Presenting invented hybrid cultures

[HareBrain]

Just to illustrate how different readers have a different take on things, I didn't really attach any particular culture to those things. There's nothing I know about the design and construction of moccasins that particularly ties them to the beliefs or way of life of Native American peoples -- they could have developed anywhere, and I unconsciously took the word to just mean the kind of footwear we call moccasins, and as being more specific and descriptive than "shoes". The name Hu does sound Chinese, though this seems at odds with "Father". I didn't, on reading it, think "this is a Chinese-style culture", but on the other hand I think Hu is so Chinese-sounding, it is potentially misleading if that's not where you're going, and something more neutral might have been less suggestive.

 

[The Big Peat]

Just to illustrate how different readers have a different take on things, I didn't really attach any particular culture to those things. There's nothing I know about the design and construction of moccasins that particularly ties them to the beliefs or way of life of Native American peoples -- they could have developed anywhere, and I unconsciously took the word to just mean the kind of footwear we call moccasins, and as being more specific and descriptive than "shoes". The name Hu does sound Chinese, though this seems at odds with "Father". I didn't, on reading it, think "this is a Chinese-style culture", but on the other hand I think Hu is so Chinese-sounding, it is potentially misleading if that's not where you're going, and something more neutral might have been less suggestive.

This is an interesting point in and of itself. Moccasins are definitely of Native American origin - both the design and the name - but they have entered the English language as a loanword for the type of shoe and that type of shoe exists in a great many places with a great many variations. And it is a type of shoe that could have conceivably originated anywhere with a lot of leather and outdoors.

If one were to include a culture that developed their own type of this shoe that weren't native American, would we invent a word and describe a moccasin, or just use the word moccasin? Neither seems particularly elegant.

But then you take it further - should characters wear pyjamas if there is no India-expy, or drink gin if there is no Netherlands-expy? The ultimate logical extreme here is to say nobody in fantasy should eat a sandwich, a word that is heavily tied to a place, and that we should all invent words for two pieces of bread with something in between. And that logical extreme is utterly daft. But that doesn't invalidate the idea that we should be careful about words with a very specific etymology.

As for Hu... it does sound very Chinese, but equally its just one letter removed from sounding very Welsh. Which was very deliberate on my part - but without the explanation, its just misleading. Which is my big lesson here. This is the type of worldbuilding that doesn't work with casual hints.

I stated in my crit of your latest story that I found it confusing to have both Chinese and Native American cultural references. The reason is because you hadn't yet established the setting/world. The story opens in the woods, but there are many different kinds of woods, so this didn't give me a clear sense of the setting. You then mention a leopard. Leopards live in Africa and Asia--very different environments--so I still didn't have a clear picture. Then, you mention a character named Father Hu (Chinese) and that the Hunter's son wears moccasins (Native American). Since these are two cultures from opposite sides of the world and very different environments, this just added to my confusion. I didn't know you were trying to convey that there is a hybrid Chinese-Native American culture in your world. If the cultures are blended, I would expect them to have blended names for both people and objects. Hu is Chinese, but shouldn't his name reflect both Chinese and Native American (which tribe, by the way?) culture instead of just Chinese? The same with the moccasins. By using such distinct terms, you're drawing lines between these cultures while also trying to have them exist as one in the same environment. It's a bit of a contradiction. Unless these cultures were originally separate, and then due to a refugee crisis or something, they ended up together in the same place and are still in the process of blending, I can't see them being that distinct from each other.

I hope that cleared things up. As I mentioned in my crit, I find the story interesting and would read it.

While acknowledging that the use of the different words are clearly confusing people -

A look at the history of English says that hybrid cultures don't necessarily throw up hybrid words. In fact, the number of non-placename words that contain elements of two of the languages that fed into English throws up next to zero. Modern British culture is a blend of Germanic and Celtic, but the language isn't. As such, there's no reason why an invented culture - be that an invented culture of two cultures melding together when they never did, or an invented culture that draws on elements of different real world cultures but simply developed those elements as itself - would have lots of words and names drawing from two linguistic stocks.

And to do so would, as I said to HB above, involve lots of inventing words to describe things that are commonly used words in the English language. It's not an ideal process; we had a thread here recently enough on "Density of Invented Words" that said to keep it fairly minimal.

It might of course be preferable and a few invented words can go a long way towards establishing a set and alien culture; but in this situation, I think it is even more preferable to just simply dodge the question by avoiding such word usage until the culture is established and people are primed to accept the different words, because replacing every single word with a cultural connotation is simply impractical.

Certainly, that's how Jordan handled it with the Aiel.

Incidentally, I have tried making names that suggest both cultures before... and it was an ugly mess. I imagine with a lot of hard thought and work it could work, but I don't think its worth the candle or particularly realistic.

 

[Brian G Turner]

But then you take it further - should characters wear pyjamas if there is no India-expy, or drink gin if there is no Netherlands-expy? The ultimate logical extreme here is to say nobody in fantasy should eat a sandwich, a word that is heavily tied to a place, and that we should all invent words for two pieces of bread with something in between. And that logical extreme is utterly daft. But that doesn't invalidate the idea that we should be careful about words with a very specific etymology.

