way that your character who may not necessarily be or in a fantasy setting probably isn't linguistically sophisticated in the way that a modern linguist would be right describe them right yeah some of the most the most fun uh <unk> actually have characters who are in who are linguists in the sense that that <unk> is is that possible to they're studying and there's some really fun things you can do there where i'm trying to think of one um actually a very uh very famous fantasy short story that are extra science fiction short story that involves trying to set of communication with a a species of aliens mhm who um who experience time not many early and whether or not that makes any sense a is a uh exercise for the reader but it's [noise] she has a very good job to distract me the way their language actually and codes all that information for for non lou your um dog later communication and uh another one that can be got called um i mean i forgot the title of it probably isn't adults where it's about a species of of a commute on frogs who actually communicate by uh by changing the patterns of colors on their backs <unk> and the car driving and a lot of time uh the <unk> in germany how to how to how to communicate with them how to respond get brake pedal like yeah you know and yeah <unk> suspicion [laughter] practicality of such a <unk> and communication with um known to be suspicious of these things [noise] um [noise] it was gonna say they only novel apart from volume can read or episodes three of lord of the rings that involves like a long description of linguistic information i can think of and then even remotely affect the way it is <unk> always coming home oh that is my all time favorite books on like a good that's presented as sort of it's weird answerable logical or the <unk> you have little insurance <unk> where the cultures described and historical thing and so it's a different it's not a novel in this world it's an awful but it doesn't presented <unk> as a normal sort of mobile right or a linguistic description there kind of makes sense and it's frightening experience i usually i'm not sure most people can get away with that i have um yeah that that's a really interesting book because they sort of metal fictional structure of that book is so so odd you know where it's the concede seems to me that <unk> been herself has somehow traveled into the future and study these people as metropolitan and come back and these are this was her her essay of notes about them but yeah that's i have i have an issue that with the the <unk> and how to describe in that book is nah it strikes me as very highly unnatural um but that's maybe a tough topic for a different day [laughter] yeah i it's been so long since i've looked at i don't actually have a hardcover copy right um i mean is there a city you can sort of read the dictionary or an interesting thing is that the people so those words exist as of <unk> for for the rest of the thing yeah for the rest of the thing right yeah and it's <unk> like you know half of that book is appendix for the other half [laughter] if it's an interesting yeah <unk> it's a very good book though that's the thing that i'm i'm going have to be thinking about because i've had like a story in the works for a while but the point of view character is a linguist studying <unk> an alien language so you'll have to be able to describe what's going on a little bit although <unk> focus more on events that are happening between humans meeting these airlines but ah right right i mean another officer who does that reasonably well c._j. cherry yes ah i've <unk> i've read one of the uh she teach her books and i remember and i've read i have a stack of c._d. cherry books on my night stand right now i i cleaned out my local used bookstore i've ever had hers just to read through the bat her catalogue um i don't recall any places where she described language in much in detail or do you have a particular book in mind well any of the uh tabby book starting foreigner i think [noise] that isn't necessary i mean give it a few words and <unk> but the point um there is to sort of these and this is something she does a lot of these this impeding between how humans understand where the aliens understanding world and she goes alien into policy better than most yes she does so again the the language discussion is there is is minimal in the sense that details you know gone into and yet she talks about it a lot and other great author for this is frank who never invented the company which is interesting things about language all the time um most of them <unk> idiotic [noise] and and sometimes uh challenging [noise] ah so it can be done to have language focused uh works to fiction without necessarily having to go off for a year or two or five on more longer you couldn't talk to language to go with your culture <unk> when you first invented <unk> as a teenager did you imagine a culture where there's already or did it get as you went more historical it became something they they use for your [noise] or did those indirect um the answer your question is yes [laughter] so there was only they kind of culture attached to it um but somewhere along the same way that the language evolves the culture evolves um [noise] the <unk> they're very early forms of the culture were also highly idealistic <unk> attempted to invent why kind of i imagine as an ideal or perfect society um <unk> yeah <unk> there's some extent sort of but as time went on bus like much like ideal languages are boring ah utopias are boring and so it became a lot more rough edges were added to it and i was a big part of this was simply growing to understand more what the culture is that what kind of was interested in <unk> actually like which can take a surprisingly long <unk> surprisingly long time um particularly because you know if you could have a typical high school education you have a really really badly distorted idea of what age in paganism was actually like um because