The creation of spells and languages in fiction stories?

Question

I'm on the verge of possibly writing a story that features fantasy characters like witches, elves, wizards, and so on. I was inspired by a lot of fantasy books like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and one thing I was curious about was the authors' inspiration of coming up with spells and languages. I suppose some looked at old languages or latin and drew from them. Is that their explaination for it? I didn't exactly look at the history of how they did it.
The way it's written, it makes it seem like it's a language used all around. For instance, elf language. I read a few stories here and there with elven language and names, and I've never really looked at the difference in their creation, but I assume they are unique for the tale. Anyways, what are some of your opinions/suggestions on creating spells and languages. I'm especially curious when it comes to the evlen language. I've been to the site where you can create elven names from a generator, but I'm trying to avoid that.

Answer 1

Tolkien did a monumental feat. Do not try this at home.

I have learned Spanish, German, and Russian....but I would not attempt to invent a language, because it would take too much work to make it credible.

I have written a novel that has aliens, and I created a few alien words that are based on a mix of Spanish and Russian, but I won't go further than that: It's just not worth it.
If it's done badly, it will show.

I will use other ways to make sure I don't need to invent a whole language.

By the way, the Star Trek folks hired a real linguist to make the Klingon language. They didn't let the show's writers just do it themselves. But they didn't bother making any other alien languages.

Answer 2

Tolkien was a learned scholar who took from a variety of languages other than Latin to create his Elven language. It actually is a fully formed language, with grammar rules (etc) like any other language. I'm positive that he spent a very long time working on it. There are people who actually study the language and can 'speak' it. Anyway, as for Harry Potter, JK Rowling put a twist on some Latin words to make spells.

If you want to be creative with your fantasy names, I would just choose something that looks unique to you. And so it does not look like you pulled names out of the blue, have them relate to each other. For instance, a trend with Elven names could be that they relate to nature in some form. You can even use a online Latin dictionary to help you find 'bases'. For instance, the moon is also called 'Luna'. If you want to put a spin on Luna as a name for a character, but want to keep its base meaning, add some letters, switch them around. For example, I just made an Elven Priestess who prays to the moon, her name is Illunia (*shrugs*). Take an idea and run with it.

Anyway, those are just examples of how I would go about it.

Answer 3

I would look at book websites like alagaisia.com (from Eragon books) and then research the Latin language. Most of the words that the fantasy authors use for spells and languages are based on the Latin language. I took Latin for a year and you would be surprised on how much of a similarity there is between the Latin language and the spells and languages used in fantasy books. If Latin doesn't work, try using the Romance languages (the languages derived from Latin) to help you.

Answer 4

Well, Tolkien was a professor of the Anglo-Saxon language. And he'd studied Ancient Greek and Old Norse as well as taught Old and Middle English, Germanic, Old Icelandic, and Medival Welsh. So working with languages was something he was already used to when he created the artifical languages for "The Lord of the Rings."

Answer 5

JRR Tolkien was a professor of Olde English at ---- I think Cambridge, but it could have been Oxford -- its been a long time since I read his biography.

He also used the root language from which Finnish came for some of his Dwarven tongues.

May I suggest that you pick up a copy of the Tolkien dictionary. or use the online Tolkien sites I've linked below, or both. Just remember to credit him if you use his languages directly, particularly if you hope to sell your stories.

Kind thoughts,

Reynolds Jones
[e-mail]
(RPGA 50 053 C)

Answer 6

there's a lot archaeological information; of route, Jerusalem exists and is going again to antiquity. of route, there are Jews and non-jews contained in the Mideast. As to information: It changed into prophesied through truly some in both previous and New testomony that the Jews must be pushed out of Jerusalem, and then, a lot later ought to go back. This, of route, has exceeded off. None of those products absolutely proves the Bible is real, noticeably reckoning on what your criteria of reality and information are. In any journey, the important objective of the Bible isn't a lot to be a self-referencing information to itself, yet really to coach us knowledge and morality as regards diety. finally "information" is someone element; one reads it and applies its concepts and teachings in a unmarried's existence, and searching them to be good and viable, and to grant you a extra positive existence, then the Bible turns right into a handbook that can help you stay a extra spiritually mature and non violent existence. the purely "authentic" information you'll ever have is reading it your self and making use of its teachings and sorting out for your self on that factor. finally, enable's do somewhat questioning about your question: the Bible as an total hasn't ever been completely shown, yet some such issues as i discussed above have shown out real. you're also asking us to teach a negative, it extremely is a philosophical impossibility. And, if the boogeyman got here as a lot as you and said he changed into authentic, doesn't you a minimum of supply him the great factor about the doubt that, convinced, certainly, he will be?

Answer 7

This is your research portion of the project. You can come up with whatever you want. Make yourself a dictionary. Start with one or two simple words then expand on it. Establish a pattern. As for spells, whatever works for you. Just have fun with it, but take the time to do the research before you begin.
----
They're, Their, There - Three Different Words.

Careful or you may wind up in my next novel.

Pax - C