"Bend to the reed's tune - sing a new song": Update

     It's time for an update on the book I'm currently working on: Children of the Music.  The title of this post is the epigraph for the book -- a traditional statement from the Siritoch culture.  The book itself is divided into two halves, the first being "The Reed's Tune" and the second "The New Song."  You can discover how those phrases apply to the story when you read it.

     I have also decided to reveal the cover art.  This doesn't mean the book will be published soon, because I'm not quite satisfied with it yet, but this gives me an illustration to post in various places.  The cover incorporates every symbolic element of the book: the differing eyes of the two peoples, the Music of the Siritoch (of particular importance is the serpentine trumpet that I featured in another post), the sacred tree of the Epanishai, and the circle of standing stones where a shrine exists that is holy to both peoples, although they don't realize it.

     The back cover will have a map of the Land between the Mountains and the Sea, and the text of the paperback will have two internal black-and-white maps, one for each half.  The second part of the story takes place 285 years after the first, so the land has changed considerably in that time -- a larger population, more cities, roads, etc.

Names and Conlangs in Children of the Music

     The reader will not find the names in this book as difficult as my termite names, although of course they are not English.  There are quite a few characters and the relationships among them may be a little difficult to keep straight at first, so I've compiled tables clarifying who is related to whom.

     When I wrote the book some thirty years ago, I wasn't into the conlanging mode yet.  I've always been interested in language, but I mostly just made up names on impulse. (In fact all of my conlangs started out that way.)  Consequently, I wasn't as careful about some aspects of the names as I would have been if I had written the book in the last ten years.  

       A word on the phonetic system:
     These days when I construct names or a language, I never use the English letter "C" because its pronunciation is too ambiguous.  Is it to be pronounced like an "s" or like a "k"?  In English it's usually like a "k" when it's followed by "a," "o," or "u," and like an "s" if the following letter is "e" or "i"  (examples: cake, cere, cinnamon, conlang, culinary).  

     In the two languages in Children of the Music, I consistently used "c" instead of "k."  I think my intention was to have it be always "hard" as in Latin, but who is going to know that?  So we have names like Cumiso and Cormaldur and Corith.  In fact, I discovered that actually I had only one name where there was an ambiguity in the pronunciation and that was a minor mention of a river named Cindala.  I'm changing that to Tindala.

     So I decided to keep the letter "c" instead of changing it to "k."  I've grown accustomed to the "c," and "Kumiso" and "Kormaldur," etc., just don't feel right to me.
      "G" presents a similar difficulty.  However, I find I used only initial "ga" in Galana and Galno and Gauramur, so those don't present a pronunciation problem.  And I never used the letter "j" so its pronunciation is a non-issue.

     I have thought about writing some rudimentary conlangs for the two languages, but I don't really want to spend a lot of time doing that at this point, even though it would be fun.  And I've decided it wouldn't add anything to the stories except maybe for some of my conlanger friends.  I do have a few words in Siritoch and Epanishai.  In Siritoch "Wal" means "Grandfather"  (of any degree, actually).  I wanted something for Nebet to call his great-grandfather.  Just "Grandfather" seemed too formal for a seven-year-old and "Grandpa" or "Granddad" seemed too colloquial and too native to our planet Earth.  I really think it would have been appropriate to make Siritoch words for "Mother" and "Father," too, and I've considered adding those to make it less formal.  However, I haven't decided yet whether to do that.

     The odd thing is, among the Epanishai, I felt that having  Saremna call her father "Papa" seemed perfectly appropriate.  "Father" would be way too formal from a five-year-old, and I never even thought of making an Epanishai word for "Father."  So I haven't been exactly consistent, but it seems to work.

     For the Siritoch, I did come up with diminutive suffixes, such as "Walanatha," which would in effect equal "Grandpa."  This can be used with personal names as well, such as Nebetanatha or just Nebetanath and even the long but sonorous Batharamolanatha (her name is Batharamol).  This is sometimes shortened to simply 'Ramolanatha.  Otherwise, I have very little Siritoch vocabulary, only "Thirnam," a name which means "Cherry." Frankly, I've always liked the word "Epanishai" (pronounced Eh-PAHN-ish-AI), but I never cared for sound of Siritoch (the "ch" should be that soft gutteral sound as in German "Koch.").  However, after all these years I'm stuck with the word -- my mind would not accept using any other term for those people!
     If you look at the names of the Siritoch, there are repetitions that surely mean something in their language.  A lot of names end in -ith or -ath or -eth, and others end in -ol.  I've sometimes thought of -ith as a feminine ending, but I haven't been consistent in this.  I think the names all have a meaning which could be worked out if a conlang was composed (e.g., -ol could be a plural form), but again I don't think that would add anything to the enjoyment of the story.

