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Questioner
Your languages in Stormlight, do you have a way you do names and such?
Brandon Sanderson
Usually there's two different ways that I approach it. If I'm going to spend a lot of time in the linguistics, I'll look for linguistic themes like in Stormlight it's names that are symmetrical or things like that. If I need to shortcut, I'm going to look for an Earth culture and I'm going to use the language kind of based on more themes from that culture and the sounds they have and try to replicate that but not using the actual words from that culture.
Brandon Sanderson
I often, when I'm building languages, there are a lot of different ways that I go. I am not a philologist like Tolkien was. I'm not a linguist. Peter is, my editorial assistant, but I am not. I have had a little bit of schooling in linguistics, but not enough to be creating complete con-langs out of nowhere. So I'm usually using a few tricks to develop my language, one of which is to look for historical languages and seek inspiration from them.
And the pitch for myself on the whole thing, in Fjorden, was what if the Vikings had created a very hierarchical religion like Catholicism, and had instead of conquering the world as Viking, Nordic destroyers, they had become a religious group. They're really based off of the Geats, which is Beowulf's people, which are Nor--are British, they're British Vikings, basically. And so when I was developing them, I was using a bit of Nordic--old Nordic and things like that--and I'm using a bit of old English, and just trying to get that feel. In Beowulf, because in Beowulf they have some Danes and you have some people from the British isles, and there's this crossing over, and things like this, and it's this interesting sort of mix and hodge-podge of cultures and languages, from, 1000AD, and i really liked that feel, I really liked that linguistic flavor, so to speak, and so, I was really reaching towards lots of names out of Beowulf as inspiration.
Questioner
In The Way of Kings, the first Dawnchant translation by Navani reads: “To be human is to want that which we cannot have.” Ironically, what I want and cannot have is more information about that language. If a fully constructed version of the Dawnchant were to appear in the future, what linguistic features would you incorporate to reflect specific cultural aspects of the Dawnsingers? And do you have an idea of how it would sound? If so, could you give us a quick demonstration?
Brandon Sanderson
This is a challenge I'm going to leave for an eventual TV or film adaptation and be like: “You guys figure it out.” Original Dawnchant would incorporate some of the way that the singers speak. The thing about it is… I’ve always imagined that the Rhythms that they’re adding add context in a way that the text doesn't have to give. So I don't imagine it tonal in the way that Chinese, the various Chinese dialects are, right? I more imagine it as more like sign language, where you can add emotion through the way that you're doing the signs, and things like that, than a tonal language. Because you can pair what you're saying with any of the Rhythms, rather than having them being innate. And so I didn't want the text itself to change, does that make sense? Because you add it on? So, someone experiencing it is much like speaking to them in any language, but I think it would probably have, like, extra pauses and very long vowels, and things like this, to give extra time for those Rhythms to really manifest themselves.
Questioner
Both the languages described in Warbreaker and The Stormlight Archive contain a letter or glyph called the shash. Is that a consequence of both languages originating from a common root language on Yolen or is there something more complicated going on?
Brandon Sanderson
Less complicated.
Questioner
With Connection, you can make people understand the language of the place that they’re in by changing their native language for people who are multilingual. So my question is regarding people who grow up bilingual, how does that interact with it?
Brandon Sanderson
There are multiple ways to interact with that. One would be to replace one of the languages. But also, you can make Connection with more advanced uses to not just replace but to add to, and you’ll see people figuring that out. Or to change, kind of, your past in a little bit of a Forging way where it’s like, "You practiced this all when you were young." And so, there are lots of different ways it can manifest, depending on the skill of the person who is making that bond.
Questioner
I myself grew up with Spanish and English, and there’s this thing called Spanglish. Which, some people really grew up with Spanglish rather than the two languages.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, that could totally totally happen. In fact, you can tell. Here’s an example: You can tell, in certain books, when someone has a bit of an accent or they use a bit of something like that, that often times that’s a tell. Like, if someone has no accent, they may be using magical means to circumvent. And if they do have a bit of an accent, then they may have learned it; or they may have been bilingual, and they’re adding on, or things like that. So, it can be a tell.
