Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Friday, October 14, 2011
Link: Cave people made paint 100,000 years ago
This is a really cool article, handed to me by my friend Dario Ciriello, an expert in paint himself. In a cave in South Africa they have found evidence of a paint-making workshop from 100,000 years ago! It appears that pretty advanced humanlike cognition was happening far earlier than science has previously hypothesized. Very cool stuff.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Google+ Worldbuilding Hangout Report: Building back history (declining societies)
I had a very enjoyable hangout today with Barbara Webb and a quick visit from Derek Wade. One of the key things that all of us agreed on was the importance of passion - bringing a passion to what you're creating in order to motivate your pursuit of it and in order to get your audience more involved.
The biggest topic of the day was building back history for a story. Barbara is working on a story set in quite a complex world with declining technology, and was wondering about how to convey that information effectively. We talked a little bit of the nature of the technology decline (I loved imagining force field hovercraft pulled by horses because the propulsion units had died, for example). We established that the attitude of the people toward technology would be generally positive in her world, but tinged with fear that the things that broke could not be replaced. In some respects, this reminded me of Varin, because Varin also is a high technology world in decline, though it hasn't lost as much as her world has. There is certainly the problem of difficulty in finding people to repair things, and in replacing parts that break.
When you have a situation like this, it's really important to think about how the society arrived at this point. Barbara and I discussed a number of different possible causes for the decline, including a loss of qualified scientists, loss of records, war with other groups, or a bad guy bent on causing trouble. It's much easier for a society to get into a position like this if knowledge and the drive for progress is confined to an elite group. Then if this elite group goes into decline for some reason, the knowledge is unlikely to be distributed widely enough for people to maintain it. There can also be denigration of this elite group by others, associated with a general low assigned value for book learning. Barbara emphasized the role of apathy and taking technology for granted, which in a utopian society like hers led relatively quickly to it becoming a post-utopia!
Likely enough, there won't be one single source for the loss, because the fewer losses incurred, the larger and more comprehensive those losses must have been. So we traced back over the history of her society - and I don't mean the last few years, but the last few centuries - looking for possible contributing causes. Arrival on a colony planet brings on certain kinds of dangers that might jeopardize knowledge (in the form of records or people), as does the difficulty of integrating one's own knowledge with the demands of the new environment. Being invaded obviously would contribute more strife and more potential opportunities to have people with great minds literally stolen for the use of one's enemies, or simply taken down in the general conflict.
At this point the question clearly arises: if all of these things happened long ago, how can I as the author possibly convey them to my readers? Well, both Barbara and I wished to avoid infodumping as a technique, so we talked about using close point of view to restrict the complex information of the world, and also to convey key things to readers. Different points of view can have different kinds of knowledge, and the question of technological decline can have different importance for each of them. Knowledge imbalances between characters always provide great opportunities for you as an author to convey information about the world.
I mentioned the Civil War, and its role in American History. Although it occurred more than a hundred years ago, its footprints can still be seen all over our culture. Children are taught about it; it creates a perception of distinct cultural regions in the US that has persisted until the present day; it also gets linked to later events like the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. So one could expect the same kinds of things to happen in a society where large society-changing events had taken place. There will be a name for the large event, and a significance associated with it, an expectation that it will be known, and then a series of other events that have grown out of it by one means or another. The loss of technology may not be the primary event, but may be a side effect of this event (such as the conquest in Barbara's world, which occurred long ago and was repulsed, but did have a significant effect on events that followed it).
You can start with your world, or you can start with your story and build the world behind it. Either way works. It is worth spending some time tracing historical events that contribute to the current state of a society, and trying to tie them together into overall trends. Then, once that has been done, take a look at how central the problem is to the story's main conflict. If it's central, you can spend as much time on it as you need. If it's peripheral, it's best not to put too much emphasis on it - but you can still use the way that people conceptualize social groups, and the way they imagine their historical and national identity, to illuminate past history for the reader.
Thanks again to Barbara and Derek for coming! I'll be having house guests next week, but I'll let you know via Facebook, Google+ and Twitter if I'm able to schedule a hangout. I've heard from a number of people who expressed interest in attending, so I may try to change the date or time to accommodate some of these people's schedules.
