Fantasist's Scroll

A whistling language?

Sure, why not! Not too long ago, someone on one of the many conlang e-mail lists I’m on started talking about a whistle-based language. I have to admit, I thought it was quite intriguing. I started to picture a bird-like race that might have developed such a language. In fact, I thought that someone had finally come up with a unique, new idea for a conlang. Nope.
At least, not according to this article on CNN.com. It seems there’s a whistle language that’s existed for quite some time in the Canary Islands. Unfortunately, it’s a language that’s started to die off already. But, on the bright side, the government is working at preserving it. In fact, they’ve gone so far as to require lessons in it in their schools in an attempt to preserve this highly unusual language. The article also mentions the “First International Congress of Whistled Languages” which also brought in experts in whistled languages found in Greece, Turkey, China and Mexico.
Just goes to show, I guess, that nothing we can imagine is so alien that it can’t exist! Let that be a lesson to you aspiring writers out there as you invent languages, and worlds, for your fiction!!

No, really, it’s the history of sewers.

Anyone who’s ever talked to me about creating realistic worlds or fantasy settings knows that my pet peeve is a lack of sanitary facilities. No one ever seems to go to the “loo”, as the British put it. Very rarely does anyone venture into the sewers after an alien or mutant. But, a lot of city design is driven by the need to dispose of “waste” in an efficient, and safe, manner. Castles could be attacked via an unprotected privy. Criminals can escape via the sewers. And, more importantly, bad sanitation can cause huge epidemics, not to mention effecting the “quality of life” for a city’s citizens.
Don’t believe me? Well, check out The History of Sanitary Sewers. It’s all true. Every last goopy detail. Great site. A crap-load of information, if you’re pardon the pun! Check it out!

At least, in a limited capacity.

After much thought, and reworking of code, I’ve decided to bring back the popular ConLang Word Generator. It functions basically the same, but will only generate a maximum of 25 words at a time. Hopefully, that will not be too big a burden on the server.
However, rest assured that if I get even the slightest hint of trouble, I’ll have to take it down. It was pretty touch and go last time I had a popular script running that killed my web host’s server, so I’m not taking any chances this time.

And, stay tuned for a new, totally different, word generator! Coming soon to a web page near you!!

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!

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!

Happy Birthday H.P. Lovecraft!

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born today in 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the creator of the Necrnomicon, which is a ficticious book which he used as a prop in his writing. It was, however, so believable that there are still people who insist that it is a real book and that they’ve seen a copy. (It’s not and they haven’t. What they saw was a way for someone to make money of their gullability.)
A very nice website on his life and work can be found at HPLovecraft.com, which includes a list of all his writings. The title of this enty is based on one of those titles (The Colour Out of Space.) If you haven’t read his work, you’ve been living under a rock. Get out from under it, get yourself to a bookstore or library and read something he wrote!

An odd, little item that caught my attention…

In this commentary from the Guardian, a couple of interesting sociological phenomena were brought to my attention.
First, the clever way of dealing with armed robbery in a restraunt. It seems that in certain “unruly” neighborhoods in Honduras, women always order red wine. The reason being that it’s easier to hide their jewelry in their red wine than in white wine. Apparently, they’ve discovered that hiding their jewels in their drinks is an effective way of foiling the robbers.
Second, the whole culture of Americans essentially buying a trophy wife in Latin American countries. Middle-aged men are apparently offering younger women from Latin American countries security in exchange for, well, whatever middle-aged men get from having a trophy wife.

What got me thinking about these two things, though, was how odd it seems to my American way of thinking. So, if my culture skews my vision on this, what else does it do that I’m not aware of? How does that effect my description of a created culture? Sure something to think about as we create our unique, fantasy worlds.