Okay, so I have a high-fantasy story based roughly on mid-17th century to mid-18th century, mostly in a European-esque region. I was thinking of having some slang and other specific terms be world-specific. I was thinking about some alt-world swears earlier, but I also thought of the term "halfmind" as kind of an equivalent to "halfwit" or "retard". As well as more obviously terms related to unique concepts, like magic terminology. My question is how much new terminology should there be, particularly in the area of concepts we have a word for where it might seem silly or intrusive?
Enough so that the likes of 'halfmind' don't scream out from the page as anomalies as a bare minimum. I guess from there it's up to you. Edit: Made me think of the term 'prole'. I guess that wasn't used too strangely.
The example I was thinking of is the mixed reception of the nouveau-slang in Batman of the Future/Batman Beyond, among others.
Have you read the Dark Tower series? You can get away with a lot, if you're consistent. Sometimes that sort of language takes some getting used to in the beginning of a story, but at some point, it's just part of world building. Go nuts.
A few things to consider: Slang - true slang, not all the other things that get mislabeled as slang - has some very specific features to it. True slang serves a very specific purpose. It serves as an in-group identifier. It says "we who use these words acknowledge a kinship of some kind". That kinship can be anything. Ethnicity, age-bracket, shared interest, anything. But the kinship is key and core. This is why true slang is nearly always ephemeral and short-lived. As soon as out-group people start using the word, it no longer serves its purpose as identifier and becomes "played, tired, last-year". So if you mean genuine true slang, then remember that it needs to speak to the insularity of the group. If you just mean neologisms, or idiomatically casual references, these don't need to answer to the above description, but these aren't slang. These are just neologisms. Both varieties of words answer to regional and cultural dynamics. You're an Australian and I'm American. We likely know one another's neologisms and true slang terms, but we can hear the way that words that come from somewhere else sound strange to us, not just unfamiliar, but more like "I get it, but we would never use a word that sounds like that. Hard to describe, but it just sounds off." Like the word "wog" that is used most places English is spoken, but never in America, though god knows we certainly understand the sentiment in play. We would never use that word because of its phonemes. They aren't the ones Americans pick for the words we use as analogue to "wog". Many of the words we use for that sentiment have a K sound (voiceless velar plosive) in them that makes for a hard release of air that feels satisfyingly aggressive to those who use such words. There are exceptions (there are always exceptions), but "wog" is DOA in America, not because we don't know it, or because we already have our own words, but because it has the wrong sound quality. These differences in cultural apprehension for casual terms will always be felt by those who read your work who come from other cultures. They will feel how these words come from a different tradition. This may work in your favor, or against you, depending on if the reader feels (and it's 100% a feeling) that the words hit the right emotive mark, regardless of what they are.
The variables are endless, but one thing I advise is not to replace very workaday, quotidian words. The SyFy show Defiance was guilty of this. Cars became "rollers" and money became "scrip", and even though both are technically real words, both terms stuck out awkwardly because neither would genuinely ever be in play. There are too many people still around within the narrative who grew up with cars and money. The original words are far too entrenched and stable to be pushed aside like that on a cultural scale. Also, stay away from terms that are needed for the reader to parse the logic of the narrative and its progress through time. Words like minute, hour, day, week, month, year. As soon as you change these to plicks, greks, dooks, wilkies, mumps, and blerps, the reader can no longer accurately understand the passage of time in a natural way while reading. Leave words like that alone.
As a non-native speaker of the English language, I always had problems with slang. "I fly to Big Apple tomorrow morning, can you give me a lift?" is total nonsense to me: where is this city with that funny name and why would someone want to bring an elevator to a plane? Even if I understand slang I hesitate to use it because I never know where I picked it up and if the person I'm talking to will understand it (or feels it sounds strange). If I encounter something I don't understand I just skip that part and see if I can find out the meaning based on the context. So I wanted to say that if you make up slang, be sure that the reader understands it from context and the whole slang thing is just decoration (eg. part of the setting, nothing important) With that said I have a list in my writing resources folder with expressions like this: "Setting Sun is weak Sun" (mocking old people), "dusty boots" (traveller), "wood money" (worthless) ...
Just please be consistent with the group who can or should use it and how widespread the whole terms.
I'm thinking since "halfmind" is very similar to "halfwit" in a fairly redundant way, it might be more interesting to use it in reference to mental illness where it would feel less like a arbitrarily changed version of a known term. Also speaking of linguistics as Wreybies kind of got into, I'm thinking it would be interesting to hint vaguely at language features with alt-terms, because it is my conception than the characters do not actually speaking English and I am thinking of dropping some vague hints about the language that English replaces in the story. So the particular etymology of certain alt-terms could hint at the etymology of the non-English word behind them, e.g "halfmind" would reflect that the word is a compound from the words for "half" and "mind" or is a derivative where "half" comes from an affix similar "semi". So nothing overt really, but combined with the way the names work could be a nice way of leaving some hints. Certainly it makes sense that even if the characters speak English it would be weird if all the culture within the words and how they used them was ignored, because there is so much culture and history in languages. Like how the word "romantic" in Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones is out of context without Rome existing. So it makes more sense to me that the implied canon, like the Westrom language in Lord of the Rings, is that the English language is not actually English in the story.
[QUOTE="Oscar Leigh, post: 1890317, member: 73758”] Certainly it makes sense that even if the characters speak English it would be weird if all the culture within the words and how they used them was ignored, because there is so much culture and history in languages. Like how the word "romantic" in Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones is out of context without Rome existing. So it makes more sense to me that the implied canon, like the Westrom language in Lord of the Rings, is that the English language is not actually English in the story.[/QUOTE] Now I’m headcanoning that romantic is ‘Valyrianic’ in the ASOIAF universe.
If you're going to insult someone in ye olden tongue, then go to the master of insults himself: William Shakespeare. I am not kidding. No one could insult like Shakespeare could. Here is a great video about Shakespeare insults. What makes Shakespeare insults great is that even if you're not entirely sure how he just insulted you, you know it's an insult. And some of them are really painful like "Your virginity breeds mites. Much like a cheese." There are a few that require a bit of imagination like "Bite my thumb at you." Okay, how is that an insult? Well, how is "I'll give you the finger" an insult? It just is. (Biting your thumb, as near as I can tell, is the equivalence of giving a middle finger.) Or "Three inch fool." (Probably referring to certain male parts.) https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-insults/
Cyberpunk 2077 released this week & is a perfect example of slang used right in a made-up world. The slang is "clean", fairly obvious in meaning even to non-native audience (Eddies for E$/Eurodollar, Deets for data, Netrunner for hackers, Ripperdoc for cyber-surgeons, etc). Don't even mention Clockwork Orange's slang. That /is/ a mess. It being a mess was a point. You should also note the existing slang in fantasy worlds. There's a dozen or so expressions already "ingrained" in the audience. Knife-ears are elves, so are tree huggers.
I often find this to be cringey in fantasy, usually because it's too close to an existing saying. Like, "well I'll be a Zvorak's cousin!" or "the proof is in the sweetmeal." It can end up sounding like something from Strange Planet only not funny. It needs to be done well. I'm not against one-syllable swears. Those are still a bit iffy at first, but they can blend in.