The biggest topic of the day was building back history for a story. Barbara is working on a story set in quite a complex world with declining technology, and was wondering about how to convey that information effectively. We talked a little bit of the nature of the technology decline (I loved imagining force field hovercraft pulled by horses because the propulsion units had died, for example). We established that the attitude of the people toward technology would be generally positive in her world, but tinged with fear that the things that broke could not be replaced. In some respects, this reminded me of Varin, because Varin also is a high technology world in decline, though it hasn't lost as much as her world has. There is certainly the problem of difficulty in finding people to repair things, and in replacing parts that break.
When you have a situation like this, it's really important to think about how the society arrived at this point. Barbara and I discussed a number of different possible causes for the decline, including a loss of qualified scientists, loss of records, war with other groups, or a bad guy bent on causing trouble. It's much easier for a society to get into a position like this if knowledge and the drive for progress is confined to an elite group. Then if this elite group goes into decline for some reason, the knowledge is unlikely to be distributed widely enough for people to maintain it. There can also be denigration of this elite group by others, associated with a general low assigned value for book learning. Barbara emphasized the role of apathy and taking technology for granted, which in a utopian society like hers led relatively quickly to it becoming a post-utopia!
Likely enough, there won't be one single source for the loss, because the fewer losses incurred, the larger and more comprehensive those losses must have been. So we traced back over the history of her society - and I don't mean the last few years, but the last few centuries - looking for possible contributing causes. Arrival on a colony planet brings on certain kinds of dangers that might jeopardize knowledge (in the form of records or people), as does the difficulty of integrating one's own knowledge with the demands of the new environment. Being invaded obviously would contribute more strife and more potential opportunities to have people with great minds literally stolen for the use of one's enemies, or simply taken down in the general conflict.
At this point the question clearly arises: if all of these things happened long ago, how can I as the author possibly convey them to my readers? Well, both Barbara and I wished to avoid infodumping as a technique, so we talked about using close point of view to restrict the complex information of the world, and also to convey key things to readers. Different points of view can have different kinds of knowledge, and the question of technological decline can have different importance for each of them. Knowledge imbalances between characters always provide great opportunities for you as an author to convey information about the world.
I mentioned the Civil War, and its role in American History. Although it occurred more than a hundred years ago, its footprints can still be seen all over our culture. Children are taught about it; it creates a perception of distinct cultural regions in the US that has persisted until the present day; it also gets linked to later events like the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. So one could expect the same kinds of things to happen in a society where large society-changing events had taken place. There will be a name for the large event, and a significance associated with it, an expectation that it will be known, and then a series of other events that have grown out of it by one means or another. The loss of technology may not be the primary event, but may be a side effect of this event (such as the conquest in Barbara's world, which occurred long ago and was repulsed, but did have a significant effect on events that followed it).
You can start with your world, or you can start with your story and build the world behind it. Either way works. It is worth spending some time tracing historical events that contribute to the current state of a society, and trying to tie them together into overall trends. Then, once that has been done, take a look at how central the problem is to the story's main conflict. If it's central, you can spend as much time on it as you need. If it's peripheral, it's best not to put too much emphasis on it - but you can still use the way that people conceptualize social groups, and the way they imagine their historical and national identity, to illuminate past history for the reader.
Thanks again to Barbara and Derek for coming! I'll be having house guests next week, but I'll let you know via Facebook, Google+ and Twitter if I'm able to schedule a hangout. I've heard from a number of people who expressed interest in attending, so I may try to change the date or time to accommodate some of these people's schedules.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Architecture: how it reflects history and culture
How do people build in your world?
In my post about building materials, I started by bringing up the links between architecture and environment/setting. In this post I'm going to talk about the links between architecture and history. The buildings you choose to put in your world will tell readers (and the people of your world) about the history of these people and their civilization.
When we were in Europe we went to the city of Aosta in Italy. This city, we learned, was once called Augusta Praetoria, and was the place where Roman troops stopped for the winter before invading Gaul. It's been the center of its region since then. You wouldn't necessarily know this just by glancing at it from the highway, but if you walk into the town, it's hard to miss. Augustus' Arch, the Praetorian Gate, the Roman Theater... all are easy to access. The theater was great because it had a modern theater built right beside the ancient, crumbling one. Very cool - but that wasn't the most impressive part.