     I did do a little more technical work with the Epanishai language.  The holy trees are called the "sharovai" (singular: sharova), so it's clear that at least one form of plural in Epanishai is changing the -a ending to -ai.  I figure "Epanishai" is plural, too, but I never use a singular -- it never occurred to me back then.  The sacred grove is the "Codia," and a Priestess of the Grove is a "Codian" (plural: Codiant, so that's another way to make a plural in Epanishai).  And I do mention the names of some of the Epanishai months: Torhorda (the month before the new year begins; Danhorda (the midwinter month), and Nalhorda (the month just before midsummer).  I clearly remember setting up the calendar to have eight-day weeks, because I've always found our seven-day week annoying.  If you have to do something every other day, for example, you can't make it come out even.  If I have more information on time keeping, it's buried irretrievably in my voluminous collection of early manuscripts.
     The Epanishai names themselves are distinguishable from Siritoch.  The male names often end in -o.  For variety, several male names end in -ur, -is, or -al, or even -ab.  I didn't seem to vary the female names; they all end in either -ia or -a.  Of course, I could still change some of those, but I don't think I'm going to do that. 

     And that's about the extent of the linguistic work I did for this book.  Probably enough, although not thoroughly satisfying.

A Follow-Up on My Political Correctness Post

     I did decide to change the word "men" whenever I had used it to mean "people."  There was a lot more of that in there than I had realized.  I did keep the term "bearded men" because the Siritoch have no beards and it's the male Epanishai that they fear, not the women, so it makes sense they would make statements like "the bearded men are coming to kill us."  They wouldn't say "the bearded people."
    And I also eliminated "alien" when it's a noun referring to the Epanishai.  I kept it in certain adjectival usages such as "that's alien to our way of life."

     

Realism and Fantasy - How My Writing Has Evolved

   

FREE on Smashwords

    I've been comparing my enthusiasm levels between the present day and November of 2011 when I first started to self-publish.  I have to say that in those four years I've lost a lot of stamina and certainly a lot of enthusiasm for self-promotion.  I assume my encounter with chemotherapy last spring is partially responsible for that.  Still, I intend to keep going -- nibble away at forming a larger fan base as best I can.  I wouldn't know what else to do.

      I've also become more aware of just what kind of literature I write, and I don't mean cut-and-dried genres.  I think I've lost my taste for typical heroic fantasy.  Elves, ogres, dragons, evil sorceresses, superheroes -- unexplained magic in general -- don't seem to appeal to me these days. I prefer the dark recesses of human (or perhaps one should say, sophont) psychology. 

    When I got my new computer, I added a printer/scanner with OCR capability, and I've begun entering a work I wrote in the 1970's which I liked a lot at the time, and which is standing up fairly well so far.  And I discovered that even in the early days when I was more under the spell of Tolkien, I never was really completely comfortable with the whole heroic fantasy panorama.  My very first endeavors were quite Tolkienesque.  They included a race of immortals, with a wizard very much like Gandalf, white beard, staff, and all.  They also included a villainous Sorceress who wreaks havoc on the lives of the main characters.  That story went on and on but never really developed into anything I will ever be able to publish.  

       But the way I described it at the time was "realistic imaginary world fantasy."  I considered that this was what Tolkien was writing.  My writing included magic, but I never really was comfortable with something that can't be explained by natural processes.  

       But then I turned from that and wrote Children of the Music, the book I'm currently scanning. It's a prequel to the big earlier piece, and it doesn't really include magic.  It's a world like our own, with overtones of the supernatural.  This is a setup I still use.  My termite books include a lot about Seers' prophecies -- certainly supernatural happenings -- and a descent into the Underworld, which is a requisite element of any retelling of epic myth.
     However, I always leave wiggle room.  When Ki'shto'ba and Bu'gan'zei return from the World Beneath, the Companions have an argument about whether what they experienced was real or a dream.  The three rationalists in the group -- Di'fa'kro'mi, Wei'tu, and Za'dut -- never become completely convinced that it was real.  They think it was a vision induced by drinking from the Pool of Memory.  They point out that the King of the Dead never answers any question where Ki'shto'ba could not have already held the answer in its mind.
     Anyway, I discovered that I wrote in a similar way back when I started.  Children of the Music is laid in an imaginary world for sure, one that includes elements of the supernatural -- a holy spring, a people who are simple and good and who live in the flow of the Music, which symbolizes the basic holiness of all life and time.  Unfortunately, however, reality always has to intrude.  Nothing so wonderful as the Siritoch people can last forever.
       Now when I was writing about this world, something else bothered me.  It was vaguely meant to be on a different planet, but it was exactly like our own world -- the geography, the plants and animals, the pastoral lifestyle, etc.  I hadn't fully developed the constructed world (conworld) mentality.  I had not at this time begun writing conlangs, although the book includes an extensive naming language, with a couple of words of the Siritoch tongue translated (Thran, the name of the village, means "bald," from a nearby treeless knob of land; and Wal or Walanath means "Grandfather" or "Grandpapa").
      By the time I abandoned that world completely and went on to Ziraf's World depicted in "The Blessing of Krozem" (FREE on Smashwords), I had begun constructing a milieu much less like Earth. Everything is blue, there are two moons, there are spirit beings that live alongside the humans, and there are four gods who control everything that happens.  I also worked more on the language, although it still consisted of simply a vocabulary with only minimal grammar.  But the basic premise of a realistic depiction of an imaginary world was still there.  And dealing with the dark recesses of human psychology was a major element.
      After I started writing again in 2000 after a hiatus of 17 years, I turned to science fiction.  The worlds have to work on scientific principles, even when elements  of the supernatural are included.  And I became interested in future history -- how is the civilization of Earth going to evolve?  I've never liked dystopian stories much, so even though I gave Earth its Second Dark Age, I also used the optimistic ploy of allowing humanity to rejuvenate itself and come back more rational and stronger than it had ever been.  No magic here!  But still I leave room for the supernatural, particularly when I write about other planets.
       And so we come to The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars, which I'm going to be working on simultaneously with Children of the Music.  It's definitely science fiction, laid on 28th century Earth and dealing with space travel, but it occasionally includes hints of the supernatural, and it definitely deals with the dark recesses of the human mind.

