I’ve always been a sucker for a fictional glossary. Ever since Tolkien got the ball rolling with his appendicies and I discovered the concept of world-building ( I’m looking at you Frank Herbert & Robert Jordan, may they both rest in peace.) I’ve loved the art of the created world and, by extention, the art of the created word. Our The Hunt for Pierre Jnr author David M. Henley is taking part in the Digital Writers’ Festival this month and he will be crafting his own world’s glossary live at 1pm on Thursday 13th Feb- creating in-world definitions for words like “Symbiot” or “Squib” live. The Festival are calling it a “glossaring”, which I’m pretty sure is a made-up word right there!
Like good world-building, fictional words add depth and a sense of realism to an otherwise unrealistic scenario. You don’t have to create an entire lexicon of words, specialised grammer and pronounciation guide ( though it is awesome if you do ), but a liberal sprinkle of created titles, traditions and names can really spice up a good story and draw a reader into the world. Often the best place to start is to identify what makes the world or society different and expand the logical consequences of that difference to the way the world and its people think. If a particular cultural activity dominates the world’s society then it only makes sense that their language would centre around that activity and generate words to deal with it. The Doth’raki in A Song of Ice and Fire have a culture centred around the horse and combat, so their words and language do as well (Though it is notable that GRRM himself only created a few key words for use in his books, whereas the TV show had to expand those words to create a language their actors could use.).
The words themselves can of course be entirely new creations from your own imagination, but another common way to help create a believable system of fictional words is to base words or titles on those of real languages, past or present. Elements of Tolkien’s languages were derived from Old English, Norse and Finnish. The language spoken by the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi is based on Kalmyk, a language spoken by the Kalmyk people of Russia. GRRM’s land of ‘Westeros’ is quite possibly inspired by the archaeic northern Scottish names of the east and west of their land: ‘Wester Ross’ and ‘Easter Ross’ ( where ‘Ross’ comes from the Gaelic word meaning ‘a headland’ )
Be it the odd culturally specific word (Frak from Battlestar Galactica. Muggles from Harry Potter. Gjomviks from Steve Wheeler’s A Fury of Aces.) or a whole subset of terms and titles the words themselves can be entirely created or based on the concepts behind them (Replicants from Bladerunner, The Weave from The Hunt for Pierre Jnr, The Games Board from A Fury of Aces) they all really add something to the story and give both the characters and the reader an easy handle to understand the new worlds the writers have created. Having a glossary of these new words at the back of a book gives the reader an easy way to remember their meanings as well as adding an air of academic realism to a fictional book. I can see how some people may not like them because a glossary by its very nature points out the need to define the words, which some readers may feel the writing should do by itself, but personally, and this may be some of my own OCD tendencies coming to the fore, I’ve always enjoyed the sense of order and categorisation a glossary brings to a world as well.
It’s also remarkable to note how many made up words are now in common use, most notably ‘Cyberspace’ from William Gibson’s Neuromancer ( itself a great example of a concept-based fictional word ) and ‘Robot’- which both were coined to describe then fictional concepts that later became realised in some form. Do you have a favourite fictional word? Let me know!