Aosta has a cathedral, built in the 11th century and remodeled a bit in the 15th and 16th centuries. It rises majestically above the roofs of the town - and that's all you see if you just walk by. If you go in, however, you can find the entrance of the church that was built before it, in the 3rd century. The cathedral was built right over the top of the old church, but the arches are still there, the columns and the carved capitals that were made in the years 200. If you then walk out of the cathedral and around the corner, you'll find the entrance to the Roman forum. Yes, the Roman forum is underneath the 3rd century church - and it's huge. It's this gigantic corridor of stone arches, now lit by electric light, and seeming way too huge to exist underneath two other buildings this far underground. I wish I could show you a photograph - but really you should go and see it with your own eyes. This gives the town the sense of permanence that I described in my post about building materials. It is set in stones more than two thousand years old.
How many fantasy or science fiction worlds do you know which have this kind of history reflected in their architecture? My answer would be, not as many as I'd like.
Just in case you're concerned that I'm suggesting everyone create modern Italy in their fictional worlds, that's not it at all. Paris is full of the architecture of other times, even down to the crypts underneath the city. Kyoto, Japan is similar, ranging from the ultra-modern to the ancient.
Kyoto is an interesting example because of the fact that their primary building material is wood, not stone. You can walk through the streets and see modern vending machines just ten feet away from the entrance to a small city shrine or temple. You can park your car (not that I ever had one) in the lot and walk in to see the temple of Sanjusangendo, originally built in the 12th century and containing more than a thousand statues carved in the 12th and 13th centuries. You can go visit the Kiyomizu temple, and then read about it in The Tale of Genji and realize that it wasn't new even in the year 1000, but was built back in the 8th century.
Ok, so at this point I'd like to ask another question. What kind of place doesn't have old buildings? There are several possibilities.
1. A place where people build structures that could potentially be permanent, but where some historical event has destroyed all structures over a certain age.
Tokyo is rather like this. It suffered the Great Kanto Earthquake, and then the carpet-bombings of World War II... and as a result, all of the oldest buildings date from a particular (more modern) era. In a case like this, it's important to consider what kind of impact a very destructive event will have on culture, and what less tangible evidence will be available in the mental states of the population.
2. A place where building materials are quickly broken down by the elements.
Jungle dwellings might well be like this. In this case, other evidence of human history might be available, like tools or artifacts of various types.
3. A place where the population is nomadic.
If the population is nomadic, then habitations have to be light enough to be carried. They may or may not be made from durable enough materials to be recognized as human tools/structures long after they have been abandoned.
4. A place where the cultural paradigm calls for constant renewal.
This is certainly a possibility. However, I can't see that it would make much sense for extremely durable architecture (stone, for example) to coexist with such a cultural paradigm. It would be much more likely to be present in a place where building materials broke down relatively quickly.
5. A place that has only recently become inhabited by humans.
Architecture in a place like this would probably be either made with local materials or with imported materials, but all more or less in the same architectural style, since everything would be built at the same time. Still, this lack of history is in itself a sort of history - indicating that the people are recent arrivals.
I'm sure there are other reasons why older architecture might not endure, but at this point I think it's worth pointing something out: the presence of architecture means something - and the absence of architecture also means something. So if you're creating a society and they don't have any old architecture, no problem - but make sure there's a good societal reason why it's not there. Think about where history is preserved in your society - in behaviors, in stories or written records, in artifacts or in buildings. What kinds of historical events might have influenced this world? In what kind of contexts might evidence of that history be available for discovery?
It's worth thinking about - and on that note, I think I'll include this link to some photos by Sergey Larenkov, which overlay images from World War II on images of the very same buildings from 2010.
In my post about building materials, I started by bringing up the links between architecture and environment/setting. In this post I'm going to talk about the links between architecture and history. The buildings you choose to put in your world will tell readers (and the people of your world) about the history of these people and their civilization.
When we were in Europe we went to the city of Aosta in Italy. This city, we learned, was once called Augusta Praetoria, and was the place where Roman troops stopped for the winter before invading Gaul. It's been the center of its region since then. You wouldn't necessarily know this just by glancing at it from the highway, but if you walk into the town, it's hard to miss. Augustus' Arch, the Praetorian Gate, the Roman Theater... all are easy to access. The theater was great because it had a modern theater built right beside the ancient, crumbling one. Very cool - but that wasn't the most impressive part.