Four of my ebooks are on sale for 99 cents

through Friday, Feb. 5, 2016

The Termite Queen, v.l: The Speaking of the Dead

The Termite Queen, v.2: The Wound That Has No Healing

v.1: The War of the Stolen Mother

v.2: The Storm-Wing

An Interview with A Walker Scott, Fellow Conlanger and Nascent Novelist (Part 2)

This is Part 2
of my interview with A Walker Scott.

To read Part 1, click here.

Walker's interview of me is now posted on my

other blog!

       At one point Walker posted this on his Facebook timeline: "This is very slow and very hard work, so why am I writing a novel? My only answer comes in a quote from one of Tolkien's letters where he quotes CS Lewis from memory, "If they won’t write the kind of books we want to read, we shall have to write them ourselves; but it is very laborious." 
       I personally concur with that statement -- I also write the kind of book that I like to read! Today we have the privilege of learning all about the extraterrestrials that Walker has created for his books, and we get to read an extract. (Oh, and for curiosity's sake, here is his translation of the above quotation into his conlang Carrajina: "Si nu voluns sciviri uls tipus djals livras fi feremus ledjeri, nechidemus scriveri nozus probjus dals fistas, peru esti mutu lavorozu."  I'm sure you can detect the Romance language association.)

        ·       I know you’re also working on a science fiction novel (and a sequel, at the same time). Do you have titles for these novels? Can you tell us something about the plot, the locations, and the period of time?

       I have working titles, but I am dissatisfied with the first. Currently it is titled If by This Hand I Slay, but I find it overly melodramatic and rather misleading about the story itself. Sooner or later, I will find a better title. The sequel is titled Words like Leaves on the Wind. That one fits very well.

       IBTHIS is set at an interstellar university on a space station. The students come from a multitude of worlds, mostly from within the Interstellar Commonwealth of Sentient Species, but also from worlds well outside the ICSS. My story follows one group of students studying diplomacy, engaged in a year-long simulation project to show they know what they are doing in their chosen field. My main character, David Asbury, really doesn't want to be there, but circumstances have left him no choice. Just as he's starting to settle in and accept his fate, the game turns real-world serious.

        WLLOTW picks up about three years later when David is on his very first First Contact assignment, struggling to learn an alien language that keeps changing on him just when he thinks he has it figured out. Then an enemy from the past shows up to make things really difficult. Under torture David begins to remember a different version of the last three years of his life and realizes something very important may be locked inside his head.

       Both these novels are set about 300 years in the future.
 

·   How do you use your constructed languages in these books? I mostly use my conlangs as an aid to discovering what it would really be like when we make first contact with extraterrestrials, but my intelligent termites also speak in these languages from time to time, especially when it comes to words that don’t translate well. I also include one specimen piece (in v.3).
 

        I use them in various ways. There is the occasional greeting or rude comment in an alien language. Sometimes there are brief snatches of conversation. At one point some of the characters get to argue about poems in a couple of languages.
 

·    A lot of your characters are non-human. Tell us about some of the characters. What are your non-humans like and how many different kinds are there?
 

           Well, I could really go off on a tangent here. There are a LOT of different aliens mentioned in passing in my novels and most of them have one or two representatives walk on stage for a paragraph or a page somewhere in one book or the other. In the first book, David finds himself on a team with nine other classmates, only one of whom is Human.

        Tkal is a Tvern An who was raised on Earth since his parents are the Tvern An ambassadors to Earth. He's the leader of the group. He is big and friendly and covered in green and yellow stripes. He is very enthusiastic about English slang and loves to eat -- except bread ... he has a terrible allergy to yeast.