all you <unk> you you what you learn about it or a handful of [noise] of crazy stories about zeus and maybe some of the <unk> and the odyssey and so you didn't <unk> assume that ancient pagan religion was about believing in those things in much the same way that you know fundamentalist protestant believes in all the stories of the bible the fact that i got that it was entirely missing the point of what those the function that those stories served with m. h. and paganism um and that becomes even more the case if you than look into like native american and the other um more uh for lack of better words <unk> stick or um sorts of sort of culture [noise] the frame of reference from which <unk> that you are likely to have before you're looking at it really deeply if it's gonna be pretty misleading so um different people were conceived as pagan but what they mean paul atheist i should say that is that a pagan which has a bad connotation they were gonna see this polytheism early on but my conception of what <unk> what that actually meant and how that was actually going to work out um was pretty bad at first um in the sense that it it didn't make any sense it was it was really really heavily influenced by <unk> understanding of the <unk> of the vallarta sure um and in fact it down right now we'll go we'll come up eventually but i actually have a very long you bring in text which tells a creation myth which is extremely derivative of <unk> so much so that i'm not i'm a little embarrassed of it and also want to put it back up um except that it's like three thousand words long and entirely in <unk> which is a pretty impressive achievement um [noise] so but it's kind of like at this way it sounds like second tier canon like the actual the names of the gods guys they appear in that one or i think accurate for the <unk> or the you being pampered as i currently address but the story itself i don't think it's actually <unk> for the purposes of my novels that's that's interesting that you think uh that you created a uh a policy is to <unk> with an understanding of tokens vow or which is you know if you get right down to it the you know what the the vow are are are basically angels they're not really god's the way that uh <unk> society understands multiple gods well [noise] yeah that can explosives or new <unk> which is what a lot of yeah yeah so i mean there is an attempt to retrofit something which closer to um yeah [laughter] no i hear that part of the point right so so ancient paganism <unk> and it's <unk> it's higher forums it's not really about <unk> as you know as basically super humans it's more about you know the the super the divine being expressed or personify in these various myth which have you know a lower meaning and then a higher allegorical meeting and it gets very complex and things like along those lines um and i think it's part of what i was getting at whereas my initial pagan you bring culture was extremely literal that stick in terms of how they how i thought the religion was supposed to work and then i i back away from that and the other hand it happened is that as it was kind of trying to you know looking around for more things to throw into this do the world buildings to there i kind of hit upon native american <unk> chiefs <unk> at least for things like architecture and art and that brings in a whole different kind of um all different kinds of influence and and and a whole different set of [noise] i guess world view and and culture and uh that that then impacts the way that the whole religious system is supposed to work so and and visit the religious stuff is actually very very present in stormed bride and i i personally am very happy with the based on bread turned out um i wouldn't remotely claim that represents native american world you it doesn't what it represents is the <unk> speaking broadly of the whole cultural sphere um everybody's <unk> world view which has elements of classic greco roman and um sort of ah hindu philosophy and native american approaches and sort of the <unk> correct so christian like all of those are kind of mixed mixed in there so um it is i think at this point it's its own thing but it has on the other stuff and that's it complex cultural too [laughter] <unk> stewing in my head like obviously be be within world history is much more well obviously didn't have any any hindu whistler christianity in it because it doesn't exist [noise] [noise] right right yeah i'm always puzzled when people say that uh utopias are boring to the simple reason that people still get sick people still buy people still have family problems i'm not sure how utopias are supposed to fix human nature [noise] as opposed to organize it gets society to minimize avoidable savagely [laughter] right [laughter] well we were talking about a couple of minutes ago that's i i think that a lot of what always coming home is is looking real attempt at making me believable and non boring utopia yeah because she very clearly [noise] like the culture of the catch a lot and thinks that if they're good culture um but they still have conflict and they still have changed and people within the cash are so asshole sometimes and things like that [noise] right right and and can certainly robinson plays a lot with those ideas as well and he definitely records <unk> novels are i think along the same lines or that obviously <unk> technological society but he said they're they're robots have personal problems [laughter] right [noise] so how do you let me see how can i ask this question [noise] it is often said not entirely correctly that token wrote lord of the ring to provide a culture or his language him mhm [noise] that may be a little over state [noise] so what was the relationship or is there a continuing relationship you're airplanes for novels between the language and the novels and clearly the novel doesn't even use as much as they call them like directly at least as even token did [noise] and how do you find a balance between