Aosta has a cathedral, built in the 11th century and remodeled a bit in the 15th and 16th centuries. It rises majestically above the roofs of the town - and that's all you see if you just walk by. If you go in, however, you can find the entrance of the church that was built before it, in the 3rd century. The cathedral was built right over the top of the old church, but the arches are still there, the columns and the carved capitals that were made in the years 200. If you then walk out of the cathedral and around the corner, you'll find the entrance to the Roman forum. Yes, the Roman forum is underneath the 3rd century church - and it's huge. It's this gigantic corridor of stone arches, now lit by electric light, and seeming way too huge to exist underneath two other buildings this far underground. I wish I could show you a photograph - but really you should go and see it with your own eyes. This gives the town the sense of permanence that I described in my post about building materials. It is set in stones more than two thousand years old.
How many fantasy or science fiction worlds do you know which have this kind of history reflected in their architecture? My answer would be, not as many as I'd like.
Just in case you're concerned that I'm suggesting everyone create modern Italy in their fictional worlds, that's not it at all. Paris is full of the architecture of other times, even down to the crypts underneath the city. Kyoto, Japan is similar, ranging from the ultra-modern to the ancient.
Kyoto is an interesting example because of the fact that their primary building material is wood, not stone. You can walk through the streets and see modern vending machines just ten feet away from the entrance to a small city shrine or temple. You can park your car (not that I ever had one) in the lot and walk in to see the temple of Sanjusangendo, originally built in the 12th century and containing more than a thousand statues carved in the 12th and 13th centuries. You can go visit the Kiyomizu temple, and then read about it in The Tale of Genji and realize that it wasn't new even in the year 1000, but was built back in the 8th century.
Ok, so at this point I'd like to ask another question. What kind of place doesn't have old buildings? There are several possibilities.
1. A place where people build structures that could potentially be permanent, but where some historical event has destroyed all structures over a certain age.
Tokyo is rather like this. It suffered the Great Kanto Earthquake, and then the carpet-bombings of World War II... and as a result, all of the oldest buildings date from a particular (more modern) era. In a case like this, it's important to consider what kind of impact a very destructive event will have on culture, and what less tangible evidence will be available in the mental states of the population.
2. A place where building materials are quickly broken down by the elements.
Jungle dwellings might well be like this. In this case, other evidence of human history might be available, like tools or artifacts of various types.
3. A place where the population is nomadic.
If the population is nomadic, then habitations have to be light enough to be carried. They may or may not be made from durable enough materials to be recognized as human tools/structures long after they have been abandoned.
4. A place where the cultural paradigm calls for constant renewal.
This is certainly a possibility. However, I can't see that it would make much sense for extremely durable architecture (stone, for example) to coexist with such a cultural paradigm. It would be much more likely to be present in a place where building materials broke down relatively quickly.
5. A place that has only recently become inhabited by humans.
Architecture in a place like this would probably be either made with local materials or with imported materials, but all more or less in the same architectural style, since everything would be built at the same time. Still, this lack of history is in itself a sort of history - indicating that the people are recent arrivals.
I'm sure there are other reasons why older architecture might not endure, but at this point I think it's worth pointing something out: the presence of architecture means something - and the absence of architecture also means something. So if you're creating a society and they don't have any old architecture, no problem - but make sure there's a good societal reason why it's not there. Think about where history is preserved in your society - in behaviors, in stories or written records, in artifacts or in buildings. What kinds of historical events might have influenced this world? In what kind of contexts might evidence of that history be available for discovery?
It's worth thinking about - and on that note, I think I'll include this link to some photos by Sergey Larenkov, which overlay images from World War II on images of the very same buildings from 2010.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Names have meaning
How many of you have ever been in the position of picking up a Baby Names book, or looking at one of the many Baby Names services online? I know I have. When I go to a place like that, the primary thing I'm looking for when I go there is the meaning of names.
I did a post on naming very early on in the history of this blog; it's here. The gist of the essay is that names have meaning, so it's a good idea to think through the language background of the names you use, whether they are created names or not. The sounds in a name will be associated with very specific emotional reactions for readers, so it's important not to choose them without thinking that through. It's also a good idea to think through whether there are language groups in your world, and whether the names you've created fit with those (as part of a consistent phonological system).