        Gronorgh is a Gravgurdan, a huge warrior, over seven feet tall who would make the biggest Human bodybuilders look anorexic. He's rude, enjoys using his size to intimidate, and hates Humans. But he's smart and good at whatever he does.

Dai-Soln (a Taisiran)
Drawing by A Walker Scot

        Dai-Soln is a Taisiran. They are frail-looking, and have powdery skin in shades from blue to lavender, obsidian eyes and these fronds like moth antennae where we have eyebrows. Dai-Soln often takes on the task of peacemaker trying to smooth things over between Gronorgh and whoever he has totally insulted most recently. He's actually a prince somewhere waaay down in the succession to the throne of his people's Empire, which is currently in a rather disadvantageous relationship with the Gravgurdan Stronghold.

        Shintikaisen is a female warrior of the Trelkairni. She is a traditionalist, so she has never really thought of men as quite people in the same way as women are, until she finds herself working with males as equals. She is roommates with Ael, the other Human on the team, and they spend a lot of time in good-natured bickering about males and "their place" each trying to "enlighten" the other.

        Red-shimmer Gold-streak is an Iridian who is specializing in trade relations and the economics of diplomacy. She feels rather isolated at times since she's only a couple of feet tall, shaped like a rock and can only communicate with her teammates through a translation voder.

Enemwunu (an Alelliawulian)
Drawing by A Walker Scott

        Xtp is a neuter Xttg, an insectoid race. Its language consists entirely of clicks, so it too must use a translation voder to speak Standard. It rooms with Red-shimmer.

        Enemwunu is a gamma-gender Alelliawulian. They are tripedal, hoofed cephalopods. Five is an important number to them. They have five limbs (three legs, two arms) and five genders, five major organs, five elements, five vowels ...

        Fthsaisth is the very first of his species to be educated off-world. His people have just made first contact and are finding the idea of sharing space with so many strange flightless aliens a bit difficult to cope with. Part of Fthsaisthf's job is to help his people decide whether or not to join the ICSS.

• Parenthetically, I had to look up “voder” to make sure it was a "real" word. I thought you had mistyped “coder.” Turns out there is a Wikipedia article on the subject -- it was a very early form of voice synthesizer. I might not be the only person who never heard the term (it’s even older than I am!)

        I think I picked up that word up as a child while reading some of Heinlein's juveniles. I believe his Venerians/Venusians had to use a "voder" to produce English. A little search shows me that not only Between Planets (the one I was remembering) but also The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress uses the term. I probably read both of those more than once in my early teens. I have a bad habit of pulling out odd words -- like voder and vibrissae. I ended up nixing vibrisssae for "fronds." I hadn't thought of voder as being a problem, but maybe I should insert a bit of explanation somewhere in the text.

 

·    Give us an excerpt from the first volume, to whet our appetites. Two or three paragraphs up to a page.

Here's a bit some might find interesting:

        Just then, the outer door to the corridor opened. David turned to see who was entering. Half way through the turn he froze. The half smile on his lips melted away and all the color drained from his face.
        “What is that creature doing here?” thundered the Gravgurdan warrior from earlier.

        David's eyes were as big as the warrior's fists. Sweat was glistening on his brow and dark circles sprouted on the fabric under his arms.

       Dai-Soln stepped from behind the Gravgurdan's shadow to see, and his fronds swept immediately back over his shoulders as his obsidian eyes darted around the room trying to piece together exactly what was going on. Before everything blew up.

        Shintikaisen huffed. “Lower your volume, Gronorgh. None of us here is deaf.”

        "Nor blind,”added Red-shimmer Gold-streak, whose voder had just assaulted her with some very intense color to translate Gronorgh's shout.

        Gronorgh brought his voice down to a low rumble, but still demanded, “I ask again, what is that creature doing here. It better not be the linguist.”

        “He is,”said Tkal striding forward with all the muscles along his jaw standing out in sharp relief and his stripes darkening fiercely. “He is the best on this station, and I had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get him.”

        “Pah! It’s too scrawny to make out-caste. And too timid to breathe. Ones like him foul the gene pool. He should have been exposed at birth.”

        David was trembling on the inside. He fiercely hoped it was only on the inside, but he couldn’t stop the sweating, and there was no color left in his already pallid skin. Gronorgh had used the Terran word for exposed, driving home that Humans had once practiced the most abhorrent of Gravgurdan customs – disposing of weak babies like garbage.

        David knew he had to say something, but his brain wasn’t working right. All he could think about was how big Gronorgh was and how far on his bad side he had already managed to land. He thought he was about to faint. He wanted to run for the door and never look back. But he couldn’t. Doing that would be giving up everything he had worked for, everything he wanted for the future. He had to find a way out of this, or around it, or through it. His brain was buzzing for an answer.

·    Well, that makes me want to read more! Personally, I like for my extraterrestrials to be portrayed as real people, no matter how bizarre they are, and you're surely fulfilling that requisite!  So do you intend to try to publish professionally, or are you planning to join the community of self-published authors, as I have?