falling down the comeback rabbit hole and never writing you know chapter twelve [laughter] well [noise] that's a good question so i'm not quite as bad as <unk> as token in that um i find as a culture and the story interesting for their own sakes even if they have no <unk> in them and i have even been known to write stories which have no con legs in them at all [laughter] so [noise] so it is the thing that can happen um well i would say is that um i i would actually almost but at the other way i it's not so much of the culture exist for the language rather than the story exists for the culture um in that i i write the story is because i have this and that and if you're setting that i've been that i have been working on for uh <unk> over twenty years now and i'm very excited by it and i want to share it with people and so i write these i i find places in the imagined history and then the imagine cultures were interesting things are happening and i didn't write stories about those interesting things knowing that then i'm i have i have cleverly trick my readers into learning a bunch of things about the culture that i invent it now um i do keep it strong i on the fact that it has to be interesting on it for its own sake and this is this is something that i think some con laying writers don't well so in in writing we talk about world builders disease because this is actually nothing specific pecan lightning but any time that you're writing science fiction and fantasy and you're you have a lot of rolled building there's this incredible temptation to just let me show you all the things right missed barrel building and authors no to resist temptation and i tried very hard to be a good author and reasons that temptation so litter surely with thing um it's gotta be because that thing is relevant to the story uh or at least a minute drilling try my daughter just to make a relevant to the story [noise] there are there are some cases um where i actually have story ideas in you know on the back burner or things that i want to develop where from my perspective is an auto the whole reason why i want to tell the story is because it shows off a particular aspect of the world but i think it's cool um but i would i even if i can go in there with that idea i know that i still have to make the story worthwhile for itself sure um and that's why you know that's why i said it's it's sometimes useful to write stories that have no <unk> at all because of course i'm <unk> i take my craft as a writer very very seriously um possibly more serious than i did my <unk> just because my classes right or has a <unk> impact on how many readers i can reach or is that kind of the <unk> is you know and i suppose the <unk> or something which is old even led trouble to this tiny you know internet sub dish right right but if you didn't mean to me it's like you know <unk> the whole it's a tribute to michael ended all he knows if the if he didn't do the uh the detailed struck down the sistine chapel shorter mhm sure um but i do take short cuts right like as we discussed earlier but <unk> where it's uh i i didn't make a whole language for that because they didn't have time and it wasn't that important to me it was like i need these people to come and i needed he'll come and i knew that was part of the story was that they were they were coming from a different place they had this unrelated language so let's get as much as we need to get it on the page and then you know it there's that case ever want to go back to it sure yeah i i mean i've never written a novel i did not aspire to write a novel so i don't know in general how much get toss onto we'll use another another media metaphor tossed on to the cutting floor in the film or television vast amounts of material produced which is never seen um and i know that's true uh from some consulting were done in video games enormous amounts of work is done in the background which may inform the final product but it was never shown because as you say you do not need to show all the things you have a story to tell that is absolutely the case in writing i think every writer even writers working in entirely realistic genres uh will have tons of information which would they know which is meaningful ended relevant to them as the creator of the story but which does never appear on the page and the finished product and then inform to them but it doesn't isn't required for the reader knowing that um i believe that um uh getting the name william faulkner was famous for having this incredibly detailed family fame histories and geography and and max everything of the um you'll be fictional county in the deep south where he said his stories whose name is something that i is in pronounce about i can't remember what it is [noise] um [noise] and that 'cause that he's running and inherently realistic genre but he's still spend tons of effort in understanding the family history isn't the backgrounds of the characters most of which never really appeared on a page and the same thing is true in spades for science fiction and fantasy writers so much so that the biggest one of the biggest pitfalls for for beginning science fiction attachment too much of it on the page [laughter] um and i myself have to rain that instinct in when there's things going on that or <unk> or i'm putting these underpaid but she doesn't actually contribute to the story and which is actually taking away from the leaders and trade with either have to find a way to make that information actually relevant to the story or i have to put it out and then at the appendix summer even really good <unk> writers that er you know recognize <unk> really good can fall into that i've seen i've i've uh read a couple times reading like <unk> sometimes see falls into just giving you this giant info dumped it's not really necessary [laughter] yeah i think late george or mountain bike possibly [laughter] fall into <unk> for a little bit [laughter] it'll get [noise] that there's a lot of <unk> talking about uh like stuff that he's read uh soup so [laughter] yeah i mean so much of the show we talk about <unk> as she sort of artifacts in themselves but when you <unk> what kind of like into some other narrative hurts it becomes it has to be chewed through this whole process and maybe it's a little hard for some time say well you just have to throw it at all shaft on although these days that web sites where you can still shared on a website so right it becomes a possibility there that didn't exist for right and that's what we have here we have you know i have the full or i mean it's not it's not terribly comprehensive grammar but it's a pretty it's a pretty decent grammar of the <unk> language on <unk> dot com i got to work and i'm quite happy to have it up there and a lot of people taking a look at it and um i mean i'm pretty happy with that with how it came out uh but it is of course it completely extraneous and attacks of the book itself and it would be probably have a big mistake to try to put this most of the stuff into the book yeah yeah and i know there are some of these days even who publish shorts [laughter] of the scene was er this didn't add anything but yeah well especially if they're very fond of certain characters who enjoy the opportunity to read that stuff that gets <unk> it'd be they'll be obscene is actually kind of a big thing we're offers vote will provide us up to their newsletters kind of as an incentive for fans to to sign up and um so they can get these those extra those extra beds i haven't done any of that because honestly i don't think i have any <unk> any particular value um i should maybe look through my old sniffing style to see if i have something in there but [noise] um i i i'll take the conduct in the world building you know they're our world building details about the history of the <unk> and the history of the <unk> say which are up on the website which are not as not anywhere in the text so if you're that interested you can read those up there and third i feel like there's another form of this stuff that's left out that's stuff that's really like a part of what what you made but it doesn't need but it's like it's reflected in something else that happens very much like i can't like you don't need to talk much about grammar details and work on line but if you have any kind of like text in the thing then you know creating the whole con lying before that will help you to generate that yep um and i think you know probably the same thing can go for cultural history and religion and stuff yeah yeah the um oh i didn't discover interestingly in store bride because all the character named jennifer right have meetings ah the main female character we are we i mean you know and so i could have just called her minnow in the story but i chose not to i chose to use the translator rated name rather than the actions are mine are they going to come back to use a translator his name <unk> than the uh the translated name precisely because they want to give up flavor of the language and using these names that means things creative very different impression on the english speaking reader pretty good because we come from a <unk> ah you know a culture which language names don't mean things and so when you see a name that when you see characters named minnow in raven which are two of the characters up here in the book um <unk> put you in a particular frame of mind but he has actually not the frame that i wanted to beat her to interpret the story and that's an interesting thing that even i've seen that come up even in um cases of translating from another language uh sometimes in english translations of chinese stuff a lot of chinese names are have transparent meetings and sometimes the translator well actually translate the names right uh so it gets it it it it gets kind of odd sometimes when that happens right and it's like it marketed as foreign to the reader even more heavily than having it be no haven't even believe it i mean it's one thing but then i have no idea what these you mean but you know having it be a word makes it forwarded me during a completely different way yeah it's really it's i've never heard anyone really mentioned it that's a really interesting point mhm that's interesting to think about that [noise] it would be like like if you go with place place names like you know if i have a story about shanghai probably i'll just call it shanghai but if i for some reason decided to translated as over the c. that becomes very uh very weird different kinds of story [noise] yep so if you'd call if you call beijing northern capital that's uh it tells you something different and it gives you a different point of view on the events right um yeah yeah that's interesting so <unk> like so there's that there's a city in romania called <unk> which is not far from my wife lives and come to loon transparency means the long field and if i were interested in it i could you could completely native eyes that into something like causes long field which would be plausible english place name by by doing that you you almost destroy the facts like you and i tell you there's a place called long field you're going to that in some place in rural england it'd name is <unk> not actually in an english speaking country right yeah it's uh like another thing is um a variation on uh what t._v. protocols call a rabbit a smear up right where often they'll do this with like um uh with words for um for things that are like loan words or something right but they'll invent a word and this is not necessarily writers who are con language but like there are there inventing words on the spot like there there was a book i read recently gone now where like they had something that's sort of like that for every thing although it's description seems to be coffee but they call it <unk> yes k. j. b. yep that's uh that's incredibly widespread i've seen that in actually see ditch areas books where people are drinking coffee all the time