But there's even more to it than that. Names don't just have the meaning we find for them in a book; I suspect that search for the meaning of names in books is actually something very American (British or Australian readers might be able to comment about whether it's also something English). Names speak to our membership in a particular cultural group.
Names tell us far more than just what a person is like. They tell us who that person is affiliated with.
I remember considering what kind of names to pick for my kids. I wanted names that were unique, but not names that were made up. I considered French names quite seriously, because I've always loved their sound. I also considered Japanese names, because my husband and I have close sentimental ties with Japan - but there I ran into a problem. I realized if I gave my child a Japanese name, that could lead to very specific assumptions about their background, i.e. people would guess that they were either Japanese or Japanese American. More so than with European names, which are in some sense part of the American heritage, Japanese names stick out to the common listener as something that must have a literal connection to ethnicity or nationality. In the end, we went the cultural heritage route and chose names with Celtic origins.
This phenomenon goes far beyond just nationality questions. Names like John, Simon, Luke, Peter, etc. aren't just "classic," they're names of Christian disciples. Names like Elizabeth, Catherine, William, George, and Henry are English royalty. Names like Lakeesha and Latasha might make you think instantly of African-American culture - but interestingly enough, they can also be found among Mormons.
Another twist to this is the question of whether names have literal meanings. Some social groups use names that have literal meanings in the language spoken. Native American names spring to mind as an example of this - as in "Dances with Wolves." I think also of "Onyesonwu" from Nnedi Okorafor's new book, "Who Fears Death" (that's literally what the character's name means - cool stuff!). So having a character with a name that has literal meaning may be another way to express that character's affiliation with a particular language group or cultural group.
Strangely enough, I hardly ever see names take on this type of social significance in fictional worlds. I consider this a lost opportunity.
Try asking yourself: Is my fictional society divided into social groups? What kind of names might each group use, and would those names be uniquely recognizable as belonging to one group or the other? Say you have a person who is a member of one group, but has to pass for a member of another - do they also have to change their name? What happens if they don't think to do that? Do the people they meet say, "That's strange; she has a XXX name"?
I've found a place where I want to try this in my Varin world. An undercaste member has to try to disguise herself as a member of another caste, but forgets that she should probably change her name. When she gives her name to a man she meets, he's going to pick up on the fact that her name isn't typical for his social group. However - and this is my own twist on it - he's not going to pick it for an undercaste name. Because of historical circumstances, some of the undercaste names are also common to the ruling caste - so he's going to pick the name as one with associations to the nobility. Which then gives me an opportunity to have her stammer about how her parents weren't meaning to be so pretentious, etc.
In any case, this is something you might like to think about - a great opportunity to deepen your world in an uncommon way. I encourage you to consider it.
I did a post on naming very early on in the history of this blog; it's here. The gist of the essay is that names have meaning, so it's a good idea to think through the language background of the names you use, whether they are created names or not. The sounds in a name will be associated with very specific emotional reactions for readers, so it's important not to choose them without thinking that through. It's also a good idea to think through whether there are language groups in your world, and whether the names you've created fit with those (as part of a consistent phonological system).
But there's even more to it than that. Names don't just have the meaning we find for them in a book; I suspect that search for the meaning of names in books is actually something very American (British or Australian readers might be able to comment about whether it's also something English). Names speak to our membership in a particular cultural group.
Names tell us far more than just what a person is like. They tell us who that person is affiliated with.
I remember considering what kind of names to pick for my kids. I wanted names that were unique, but not names that were made up. I considered French names quite seriously, because I've always loved their sound. I also considered Japanese names, because my husband and I have close sentimental ties with Japan - but there I ran into a problem. I realized if I gave my child a Japanese name, that could lead to very specific assumptions about their background, i.e. people would guess that they were either Japanese or Japanese American. More so than with European names, which are in some sense part of the American heritage, Japanese names stick out to the common listener as something that must have a literal connection to ethnicity or nationality. In the end, we went the cultural heritage route and chose names with Celtic origins.
This phenomenon goes far beyond just nationality questions. Names like John, Simon, Luke, Peter, etc. aren't just "classic," they're names of Christian disciples. Names like Elizabeth, Catherine, William, George, and Henry are English royalty. Names like Lakeesha and Latasha might make you think instantly of African-American culture - but interestingly enough, they can also be found among Mormons.