I'm going to try to go the traditional publishing route. We'll see if anyone bites!

·   Finally, say something about your other interests or hobbies. I understand you’ve won some arm wrestling competitions!

        I wish! Actually, my best result was a second place in the North Dakota State Championship several years back. I love armwrestling (it's usually spelled as one word within the community), but it's been several years since I last competed.

       My other hobbies go in every direction imaginable! I collect hats, Christmas music from all cultures, Chinese mythological creatures, dictionaries and grammars of foreign languages, books period ... I paint, I crochet, I lift weights, I cook, I dance, I love Renfaires, I like to travel (I've been to 11 countries and 27 of the states).

·    That sounds like you could be the subject of a dozen interviews, Walker! Are there any URLs you’d like to share with the readers, such as a Facebook page or a website?

        If you want to follow my journey to completing this novel you can check my Facebook Page and friend me. https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100006969166318

        Thanks so much, Walker, for visiting with me and my own readers! I’m eager to following that journey and I wish you much good luck in your literary progress! I definitely look forward to reading your books in the not too distant future!

FYI: The intention is that Walker will now

turn around and interview me!  If he does,

the interview will appear over on my other blog

(The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head)

because Walker doesn't operate a blog or webpage.

 

An Interview with A Walker Scott, Fellow Conlanger and Nascent Novelist (Part 1)

       When I first started this self-publishing effort, I knew I wanted to get acquainted with other conlangers, since I had constructed a couple of languages for the extraterrestrials in my books to speak. I surmised conlangers would have some interest in what I was doing and I haven’t been disappointed. Through Twitter I discovered the Language Creation Society and proceeded to join. Through those contacts, I met some of the most interesting people on the internet, although only a few of them (like David Peterson, who writes conlangs for TV series, including Game of Thrones) are well-known outside of conlanging and scholarly circles. Recently, in a Facebook discussion, the idea came up of doing an interview with one of my new friends, so I’m pleased to be introducing you to A Walker Scott, one of the most interesting people I’ve met during my self-publishing journey.

 

·    Welcome to my blog, Walker, and thanks for allowing me to interview you. Let me start by asking you to tell us something about yourself – your background, education, and professional life, and something about the places you have lived. I know you read and speak Chinese and taught for a while in Taiwan.

 

       Thanks, Lorinda. Well, I'm afraid this is not incredibly interesting. I hold a Master's in Teaching and have started but never finished a Master's in Linguistics. I taught English conversation to junior high and high school students in Taiwan for three years, and then English Literature and various electives (Yearbook, Logic, ASL) to junior high and high school students here in the US for another three years, before a one-year stint at a junior college. I left teaching due to the unpredictability of paychecks and such. Now I work in a warehouse as a shipping and receiving manager (read: I am a one-man department!)  In the past I have worked as a library supervisor (not a real librarian), a house painter, a nighttime stocking clerk at a grocery store, a customer service rep and various other jobs related to teaching – sometimes three or four simultaneously!

       I have lived nearly my whole life in and around Dallas, TX. But there was a brief stay in the San Luis Valley of Colorado when I was five and the three years in Taiwan about a decade ago.

       My Chinese skills have gotten quite rusty as an hour of attempted conversation last week brought home rather emphatically! I never did reach reading fluency. At my peak, I could read and write about 900 characters, but something like 3000 is needed to read things like newspapers.

 

       · An adjunct question: how did you happen to become proficient in American Sign Language? 

 

       Well, I have been interested in languages since I was really young, so when I got to college and there was a summer intro class on ASL, I took it. Then I took Beginning Sign Language that fall and Intermediate Sign Language that spring. Then I transferred and the university didn't have ASL and didn't accept it for the required foreign language credits, so it was good I had also taken Spanish. I kept up my ASL using it here and there over the years, and then took some Linguistics classes focused on the world's many signed languages. Now I'm interpreting on a weekly basis.

 

·     I’m personally not a professional linguist as you and so many other conlangers are; I’m just a writer and student of literature who dabbles in languages. When did you get interested in constructing languages and why?

       Well, I'm not a professionsal linguist either. I have taken some graduate level classes, but that's FAR from being a professional. I have read quite a lot, and I've been playing with language for decades. I would love to finish a Linguistics degree, but time and money are both somewhat lacking.

       I can actually pinpoint my first foray into conlanging rather precisely. It was about a week before my 12th birthday. My mother was in the hospital because of complications with her pregnancy before the birth of my youngest brother. I was riding my dad's delivery route with him and bored out of my head. I had recently checked several language learning books out of the public library – French, Russian and Esperanto. The idea that someone could just “make” a language was really interesting, so I decided to give it a try. That first language was horrid. I did just about everything wrong. But it started an interest that has lasted over 30 years now.
 