but they never call it's coffee yeah nothing else do you do any uh i'm revealing that i haven't actually read your your books for for this but uh i may pick them up to to read them after this because uh you you all this stuff is very interesting to me but you do any of those techniques of like maybe translating things were making making new words even english words or con language for different kinds of things yeah everyone you know did to me i don't really know every word you choose ah impacts the story and in the world i guess <unk> invented setting choosing to use an english word or <unk> word is a significant very significant choice 'cause it it changes what knew how to read or perceived it so if i'm reading figure coffee example when i'm reading a a a science fiction and fantasy story and i am come see something which is pretty clearly coffee but which is called but something else in my mind at least i interpret that to be that okay this isn't actually coffee it's not from the bean which is native to west africa or east out er it's something which is similar though at some kind of rude bitter hot drink okay so i accept that and then move on with my life um i had an interesting choice along these lines in um <unk> one of the one of <unk> literally not look the only <unk> words they use like in line in the text is and um and that is the word it's used for the family unit and that was because i could not find the english word that had the right connotation the rights scope [noise] 'cause i could have called the clan but clan implies a much larger grouping that's like you know people who are who are rather just a related or you know probably hundreds of people come to the clan indiana's much smaller than that they want to call a tribe i didn't want to just call it a family and that was probably the closest because the anna in in the process of culture is it's it's an extended family it's all the people who have a single who sherry living ancestor are together in indiana and so you know that's three or four generations deep depending on how you know how old the answer is and it sounds like after going back and forth and not finding a good term [noise] which <unk> which that the contacts like finalist you that will use use native one um and that is you know that goes together with the general question of how you know what you call things in the context is you know i could have just use the english word clan in van relegated the details about the fact that it's maybe not quite with the reader but now you least expect based on that too the appendix but i decided that uh this was important enough i wanted to read or to notice the fact that it's not a millionaire concept and so i put in a better word in there and that's actually the biggest thing that happens when you add a con line word into a story you're demanding that the reader noticed that there is something different about it and she had to make the choice of what is it important that we don't notice what is important to read or should things out and not having a close correspondence with whatever english language concept they have right and yeah and it's really interesting and and hopefully authors will use it like for n._a. and rather than for coffee whereas know conceivable need to come up with a special trip <unk> except for the fact that it's not supposed to be in this world so maybe they feel embarrassed calling it coffee [laughter] there's some <unk> some coffee and authors there's i must put coffee in this book [laughter] but i can't call it that i know i see coffee doesn't seem like one that i would choose but i think of like you know this this all depends on like what kinds of things you describe but like things that sound a lot more like <unk> uh that are that are more obviously borrow from something like i don't know where oregano comes from but it looks like it's borrowed from romance language ah things like that maybe i might want to replace but it's still a little bit you know it it's not a strong case when you're changing something like that then with and our where basically what you're talking about is er translate ability issue right where you can't find a specific word in english that translates that so it's easier for you to use the con lying word and have some way of explaining what that means right there i'm i'm actually having this problem in a story that i'm writing right now where i i want a word that describes the servant who is directly responsible for the physical care of the <unk> the household now in the english tradition tradition the name for that sort of it is a valid um or do you <unk> have you been watching um down snappy [noise] but the the problem is that the word valid in the first place comes from french if not totally <unk> i think he doesn't <unk> it's still strikes me as a little bit <unk> and it <unk> no i don't mean ballet the word is prompted valid <unk> okay in reference to the to the servant it is exactly like ballet but it's pronounced about okay um <unk> which is you know to to enforce as with the confusion right so here's a here's this word you know we have this word valid which a a lottery or something to think is a ballet and be clearly looks french when you look at it and have heavy connotations of victorian and late medieval contacts but i'm not in a victorian era label context and so i'm a little bit i have not made up my mind currently the draft i've written that just uses the word valid but that that they one word which conveys of back what a what may [noise] um but i i'm considering either making up uh online word for it or else using some kind of <unk> location like body servant what's your number of years that basically describes the same thing um to to avoid the the negative did the decision it's the kind of cultural distance that using really valid brings in but it's a it's a difficult problem and it's a problem that that i think people are writing speculative fiction <unk> face a lot and don't always