English liked to appropriate words that described something better. "Thug" I think is a great example and one I used, even though it's 18th century, simply because it's so descriptive.

However, while on the one-hand it would be easy to rubbish writing that used obvious anachronisms, I'm reminded that in The Hobbit there's mention of fish and chip, as well as railways - though that seems to be because Tolkien originally envisaged Middle Earth as directly connected to our world, if somewhat lost, rather than a full-blown secondary world distant from it.

It's also worth noting that adult fiction tends to take things more seriously than young adult fiction, the latter of which can be easily inflected with modernisms to appeal to a contemporary audience,

Btw, you may find this earlier thread interesting:
Chairs and drinking glasses

 

[The Big Peat]

English liked to appropriate words that described something better. "Thug" I think is a great example and one I used, even though it's 18th century, simply because it's so descriptive.

Hah! Yes. It's a fantastic word and one I've used repeatedly in my Celto-Mediterrenean Ye Olde Time setting with no one saying a thing.

I guess some words just keep their resonance longer than others - which is why we used betas and what not.

However, while on the one-hand it would be easy to rubbish writing that used obvious anachronisms, I'm reminded that in The Hobbit there's mention of fish and chip, as well as railways - though that seems to be because Tolkien originally envisaged Middle Earth as directly connected to our world, if somewhat lost, rather than a full-blown secondary world distant from it.

It's also worth noting that adult fiction tends to take things more seriously than young adult fiction, the latter of which can be easily inflected with modernisms to appeal to a contemporary audience,

Btw, you may find this earlier thread interesting:
Chairs and drinking glasses

What was your end impression of Tyrant, out of curiousity?

The Tolkien is a very good example of how little most of this matters at the end of the day.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

KISS. We read in English, or whatever language you end up translated into. Coming up with entirely new languages is great and all that there, but sometimes the language we chose to use is simply what we have to, in order to be understood. I doubt if any reader blinks that much at words-we-understand. Although I'd probably use sleeping garment or clothes, or suit, rather than PJs in a non-real-world story.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But then you take it further - should characters wear pyjamas if there is no India-expy, or drink gin if there is no Netherlands-expy? The ultimate logical extreme here is to say nobody in fantasy should eat a sandwich, a word that is heavily tied to a place, and that we should all invent words for two pieces of bread with something in between. And that logical extreme is utterly daft. But that doesn't invalidate the idea that we should be careful about words with a very specific etymology.

I had that problem with French doors (the room seemed to call for them) which I solved to my own satisfaction by simply lower-casing the F. The copy-editor apparently puzzled over it for a while and then figured out on her own what I was doing and merely queried rather than changing it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

What was your end impression of Tyrant, out of curiousity?

I abandoned the book after the first page. I think it's long gone to the charity shops, or the recycling centre.

 

[sknox]

The points brought up recently in this thread make me consider a sort of common underlying issue; namely, that we can agonize over how to present a hybrid culture, but whatever we come up with is necessarily itself culture-specific.

Let's take a Inuit/Japanese hybrid culture. I'm an American; many of us here are similarly afflicted. So, we pull off a really good integration of those two cultures. How will our book read in Spain? Or China? India? Nairobi? Not to mention Japan or Alaska.

Here, as with so many other cultural aspects of writing, there are a thousand ways to do it wrong and no single way to do it right. I fall back on my own guideline: do my homework, please myself first, my editor (or beta readers) next, then click Publish.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Obviously I live in one of the cultures where offence is easily given and taken and where homework rarely leads to a true understanding of the cultures involved. I think there is a lot to be said for getting those who may be offended’s opibion.

 

[sknox]

>getting those who may be offended’s opibion.
that was the "do my homework" part

One might think that with historical fantasy, there's no one to offend because they're all long dead. Ain't necessarily so. But again, there's no way for me to poll everyone, and even if I did, people's opinions and sensibilities change over time. In the end, it still has to pass my own standards first. Just because they're my own standards doesn't mean I'm culturally indifferent. Does that distinction make sense?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

It does. But you wouldn’t believe the amount of people who tell me theyve done their homework and are culturally savvy whilst spouting opinions so offensive that I want to wallop them with a Hurley stick

 

[sknox]

What's a Hurley stick? ;-)

 

[Mirannan]

The blended Chinese/Native American culture sounds interesting, and also plausible with the appropriate geography. (Perhaps with some aspects of Eskimo added.) Why? Simply because the only plausible route for the first colonisation of the Americas is via a land bridge that appeared when the sea level was lower, during the ice ages.

Now: If the geography of the area had been slightly different, specifically the land bridge staying longer and probably at a lower latitude, there would probably have been more cultural interchange between Asia and North America. Similarly, if the Chinese had not decided to go isolationist in the 16th century (IIRC) and had furthermore decided to explore eastwards, there might have been some much later cultural interchange.

Also. specific details such as the design of footwear are more than a little accidental. I also believe that European footwear in the Middle Ages worn by commoners was much more like moccasins than today's shoes, although I freely admit to not having investigated it. Why? Because it's a simple way of making something that will protect your feet.