• How many have you written? Give us some examples! I’m particularly interested in that color language! And I believe you’ve constructed a Romance language that is spoken in North Africa in an alternate history of Earth.

       How many have I written? Well, I have done a lot of sketches, some of which might eventually get more attention, but most just languish on my many, many back burners. Let's see ...  How many have I given enough attention to, to be worthy of mention? Well, Gravgaln, Tvern El, B-G-2-3, maybe Alelliawulian counts, Lrahran, Dabiš. Then there are other languages that only exist in measure enough to include a line of dialogue or a few names in the text of a story. Let’s say eight or so, including the Romance language you referenced.

       Gravgaln is spoken by the Gravgurdan, a race of warriors with some really nasty cultural traits. The grammar is very complicated. The verbs are based on an obscure language from the Solomon Islands. The nouns are inspired by some of the more conservative languages of the Indo-European family and some of the odder members of the Uralic family. You can end up with some really long words, but a two-word sentence in Gravgaln might need 15 words or more to translate it into English.

       Tvern El started out inspired by ASL grammar; I wanted to see how well the grammar of a signed language could be translated to a spoken medium, but pretty soon it acquired influences from Chinese grammar as well as some outright inventions. It is strongly isolating so there are lots of very short words, but the consonant clusters freak people out.

       B-G-2-3 is the color language you mentioned. The Iridians speak by changing the colors and patterns of their skins, much like chameleons or squids, only more sophisticated.  The language looks like some bizarre code when written out, but the letters are colors and the numbers are the patterns in which those colors are manifested.

       The Romance language is called Carrajina and has a whole history and culture attached. It has folk tales, and Scripture passages and recipes and traditions about how to paint your door! I never thought I'd enjoy creating a human language, but once I got started it really took on a life of its own. Someday I may even get around to writing a novel or at least some short stories set in that world. Who knows?

·    So many conlangers write in the abstract – for the sheer love of it, or to investigate the potentialities of language. And some actually write conlangs to be spoken – as auxlangs, or auxiliary languages. What is your view on how a conlang should be utilized? When you began writing conlangs, did you intend to use them in fiction?

       How should a conlang be used? However the creator wants! There is no wrong way to conlang. Some painters use oils, some acrylics, some water colors. Some use badger hair brushes, some a palate knife, some their fingers and some just throw the paint at the canvas. There is no one way to paint, likewise there are many, many ways to go about inventing a language.

       When I first started inventing my first language, I had no thought of using it in fiction, but very quickly my thoughts migrated that direction. I would say most of my conlanging is more or less directed to that goal at present.

·       I believe you’ve written some short fiction that’s been published. Tell us about that.

        Well, actually, the only short fiction I've had published (so far!!) is a science fiction sonnet that appeared in Asimov's. I have written a fair number of short pieces that I should be submitting, but I still find the idea of submitting my work intimidating. However, I am determined to start getting my work out there so, hopefully, I will have more examples soon.

       Though it isn't anything original, only a translation, I do have a translation of the Babel text from Genesis that should be appearing in the next issue of Aequinox.  If you really want to see the Gravgaln language in action, that's the place to look.

 

·     You’re also a conworlder or conculturist – you create worlds. This is also done by many people simply for the joy of it, without any intention of writing stories laid in these worlds. That’s not my practice – I only create worlds if I have a story to tell in that context. What about you?

        Well, I've done both. My alien languages and cultures are meant for storytelling. Carraxa was just an exercise in “what if.”

Coming in a few days:

Part 2 of this interview, in which we learn

all aboutWalker's exterrestrials and read

some sample text from his novel.

New Goodreads Review of The Termite Queen!

       Adam Walker is one of my conlanging and conworlding associates (he's writing a book of his own that I really looking forward to because it's going to be full of fascinating aliens), and he's written a review of the two volumes of The Termite Queen.  He didn't like everything about it, but here is some of the good stuff he mentioned:

 

       "The Termite Queen (vol. 1) and The Wound That Has No Healing (vol. 2) really are one long novel in two volumes. Volume one has a logical conclusion, but the story is far from over till the end of volume two. Each of the two volumes contains two parts.
       "Personally I found volume 2 more satisfying, because I found the aliens, the "termites", more interesting than the humans. The Shshi are strange, as aliens should be, but relatable -- they plot against each other and have their customs and rituals and ways of doing things. Several of the Shshi are really fun characters, the scheming chamberlain, the child-like queen, the clever seer. Several of the warriors are especially complex as they are caught between duty and conscience trying to decide where their loyalties lie as the leadership of the termite city fractures."

 

       [I like that because nobody before has noted the complexity of the psychology of Commander Hi'ta'fu, Chief Lo'lo'pai, and Lieutenant Ni'shto'pri.]

