Country Names (continued)
I love the Witcher series (books and games). I think Sapkowski is one of the wittiest writers of dialogue, and he creates excellent characters that I really care about while I'm reading. They're so rich I can even get past the frequent lack of a plot
But I really struggle to get past his Celtic/Nordic conlang
I had never read fantasy that incorporated any other real world language (besides English of course). But I speak Irish and this is just one of the languages that Sapkowski incorporates into his writing. But it seems to me that he doesn't actually speak Irish (due to how he uses it) and it only serves to repeatedly take me out of the story. It just seems clumsy.
Perhaps for the majority of readers this doesn't happen because they don't speak Irish (or one of the other languages he's mashed into his world). Perhaps it creates a seamless impression of a Viking-like race? And isn't this real world grounding what I'm advocating in my above posts?
Well, yes. But I think it could be done better, that's all.
I have no problem playing around with English because it's my native language. Grimmsmouth city already has over 700 named elements and they all feel coherent to me because I understand English and (hopefully) know how to manipulate it to create the impression I want. I could maybe make a passable attempt at manipulating Irish, too.
But that's where I'd have to stop. If I messed around too much with Japanese it is very likely I'd only serve to knock the Japanese speakers out of my map over and over again. Fine if that's my intention, but it's not.
So in Clover I'll base the names off of Irish. But I'll hide them behind an anglicised version and won't go into what's happening in the background. I also have a WIP idea about how to represent this in an actual map so hopefully I'll go into that next.
Thanks for reading