Fantasist's Scroll

I just finished reading The Scar by China Mieville this weekend.

It was quite as satisfying as his last book, Perdido Street Station. Quite different in character, though. In fact, The Scar, despite its name, was a bit more upbeat than Perdido Street Station. One odd thing, though… The cover mentioned a character from Perdido Street Station, namely Issac Grimnebulin, but he never shows up in the book at all, except as on off-hand reference. But, that aside, it was quite good. And, now, with spoilers in place, here’s a run down of the plot.
The Scar opens with one Bellis Coldwine, a linguist, waiting for her ship to dock. She’s a linguist in the sense of being a polyglot as well as someone who studies languages. In fact, she uses a kind of trance and magic to learn languages much more quickly than a normal person would. This, actually, was one of many interesting concepts thrown out.
Very quickly, though, our heroine is thrown into turmoil as her ship is hijacked by pirates and she, and her fellow crewmates, are press-ganged into a floating, pirate city called Armada. Then, the plot takes a definate turn. It gets ever more fantastic from here on. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Our heroine is not very pleased at being assimilated into this free-booter’s city, especially since her only other option is death. There is no going home for her. And, in part as rebellion against that death sentence, she gets involved in a plot. A plot, she thinks, that is meant to save her city, the New Crobuzon of Perdido Street Station, from terrible water demons, the near-mythical grindylow. Along the way, her linguistic talents are used to summon up a mythical sea-beast which is meant to pull Armada through the sea. Of course, things don’t work out like anyone plans.

It’s a rolling, rollicking fun-filled adventure with pirates on the high-seas! Okay, not really. It’s dark, morose and about illusions shattered by soulless agents of the government in their merciless quest for a little more power and money. Very gritty. Very realistic. Very good.

Three new additions to our conlang resources!

One of the places that I got my interest in conlangs is from the Dragon Magazine. In honor of that source of inspiration, I have uploaded word lists and basic grammar of three conlangs from the Dragon. All three are originally by Sean K. Reynolds. They’re pretty basic languages, but they do add flavor to a Dungeons and Dragons campaign! Actually, they could be used in any fantasy role-playing game, but the Dragon is mainly focused on Dungeons and Dragons.

In any case, Dwarven, Elven and Draconic are all uploaded, so enjoy them!

Just something that touched me.

I read a lot about a lot of things. One subject that I tend to enjoy reading about online is conlanging. One of the more well known people in conlanging is Jeffrey Henning, who runs Langmaker.com. But, he has a whole other side that a lot of us don’t really know. I stumbled across it the other day. As an example of how deep a person he is, I offer his Forgiveness Prayer.

Freakishly, we can still raed them.

And, you probably just did. Yes, that misspelling of “read” was on purpose. I did it as an example of what Kourosh Saberi of Caltech, Pasadena, and David R. Perrott of California State University, Los Angeles, California have discovered about how we “see” words. According to this article on Nature.com, we apparently don’t usually read all the letters in a word, just the first and last. The rest of the letters can be there in almost any order and we’ll still “see” the right word. It’s bizarre, but apparently true, to a certain extent, of course.
Hmm, I wonder if that’s why I have such trouble spelling?
In any case, it’s an interesting article and idea. Go check it out.

A good book, but only for the dedicated.

I recently finished The Language Instinct : How the Mind Creates Language by Stephen Pinker, which is a rather long “proof” of his theory that humans are born with an internal “instinct” for language. It’s a fairly readable book, but it does start to really drag at the end. I wouldn’t recommend it as the first linguistics book for someone new to the field, but it’s not a bad second or third. (For the best introductory book, see my review of Teach Yourself Linguistics.)
But, that being said, it really does a good job of going over some of the basics of linguistics. Pinker explains grammar, phonology, morphology and Chomsky’s Universal Grammar theory. In fact, his explanation of phonology is the first that made it clear to me. Of course, I’m a non-linguist and totally self-taught, so take that for what it’s worth. What’s more, Pinker also covers language change and historical linguistics. He talks about these two in terms of how language may have become innate. Or, at least, how the basic grammatical structures may have become innate “instincts” over time. It’s a fascinating view of how language works and how we human beings learn it.
Pinker also debunks several language myths, including the Eskimo “words for snow” myth and the “animals can learn our language” myth. In fact, he spends quite a lot of time talking about the apes that “learned” sign-language. It seems there was more than a little bias in the studies and no small amount of sloppy science, too.

Overall, I found The Language Instinct to be very readable and quite accessible to the average reader. The last hundred pages, or so, dragged since it felt like Pinker was beating a dead horse. If he couldn’t convince his readers in the first 300 pages that there were parts of language that are instinctual, that last 100 pages weren’t going to help.
That being said, though, it’s still a “must read” for anyone doing any conlang work. It explores language from a broad view and provides invaluable insights into how language works. Well, worth the effort to get through the few rough spots.

No, I am not making this up!

According to this article on The New Scientist, researchers have done work with human echolocation. And, I don’t mean standard sonar, either. Personal echolocation. What’s freaky is that it works better than they expected! Regular humans were able to track down a virtual “insect” in a virtual reality setting using modified bat echolocation signals. So far, that’s about all researcher Dean Waters has been able to accomplish, but he’s hoping that the military and other businesses will get interested. In the meantime, though, he’s happy enough getting a better idea of what it’s like to hear like a bat.

Well, I actually finished this book sometime ago, but just got to writing the review.

Hey, it’s been a busy month! In any case, Aliens and Linguists: Language Study and Science Fiction by Walter Earl Meyers is a really good book and worth hunting up in the used book market. Published in 1980, it’s a little out of date and very out of print, but still a good look at some of the way linguistics has been used, and abused, in science-fiction. Of course, there is also the prerequisite discussion of the most famous conlanger of all, J.R.R. Tolkien. But, mostly this book focuses on science-fiction.
A fair part of the book is spent criticizing the lack of good language use in science-fiction. Highlights include aliens that all speak our language. Or find it ridiculously easy to learn. But, also, the lack of language variation is hammered home as well as other similar errors. Another area of criticism is the lack of up-to-date use of theories and linguistic science in current, at the time, science-fiction. Linguistics, as well as the other so called “soft-sciences” were just getting their hooks into science-fiction at the time.
But, Meyers finds plenty to be happy about, as well. Sure, most writers took the Worf-Saphir theory way too far, but at least they were aware enough of it to use it. There are other good examples of linguistics in science-fiction as well.
Most interesting to me, was Meyers discussion of how aliens might approach language. First, there is every reason to believe that they will have language. It takes a lot of communication to get off a planet! Second, Meyers indicates that, while that language may be wildly different from our own, there’s a good possibility that we can learn it, eventually. Meyers also explores alternate methods of using language, including how telepathy might work from a linguistic point of view.

In all, it was a great read. Especially if you want to write fiction about a “realistic” created world. Language is a part of every culture that we know of, so it must be part of a created culture, as well. A completely enjoyable book and a fascinating subject.

A tutorial for Tolkien’s Elvish.

At least, how to write in Tengwar. It’s pretty cool, even though it is pretty technical. Still, if you’re a Tolkien conlang freak, it’s well worth the effort. And, I have to admit, this tutorial makes it pretty easy for the Nu-B, too.
Enjoy!