 

       Adam goes on mention how he didn't like the romance part of the plot and then continues saying that nevertheless he really likes the book:

 

       "Languages. I love languages. I invent languages as a hobby. And the Shshi language in this book is incredible. Not only is it alien, using a non-verbal modality (radio waves!), but the version we see in the text is actually an invented language that Our Heroine invents during the course of the book as in interface between the humans, who can't detect radio waves, and the Shshi who can't detect our languages."

 

       [I like that because Adam is the first person to mention the language element that plays such a large part in the book -- the process of understanding how we really might communicate during humans' first contact with intelligent extraterrestrials.]

       Adam gave it 4 stars and recommended it.  Most of the reviews of TQ have been 4 star (I've had one 5-star on each of the two volumes, and a couple of 3-star on v.1 -- nothing lower).  I'm satisfied with 4 stars because this book does have so many elements to it (romance, a journey into human psychology, emphasis on future history, space travel, several types of extraterrestrials, conlangs, a low-tech alien culture with a tradition of heroic single combat, etc.),  With a book so heterogeneous, I'm sure everybody will find something that annoys them, but (I trust) also something to like!

 

       Give it a try here: Amazon

       Or here: Smashwords 

Review and Analysis: The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell

       I began my Amazon and Goodreads reviews of this book by stating: “This is what science fiction ought to be," and I concluded the reviews with the statements: "Strongly recommended for the thoughtful reader, including readers of mainstream and literary fiction. Not recommended for fans of hard SF or space opera.”  I read one negative review by someone who had to be one of the latter.  The spiritual quest that forms the central theme of the book obviously left this person cold, and certain scientific facts such as a possibly flawed portrayal of the red star called Alpha Centauri C or Proxima (Centauri) drove this reviewer to express great scorn.  This person obviously is somewhat lacking in the ability to see beyond mundane SF and to suspend disbelief!

I could write a thesis about this book, but I'll restrict the present discussion to two aspects, beginning with the technique.

The plot is really quite simple: The SETI project picks up beautiful godlike music from the Alpha Centauri system and the Jesuit order mounts an expedition to find the planet at the urging of Fr. Emilio Sandoz.  The group of close friends who form the mission crew arrive at Rakhat and make first contact with the Runa, learning later that the planet harbors a second ILF called the Jana’ata.  They remain woefully clueless about the culture and the relationship between the two species until it’s too late. 

The POV does not conform to the rule of consistency (it changes from one character to another under the overall umbrella of an omnipotent narrator) and yet the action moves forward with a seamless relentlessness in a subtle give-and-take between past and present.  I can imagine the author outlining the plot and then manipulating the alternate sections in order to produce the wonderful suspense.  The odd thing is, you know from the beginning that the mission ended badly; you're introduced immediately to the appalling aftermath.  And yet you don't know why the project ended in this way; you learn first in little morsels, bits of the future, dropped at intervals into the plot.  I found it impossible to predict what was going to happen next.  I correctly anticipated only one thing, something I think I can say without playing the spoiler: I assumed all along that there would be another expedition to Rakhat and that it would form the subject matter of the second volume, The Children of God.  And I believe I was correct in that.

As a conlanger, I have to make a quick remark about the use of language in the first contact.  Emilio Sandoz is a skilled linguist, responsible for communicating with the extraterrestrials.  I don’t know how much work the author did on the two alien languages, but we have at least naming languages here, and a few rules of word formation are stated.  If I ever read the book again, I’ll make a list of the words.  But likely somebody else in the conlanging community has already done that.

 

The book is much more than its technique, of course.  I’m not going to touch on the subtleties of characterization here, even though that’s what the book is about.  Instead, I’m going to talk about the theme by comparing the book to my own writings.  That may seem a bit audacious, because, while I think I’m a good writer, I definitely lack Mary Doria Russell’s intense ability to focus.  However, two people whose opinions I respect have commented that my books reminded them of The Sparrow, and that’s what impelled me to read it.

And we do write on similar themes.  I've written three first-contact stories.  In the novella "Monster Is in the Eye of the Beholder" (which is quite focused, actually) the first contact with a very bizarre species has an outcome every bit as disastrous as in The Sparrow.  Both books present a flawed contact between two cultures that are incompatible, although in my book it's the humans and not the ILFs who precipitate the tragedy.  In The Sparrow an innocent human cultural practice disrupts the status quo of the alien culture (I won't spoil it by saying what it is), while in my book it is a human psychological breakdown that does the harm.

My two-volume novel The Termite Queen deals with a first contact between Earthers and the intelligent termite species called the Shshi. However, neither TQ nor “Monster” deals with THE first contact, the very first time humans encountered aliens.  That event happened in the 28th century, when Earthers met Prf. A'a'ma's bird people, and it forms the topic of my big old floppy WIP The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars.  Since then Earth has formed amicable relationships not only with the Krisí’i’aidá but with the Te Quornaz and the Pozú, and they know of the existence of many other intelligent lifeforms.  Meeting the termite people is unique only in the difficulty of communication. 