Another twist to this is the question of whether names have literal meanings. Some social groups use names that have literal meanings in the language spoken. Native American names spring to mind as an example of this - as in "Dances with Wolves." I think also of "Onyesonwu" from Nnedi Okorafor's new book, "Who Fears Death" (that's literally what the character's name means - cool stuff!). So having a character with a name that has literal meaning may be another way to express that character's affiliation with a particular language group or cultural group.
Strangely enough, I hardly ever see names take on this type of social significance in fictional worlds. I consider this a lost opportunity.
Try asking yourself: Is my fictional society divided into social groups? What kind of names might each group use, and would those names be uniquely recognizable as belonging to one group or the other? Say you have a person who is a member of one group, but has to pass for a member of another - do they also have to change their name? What happens if they don't think to do that? Do the people they meet say, "That's strange; she has a XXX name"?
I've found a place where I want to try this in my Varin world. An undercaste member has to try to disguise herself as a member of another caste, but forgets that she should probably change her name. When she gives her name to a man she meets, he's going to pick up on the fact that her name isn't typical for his social group. However - and this is my own twist on it - he's not going to pick it for an undercaste name. Because of historical circumstances, some of the undercaste names are also common to the ruling caste - so he's going to pick the name as one with associations to the nobility. Which then gives me an opportunity to have her stammer about how her parents weren't meaning to be so pretentious, etc.
In any case, this is something you might like to think about - a great opportunity to deepen your world in an uncommon way. I encourage you to consider it.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Hidden Stories Everywhere
I'm back from Yosemite! And I learned some really cool things while I was there. We went on a great tour one day and I learned some of the stories behind the native American names of places in the valley. I love this kind of stuff - in part because I love stories, and in part because I think any place with a long history will have hidden stories in it.
Hidden story #1: Yosemite
It turns out that Yosemite is not the name of the tribe that lived in the Yosemite area; it was the name of the chief's family. And it means "grizzly bear fighter." The tribal group that lived there was the Ahwahneechee, which means "gaping mouth people." The Ahwahnee hotel is named after this group.
Hidden story #2: Tule takanula = El Capitan
El Capitan, as some of you may already know, is the biggest single granite rock face in the world. Its name means "little inchworm." A little counterintuitive, I know, but it comes from a great story. The story is that two baby black bears sat down on a granite rock to have a nap, and while they were asleep it grew and grew into this gigantic rock face - trapping them at the top. The mother bear tried to climb it in order to rescue them, and left the tracks of her claws on the face, but was unable to get them down. The deer and many other animals tried, but all of them failed until - you guessed it - the inchworm gave it a shot. He climbed up the face inch by inch, and took down the baby bears one at a time. A science fiction writer might be concerned with how the inchworm was able to handle carrying a baby bear, but fortunately we're working with folklore here! Thus, the name of this giant face is that of a tiny inchworm.
Hidden story #3: Pohono Falls = Bridal Veil Falls
Bridal Veil falls is very lovely, and I have heard that when the wind blows right in certain seasons, it can blow the entire waterfall up into spray like raising a veil. Its native American name is much more sinister: it means "evil spirit wind." The story behind it is that once long ago a woman of the Ahwahnee was standing up at the top of the falls when a gust of wind rose up from the lake above and pushed her over the edge. Ever after that, it was believed that an evil spirit resided in that lake, and that it would send out winds to push the unwary over the edge. Maybe the white settlers thought that was a bit too macabre when they renamed it - but I thought it was cool.
Finding stories like this always inspires me. As you work with a fantasy or science fictional world, think about its history. Names for places can come from the people who settled a place, or they might come from stories associated with that place. People have stories about the places where they live - even the newest. I'm guessing that the people who built a space station might give an interesting name to a place on the station where a terrible accident occurred, for example. At the very least, thinking about a place's history and trying to reflect that history in names will give a sense of depth to the world. And you may even feel inspired to give additional significance to the history of a place so that it affects the course of the story you are writing. All worlds are built in layers of individual experience over time; it's worth taking the time to explore the possibilities in your own writing.
Hidden story #1: Yosemite
It turns out that Yosemite is not the name of the tribe that lived in the Yosemite area; it was the name of the chief's family. And it means "grizzly bear fighter." The tribal group that lived there was the Ahwahneechee, which means "gaping mouth people." The Ahwahnee hotel is named after this group.
