How often do you get halfway through a fantasy novel and realize you need to revamp the primary language of your world? Meaning you have to change all the names and words throughout your book?…
It happens to me way more often than I’d like. I’m sure it happens to you a lot, too. And yet for some reason this critical issue, which affects our day to day standard of living, is barely talked about in society at large. Strange.
I’m over 50K words into “Return to Sagaia,” and I’ve realized that the Sagaian language just won’t do. It doesn’t look right. It doesn’t sound right. It’s wrong. Wrong like naming a hobbit “Hans”. Wrong like a bright orange paisley hat and a pink polka dot tie.
Sagaian is supposed to give the impression of a Celtic language heavily influenced by Latin and English. Instead, with names like An-Láan, Cúrt Pára Bál, and even the word Sagaia, it looks more like Hungarian or Latin.
- “Sagaia” itself, which is Latin for “the Land of the Seer,” is a lovely name and has an excellent resonance with “Narnia” and the “Norns”, but (a) it’s really too obviously Latin, and (b) it’s inconsistent with the rest of the language: in Sagaia’s writing system, it should really be spelled Sagía. But for English speakers, Sagía suggests suh-JEE-uh.
- “An-Láan”, the name of a primary spirit of Sagaia, has a great meaning (“the Lion”) and sound (on LAY-un) and nicely echoes “Aslan”, but again, the spelling is unclear and not aesthetically pleasing.
- “Cúrt Pára Bál”, the name of Sagaia’s capital, is the same: I like how it means “the Court of the Two (River) Mouths,” and sounds like “COORT PAY-ruh BAIL,” echoing Cair Paravel; but the spelling doesn’t work.
- Another random example: “siaith” is an important word, meaning “spirit,” but I hate how it looks and how it sounds. Sagaian borrowed the Latin spiritus and over a thousand years or so it developed into this word, but it just didn’t bake properly.
I considered changing the language’s spelling system so that it would look more like Irish or Welsh. But the pronunciations of those words are often opaque to English speakers as well. “Cuirt Peire Beill” and “suiadh” may look more Irish, but they’re not much easier to figure out how to pronounce.
The Sindarin Solution
I was stuck for a long time, but then I realized that Tolkien faced much the same problem with Sindarin. He wanted the language to have a Welsh sound and feel, but he didn’t want the most difficult parts of Celtic spelling conventions. While not everyone can easily tell how to pronounce Tolkien’s names (it’s not immediately clear, for example, that Celeborn should be pronounced Keleborn), I felt that what worked for Tolkien would work for me. I decided to rework my Sagaian spelling conventions to be more like Sindarin.
I found that there actually wasn’t much to change, but a few critical fixes to very common sounds made all the difference. “í” would be the sound of beet, not bite. The “â” of bat would just be spelled “a”, as would the a of father and caught. The “á” of bait would be “ei”.
While I was at it, I decided to tweak the sound changes as well. Irish’s palatalization would be preserved, but instead of spelling it by adding an ‘e’ or an ‘i’ on either side of the consonant, the consonant would be doubled. So, for example, Irish leon, “lion”, would be spelled llon. I disposed of affricates, opting instead for more aspiration, so that the ch sound would become hs. I made many smaller changes, too.
Here are my example words in their new form:
- Sahía. The name of the country is now Sahía, Sahaia or Sagaia. Sagaia is the oldest form, dating back to the time of the Witch Alpasaia (formerly Alpasaga), and still the most used, but is often pronounced Sahía or Sahaia in casual speech.
- The Lion is now An-Lían or Anllan, both pronounced roughly the same (depending on dialect).
- The Court of the Two Mouths is now Cúrtt Píria Bíal.
- The word for “spirit” is now sfíríht or fíríht.
A more involved example:
- Earlier version: Ta nadú aghat eleá aghat póit aghaa, aghat muaa láu šir, cadh iš láu?
- Current version: Agsídmei nattúr aias art aias poetícca, aias cahein ní llor hsín, cat tasei llor?
- Meaning: I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough? (Van Gogh)
So I’m extremely excited. The next task is to go through all the names and words in Sagaian (or Sahían) that I’ve developed so far and update them in the text. At the same time, I’m going to be making a small glossary of terms. Both the updated draft novel and the glossary will be available to Patreon subscribers here.
Ahams ac súll go lletfí Anllan!
at-1stSg-3rdSg ACC hope COMP with-3rdSg-2ndSg-FUT Anllan
“I have hope that the Lion will be with you”
May the Lion be with you!
