Fodder - 1347 words

[Paul Meccano]

I'm going to perservere with it just because I've got some fun ideas to play around with later on.

Good to hear.

 

[Aquilonian]

It was easy enough to read. Maybe too easy. I presume you have read it aloud to yourself, in whatever accent you imagine orcs to have? That way you'll get a better idea of flow. Uneducated forms of a language generally prioritise ease of speaking above all else. I mean the physical ease of forming the sounds. Enunciation takes effort. It's not quite as simple as just replacing one sound consistently with another, e.g. v replacing w in Russian-accented English. Some sounds may be replaced in some words but not others, depending on what comes before or after the word.

Orcs are supposed to be stupid. If you listen to stupid people talking you'll notice they typically mumble something, the other person doesn't understand and says "What?" the first person then repeats the exact same words, maybe several times, but progressively louder. So a lot more tedious repetition might be realistic, but maybe off-putting to the reader who is not an orc.

This is quite different from where people are speaking clearly in a shared dialect, they'll understand each other perfectly although a third party might not understand anything or even know that they are speaking a variety of his own language.

Orcs are also supposed to be very aggressive but this doesn't necessarily mean they'd insult each other a lot, as violent people are sometimes more polite because they assume that an insult will result in immediate violent retaliation (whereas people like college professors assume they can insult each other without getting a punch in the gob). But then being orcs it may be that the prospect of violence would not inhibit them, they'd insult, get hit, hit back, etc as a matter of course. (In ancient Iceland if you called someone an "argr" they were obliged to try to kill you immediately, but people still did it).

Maybe I'm inattentive but I didn't notice any swearing. My impression of orcs is that they would swear all the time, both as a "filler" word where politer folk might umm and err, and as sort of placeholder where they don't know or can't be bothered to remember the correct word, and finally as a means of emphasis and expression in which case they'd be more forceful, maybe teeth grinding or spitting or whatever.

If you want an example of how much difficult dialogue you can get away with and still sell lots of books, try Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

 

[HareBrain]

If you want an example of how much difficult dialogue you can get away with and still sell lots of books, try Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

Whenever someone recommends Riddley Walker for its amazing use of language, I feel obliged to also recommend the first (Neolithic) chapter of Alan Moore's The Voice of the Fire, which is less well known but IMO just as brilliant.

 

[Luiglin]

It was easy enough to read. Maybe too easy. I presume you have read it aloud to yourself, in whatever accent you imagine orcs to have? That way you'll get a better idea of flow. Uneducated forms of a language generally prioritise ease of speaking above all else. I mean the physical ease of forming the sounds. Enunciation takes effort. It's not quite as simple as just replacing one sound consistently with another, e.g. v replacing w in Russian-accented English. Some sounds may be replaced in some words but not others, depending on what comes before or after the word.

Orcs are supposed to be stupid. If you listen to stupid people talking you'll notice they typically mumble something, the other person doesn't understand and says "What?" the first person then repeats the exact same words, maybe several times, but progressively louder. So a lot more tedious repetition might be realistic, but maybe off-putting to the reader who is not an orc.

This is quite different from where people are speaking clearly in a shared dialect, they'll understand each other perfectly although a third party might not understand anything or even know that they are speaking a variety of his own language.

Orcs are also supposed to be very aggressive but this doesn't necessarily mean they'd insult each other a lot, as violent people are sometimes more polite because they assume that an insult will result in immediate violent retaliation (whereas people like college professors assume they can insult each other without getting a punch in the gob). But then being orcs it may be that the prospect of violence would not inhibit them, they'd insult, get hit, hit back, etc as a matter of course. (In ancient Iceland if you called someone an "argr" they were obliged to try to kill you immediately, but people still did it).

Maybe I'm inattentive but I didn't notice any swearing. My impression of orcs is that they would swear all the time, both as a "filler" word where politer folk might umm and err, and as sort of placeholder where they don't know or can't be bothered to remember the correct word, and finally as a means of emphasis and expression in which case they'd be more forceful, maybe teeth grinding or spitting or whatever.

If you want an example of how much difficult dialogue you can get away with and still sell lots of books, try Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

Cheers @Aquilonian. I wasn't aiming at a more 'realistic' orc in that respect, although I am going to invent one swear word. It's meant to be a gentle humour therefore overt verbal and/or physical violence between them wouldn't fit in with what I've planned.