Hidden story #2: Tule takanula = El Capitan
El Capitan, as some of you may already know, is the biggest single granite rock face in the world. Its name means "little inchworm." A little counterintuitive, I know, but it comes from a great story. The story is that two baby black bears sat down on a granite rock to have a nap, and while they were asleep it grew and grew into this gigantic rock face - trapping them at the top. The mother bear tried to climb it in order to rescue them, and left the tracks of her claws on the face, but was unable to get them down. The deer and many other animals tried, but all of them failed until - you guessed it - the inchworm gave it a shot. He climbed up the face inch by inch, and took down the baby bears one at a time. A science fiction writer might be concerned with how the inchworm was able to handle carrying a baby bear, but fortunately we're working with folklore here! Thus, the name of this giant face is that of a tiny inchworm.
Hidden story #3: Pohono Falls = Bridal Veil Falls
Bridal Veil falls is very lovely, and I have heard that when the wind blows right in certain seasons, it can blow the entire waterfall up into spray like raising a veil. Its native American name is much more sinister: it means "evil spirit wind." The story behind it is that once long ago a woman of the Ahwahnee was standing up at the top of the falls when a gust of wind rose up from the lake above and pushed her over the edge. Ever after that, it was believed that an evil spirit resided in that lake, and that it would send out winds to push the unwary over the edge. Maybe the white settlers thought that was a bit too macabre when they renamed it - but I thought it was cool.
Finding stories like this always inspires me. As you work with a fantasy or science fictional world, think about its history. Names for places can come from the people who settled a place, or they might come from stories associated with that place. People have stories about the places where they live - even the newest. I'm guessing that the people who built a space station might give an interesting name to a place on the station where a terrible accident occurred, for example. At the very least, thinking about a place's history and trying to reflect that history in names will give a sense of depth to the world. And you may even feel inspired to give additional significance to the history of a place so that it affects the course of the story you are writing. All worlds are built in layers of individual experience over time; it's worth taking the time to explore the possibilities in your own writing.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
A Crazy Pattern in English
Yes, I am a linguistics geek.
I was driving to pick up my daughter today and thinking about the old meaning of the word "stupid," which was "stunned by grief or other strong emotion." Then it struck me that this word was probably related to the word "stupor." So I tried to think of some other examples of words with this -id/-or pattern, and within a minute or so I'd come up with valid/valor - except I wasn't sure if my extrapolation was (pardon me for this one) valid.
So after dinner tonight I pulled out my etymological dictionary (everybody should have one! :-) ) and I checked it out.
This pattern is bigger than I suspected.
The -id suffix makes adjectives out of old Latin verbs, while the -or (-our, for Brits) suffix makes nouns. Not every -id word has a corresponding -or word, nor does every -or word have an -id word, but check this out:
stupid / stupor
vapid / vapor
valid / valor
candid / candor
fervid / fervor
rigid / rigor
splendid / splendor
rancid / rancor
torpid / torpor
Valid/valor, the one I'd been wondering about, comes from the Latin vale, "to be strong or well."
I thought of another one, too: languid / languor
For interest's sake, I'll give you the ones that don't have correspondents:
-id: torrid, acid, fluid, morbid, gravid
-or: ardor, clamor, color, dolor, favor, honor, labor, odor, savor
I was driving to pick up my daughter today and thinking about the old meaning of the word "stupid," which was "stunned by grief or other strong emotion." Then it struck me that this word was probably related to the word "stupor." So I tried to think of some other examples of words with this -id/-or pattern, and within a minute or so I'd come up with valid/valor - except I wasn't sure if my extrapolation was (pardon me for this one) valid.
So after dinner tonight I pulled out my etymological dictionary (everybody should have one! :-) ) and I checked it out.
This pattern is bigger than I suspected.
The -id suffix makes adjectives out of old Latin verbs, while the -or (-our, for Brits) suffix makes nouns. Not every -id word has a corresponding -or word, nor does every -or word have an -id word, but check this out:
stupid / stupor
vapid / vapor
valid / valor
candid / candor
fervid / fervor
rigid / rigor
splendid / splendor
rancid / rancor
torpid / torpor
Valid/valor, the one I'd been wondering about, comes from the Latin vale, "to be strong or well."