get right including me [noise] yeah the tricky because what i mean for me the simple summation of the valid problem is using that in your i mean there's all sorts of word it english that terry enormous cultural pagan dragging along behind them but we don't think about it very much whereas the ballot immediately screams costume drama exactly and so that particular were even though perfectly fine english isn't going to work here because unlike the other words the carry on baggage shortage subterranean baggage right one sense of all sorts of fireworks that hey i'm in a costume drawl yeah that's interesting too and different writers try to to solve this problem in different ways i mean i had written some i sometimes wonder if steam punk among other things is not a way to avoid these issues you get to use all those beautiful victorian terminology yeah and technology exactly so magic and all of this stuff and so you're not the fight between the vocabulary you want to use and what actually studying on is they're they're they're in line with each other which makes it much much easier but i'd still uh i i don't know i'm just sort of ah the struggle along with it right now i have i don't have the final answer [laughter] there's more than just language when you're doing that kind of rural buildings thing i have you know i've i've have a fantasy world that some day i might try uh i want to try to do like you um and write novels and i have like uh one that's like a very <unk> four draught of one but like one of my things is a lot of the government and a lot of the that has inspirations from chinese <unk> you know and i asked the chinese society and there's a thing of i think about like what colors am i going to describe things 'cause if i make everything read it in gold it's gonna be like this is china [laughter] right you know i can't sit there and it's like you know think about like not doing like food exactly like through things like that yeah um [noise] that and that is a difficult problem and sometimes it's what you want something that's not what you want yeah you know <unk> the one i'm working on right now which is probably going to be released next year um is the the culture is meant to even though [noise] india engined india mhm um so insofar as as you know the the things that i the the items and the words they use i think that due to a point that direction i'm perfectly happy with it but you didn't have the problem is there's sometimes you do need to kind of put a little bit of distance yourself and say no wait this isn't the actually the marriott empire it's it's something else so let's let's just step back a little bit and so you you would search coddling words and [noise] um i know i i have a terrible mix of like con laying words and sanskrit words and hindi words that i'm using all in the context of the book i think it's going to be terribly confusing because i i think that uh typical innocent or is not going to know which which of those are real of which of those aren't bad did [noise] um so well i have to see how that turns have [laughter] yeah and there's there's always a <unk> uh uh a danger when you have like too much focus on one foreign culture that you might get things wrong and yet do things that will upset people too so yeah that's a that's a that's a whole different ball of wax which you know <unk> <unk> probably not not right now <unk> well i mean i don't know i wonder about if anyone ever think about that sort of thing with con lines because i don't think like you have to get really into the con line to even see those influences so that is really interesting question actually i'd is an interesting question i didn't know that i've ever heard that they bring that up before yeah yeah it can be you know i i've skied ration from so many different sources but if you've got something that obviously looks like marlboro or worse yet to knowing language where those people in general do not want outsiders mourning their language than you run into some very difficult issues right i don't know anybody who create languages [noise] especially not for artistic works these days that iraq so all these different things to make a crowd star wars come into my mind was actually um they're thinking of the thing was too which is <unk> and i understand it it does actually about ready and you both have directly but it's it's it's for the allergy and it's a general structure is very close to that uh i think <unk> what are the under your languages spoken in the area which is uh is uh a leading expert in right [noise] um i honestly have never had never thought of that it might be interesting to ask him if any of the native <unk> he knows hey are aware of the calling and be care right yeah uh different groups gonna respond differently i think there's it seems to me in general you have the language as a <unk> <unk> which is how most people interact these thing right and then you have the very important <unk> subtle personal uh cultural thing that might be included in that language in my opinion including important religious social cultural madder in your car my is uh much more touchy issue that have like i said all the g. that makes me think of you know <unk> whether you or something right you know that's that's that's probably true and that you know we were three white guys talking about this right [laughter] uh like i'd like to hear from if there are any buddy is anybody listening to you know is from uh uh i don't know if there's anybody who is listening but if there's anybody who's listening from a group that you know has a lot of uh has experienced a lot of like appropriation and stuff was what they think about this sort of thing and and you know you can do that in the comments or or email us that would be an interesting thing but uh my general idea would be like [noise] when in my own con lining i feel more comfortable with using something from another language and using it as inspiration to create my own thing then copying