Remember the Reith Lectures of V S Ramachandran, in which, 98% of his audience thought that a jagged figure that Ramachandran showed to be the Martian alphabet for kiki and a more rounded one bubba? Jo Walton seems to recommend a similar strategy here (link via Brad DeLong):
Also, if you want to have two fantasy countries that are different from each other, make all the different choices for the other language. (Excluded vowel becomes favoured vowel, etc.) That way their names and words sound different from each other, even if the reader can’t tell exactly how, but the patterns will be consistent for each one.
The Gonovians and the Camavese really will seem like different people.
A very interesting piece indeed!
Tags: Jo Walton
