Making Up Words
Literally, rather than metaphorically
I am not J.R.R. Tolkien. Thus, I do not have a handful of elaborate, fully literate fictional languages hanging about for my books to rest on. I have no desire to have such things. If you do, that’s amazing. Honestly and without snark, you’re awesome.
For the rest of us, here’s how I make names and words for my stories.
First, I go to fantasynamegenerators.com and poke around there. This site is amazing and I use it all the time. Click the link even if you’re not interested, just to up her ad-revenue. Seriously good stuff.
Second, I use google translate. I know, I know. Poor Google-T rides the struggle bus some days:
I’m sorry, what did you say, young man?
This feels like a passage from some holy book.
?????
But the Google can be used in less confusing ways. I start by picking a random language. Usually something not too close to English, but you decide what fits your culture. Slavic languages are especially good, I think. They have strong phonetics that I find appealing.
Then I pick a descriptive word. Strong, bright, angry, happy, nervous, etc. Then I translate. Maybe cycle through a few languages until I get a sound I like.
Then I start splicing.
How about… Za’sre? Or Oljan?
Maybe Za’sre means ‘happy one’ and is a popular name for babies in your fictional culture. It causes confusion at school, because there are four ‘Za’sre’ children in their class. There were three Anna’s in my third-grade class, which was weird because I have never been in another class or job with an Anna before or since. And our last initials were all ‘M’ so we each had a special symbol we’d put on our papers. (Mine was a smiley face.) It was like one of those thought experiments about monkeys and typewriters and chaos theory.
Do this same thing for common words: mother, father, cup, chair, yes, no, mountain. Swear words, names of saints or gods, or alien worlds. Then, please, I beg you, write them down somewhere so you can remember them. I made a table:
Make phrases that are not literal translations of the words. Idioms, common prayers, anything your characters might say habitually. If your world is large enough, it is unlikely everyone will speak the same dialect, even if they use the same language.
Let your characters say the wrong thing. Fumble over the translation or hear something offensive or funny in a normal word in another language. You don’t have to write entire epic poems (looking at you, JRRT), but even just a few snippets of something can add depth to your world.
How do you make up words? Do you keep a dictionary? Let me know in the comments!
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