I thought of another one, too: languid / languor
For interest's sake, I'll give you the ones that don't have correspondents:
-id: torrid, acid, fluid, morbid, gravid
-or: ardor, clamor, color, dolor, favor, honor, labor, odor, savor
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
History and Societal Homogeneity
I'm guessing the election is at the top of everyone's mind today, but I'm afraid I couldn't come up with a topic that was election-related yet not political. So I'm going in another direction...
I'm thinking about the history of worlds. The reason it's valuable to consider a world's history is essentially that it's impossible to create a world without history. Every artifact or object you place in the world is a product of and a clue to its history. Every bit of architecture or infrastructure. It's there, begging to be considered and deepened.
I think as a basic example about the architecture I've seen in California versus Boston, or in the US versus in Europe. The longer the people have been in the area, the more you'll find remnants of the past, buildings that were put up and never taken down. Monuments and ruins don't appear out of thin air. Look at Greece or the Middle East, where cities have been built, rebuilt, rebuilt again layer upon layer over thousands of years. If your world has a long history, that will show in its present.
If the past doesn't show in the present, that is, if the society is extremely homogeneous, then that's usually a different kind of clue as to its history. Look at the city of Tokyo, which was essentially completely destroyed by the Kanto Earthquake, and then by the firebombings of World War II. A lack of visible history will point to great destruction such as this, or it will point to a vigorous standard of reform and modernism - possibly something born of a culture where renewal is highly valued, or where a past history is being suppressed. It can also result from new arrival, i.e. the fact that people haven't been on a planet very long. One example of this would be Wave Without a Shore by C.J. Cherryh.
However, even when the past doesn't show in obvious ways, it can still show. A new colony on a planet will have artifacts from its arrival that suggest the deeper history of the colonizers. Peripheral cultural groups, or oppressed ones, or geographically isolated groups, can preserve elements of a history that are lost to the population at large. I think here of Ursula LeGuin's The Telling, in which the human Sutty goes about discovering a suppressed and overwritten culture.
There's something of a trope in SF/F about the old nursery rhyme, or the long-lost book of science or prophecy, that has greater meaning than anyone suspects. While I'm not suggesting that every world has to have something like this, that goes from seeming unimportance to deciding the fate of the world, it's still good to consider how the past of a society is carried forward in its details, both physical and cultural.
I'm thinking about the history of worlds. The reason it's valuable to consider a world's history is essentially that it's impossible to create a world without history. Every artifact or object you place in the world is a product of and a clue to its history. Every bit of architecture or infrastructure. It's there, begging to be considered and deepened.
I think as a basic example about the architecture I've seen in California versus Boston, or in the US versus in Europe. The longer the people have been in the area, the more you'll find remnants of the past, buildings that were put up and never taken down. Monuments and ruins don't appear out of thin air. Look at Greece or the Middle East, where cities have been built, rebuilt, rebuilt again layer upon layer over thousands of years. If your world has a long history, that will show in its present.
If the past doesn't show in the present, that is, if the society is extremely homogeneous, then that's usually a different kind of clue as to its history. Look at the city of Tokyo, which was essentially completely destroyed by the Kanto Earthquake, and then by the firebombings of World War II. A lack of visible history will point to great destruction such as this, or it will point to a vigorous standard of reform and modernism - possibly something born of a culture where renewal is highly valued, or where a past history is being suppressed. It can also result from new arrival, i.e. the fact that people haven't been on a planet very long. One example of this would be Wave Without a Shore by C.J. Cherryh.
However, even when the past doesn't show in obvious ways, it can still show. A new colony on a planet will have artifacts from its arrival that suggest the deeper history of the colonizers. Peripheral cultural groups, or oppressed ones, or geographically isolated groups, can preserve elements of a history that are lost to the population at large. I think here of Ursula LeGuin's The Telling, in which the human Sutty goes about discovering a suppressed and overwritten culture.
There's something of a trope in SF/F about the old nursery rhyme, or the long-lost book of science or prophecy, that has greater meaning than anyone suspects. While I'm not suggesting that every world has to have something like this, that goes from seeming unimportance to deciding the fate of the world, it's still good to consider how the past of a society is carried forward in its details, both physical and cultural.
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