something from an existing natural language like wholesale sure well no i mean naturalistic on i guess they want to do that anyway that just really it's not it's kinda it's kind of silly to do that anyway yeah but uh right yeah that's a it's an interesting question [noise] um so how big offset briefly whatever happened to the art language rent that website this long [laughter] um i don't want to come back well not <unk> i so i took that down at about the same time i moved like wanted to make j. f. bangs dot com my primary online hob [laughter] um [noise] so i have everything from the old gas masks dot com saved and it will all eventually reappear out probably put some kind of i don't know disclaimer is probably the wrong word mainly like uh an update and on my current thinking um when i put those back up there but i actually intend to have those up at some point in you know when i get those that copious free time that we're all waiting for sure sure no that would be very interesting a commentary ten years later however many years it's been since that thing [noise] exactly yeah i know it's um it's more than ten year things probably twelve <unk> that's the point yeah yeah well the other things you <unk> you know the european grammar is all it went up there too you ever in grammar is nowhere on line right now and i just need to get the old <unk> scrape together and put back up on my <unk> not on page so and i really like <unk> like to do that one last comment that about about uh <unk> one thing that i just don't even talking about how to accommodate the english speaking reader so one thing that i did and i just remembered that i didn't want to bring it up was that i actually um he did some of them are thought graffiti from the reader physically several of the names of the <unk> in the book properly should have killed was to indicate nasal bottles or accents on some of the confidence uh and i took all those out in in the main texture the book itself be on the theory that um the names aren't some <unk> some of the names are difficult enough for the reader anyway and so we don't want us to add the additional stress um having to see an accent mark which is we know causes english speakers to break out in hives indoor high [laughter] yeah and you might have been [noise] that's the <unk> you mentioned in your grammar document that you have a book or it's harder for the right soon that's what that is uh i think that's a good idea for like names and such proposing some sort of like uh uh uh more of a a native <unk> just anglo size name mhm works 'cause you don't want to overburden people with a bunch of very foreign names that they can't pronounce so did you just strict um i just strips them away yeah strip them off you come up with some alternate way to spell things so some actors actresses authors care a lot that the author <unk> people pronounce names properly and other people like [laughter] it's just a story <unk> here's the thing the the biggest one i actually did a little bit of both [noise] well i don't remember now um [noise] i mostly just strip them away uh except for the <unk> <unk> which is <unk> and the <unk> which is <unk> i uh replaced with s._a._g. and she and c. h. respectively um the one the other one's the knees about stripped away on the through the english speakers don't want to pronounce those in the ass acute is meant to be retro flex which is another thing the english speakers aren't going to pronounce anyway and so i uh i just took that out yeah <unk> it was it was fine uh <unk> none of the names were distorted so far enough that i was too worried about them and it's kinda fun so i talked to my parents who read the book but who are not a not linguistically informed and being not big leaders of the fantasy genre and they said that the names were right up to the edge of what they were willing to accept before throwing the books across the room so [laughter] [laughter] so i think i've i i'm i'm i keep an eye on that but i thought i don't want to alienate the the less dedicated or too much sure well um where uh running a little bit long i'd love to have you on here for much longer and uh i have like questions about <unk> that i would like to ask you but we've had a very long wonderful discussion i don't wanna um over tired the listeners so um i think ah we <unk> we can start wrapping up here if you have any final things you want to say or or anything mentioned where you can buy your books or whatever then um yeah i will get a quick plug through the book the book as you mentioned a couple of times is called stormed bride from rented that publishing you can get it in a book or paperback from amazon barnes and noble basically any wherever you can buy i think the paperback 'cause actually only on amazon ah but you can get a book anywhere um and it's it's definitely some story i think i like it and if you're interested i do have an offer newsletter that you can find <unk> dot com [noise] um and i have a new series uh with <unk> in the same world which i'm probably going to launch next year so you can look forward to that [noise] okay that sounds great uh <unk> it was great [noise] all right uh with that i'm going to say happy con line [noise] thank you for listening coupons [noise] you can find our our times in sherman oaks <unk> dot com [noise] support us on patriotic <unk> dot com flashed on line or [noise] you can also find this <unk> quarter and <unk> and if you would like to hear your online featured on the top [laughter] so you could look at our [noise] per view has the truck or what you translate how to spend [noise] <unk> weapons bases provided by the language [noise] refund society and our music is by no divide [noise]

Tags

  1. Conlangery Podcast
  2. Podcast
  3. conlang
  4. conworlding
  5. JS Bangs
  6. language
  7. linguistics
  8. Praseo
  9. writing
  10. Yivrian

Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 111 Interview with JS Bangs (last edited 2017-09-09 22:47:45 by TranscriBot)