Both TQ and The Sparrow have anthropologists and linguists for main characters, a circumstance that would not be unusual for any first contact situation.  However, I had the feeling all the way through The Sparrow that this crew was fragile, undertrained, and clueless about what they were getting into.  When you assume God is underpinning your mission – that a sort of divine fate is at work and God will keep his eye on you and protect you as he does the sparrow – you're very likely to get into trouble.  The Termite Queen crew is not like that.  Earthers have had too much experience with aliens.  Space travel is ubiquitous, a joint undertaking by several alien species, organized on a regional galactic scale.  Both the crews and the scientists have wide experience with off-world missions.  Of course, that doesn't keep them from making mistakes, but it does make them well qualified to take on a first-contact project.

The Sparrow was published in 1996, so the year 2019, when the book starts, was 23 years in the future.  That can seem like a long time, but that date is now only seven years off and obviously we aren’t going to be mining asteroids and using them for space travel by that date.  This is why I place my stories in a time way beyond any possibility that a person of today might still be alive to know what actually developed, and I leave the period between the present and at least a hundred years off purposely vague.  The only thing I mention happening in the 21st century is a cycle of disastrous religious wars, and the way things are going on Earth, that certainly is within the realm of possibility.

But Russell isn't out to write future history as I am, so the connection between the present moment and what happens when we get where we are going is less important than the events themselves. Her purpose is to explore the relationship between God and human beings – does God exist?  Does he interact with his creation?  Should we hold God responsible for the evils that happen in our world or on other worlds?

Now, while some of these questions come up in The Termite Queen, answering them is not my purpose.  In my future, society has developed a humanist culture and those questions are already answered.  God has moved into the realm of myth, from which you can draw wisdom but which gives you no absolutes because the nature of god or even whether a god exists can’t be known (Mythmaker Precept No. l).  People might study god(s) and beliefs academically but ordained clerics and  religious institutions no longer exist, and people generally don't concern themselves the role of gods in their lives.

     That being said, the end of both books has spiritual implications and is strangely similar: the achievement of at least partial redemption.  The whole final section of The Termite Queen is called “Absolution.”  In The Sparrow Sandoz gains forgiveness and absolution through speaking and through words – Absolvo te, says Father Candotti in the traditional language of Catholic confession.  Griffen Gwidian gains forgiveness through personal atonement, although words would have been enough had circumstances been different.  Kaitrin’s absolution comes from a symbolic release of guilt – the “dark bird” that flies away and settles on a scapegoat. 

The strange thing about The Sparrow is that even among these Jesuits, these most Christian of men, nothing is said about the central doctrine of Christ’s vicarious atonement for the sins of humanity.  The emphasis is on God the Father, not God the Son.  My humanist book ends with a resolution that is more conventionally Christian than the end of The Sparrow, albeit portrayed in a context that is completely alien.   

 

So I would conclude by saying, yes, there are similarities between my Termite Queen and Russell’s The Sparrow, and they lie not merely in plot points (the first contact, the off-world expedition and the preparations for it, the linguistic-anthropologist characters, the use of constructed language).  There are also thematic similarities.  I would hope that some of you who like The Sparrow would also be moved to try reading my books as well.

A Little Laboratory Work; a short story

The following story appears on the Third Sunday Blog Carnival for June 17, 2012!

[My inspirations for this piece came from the following articles in Natural History Magazine:  “The Longest Winter,” by Gabrielle Walker (April, 2003, pp. 44-51; about the “Snowball Earth” theory of the Cambrian Explosion); and “A Plenitude of Ocean Life,” by Edward F. DeLong (may, 2003, pp. 40-46; about how Archaea and planktonic microorganisms are much more abundant in the oceans than anyone had realized)  I retained some notes at the end regarding how I got my names.]

A Little Laboratory Work

by Lorinda J. Taylor

       … a large room containing the work stations and equipment of the scientist …the transparent ceiling reveals a dark sky densely strewn with stars, whose light is caught and concentrated in luminous wall panels …  A door opens and someone enters …

       “Crescent, is that you?  Glad to have you back!  How was the conference?”

       “Amusing, as always!  The University never fails to put on a good show!  But it’s nice to be back in familiar territory!  Sorry I was a little late getting here.  I stopped home to check in with Nifti.”

       “She was fine when I saw her at the lattice-ball tournament.  She won three matches and hit her intersections 32 times – more than any other competitor!  Did she tell you about it?”

       “It was all she talked about!  I don’t think she missed me much!”

       “Oh, I can’t agree with that!  I was there and she mentioned a couple of times how she wished you could have attended because she has never performed better.”

      “Well, it’s a shame, but she is old enough to understand about my work – how important it is.  I’ll be sure to view the transimages with her.”

       “So did you learn anything at the conference that made it worth the waste of time?  Must have seemed odd not to be making a presentation.”

       “A relief, really.  It allowed me to focus on what others had to say instead of worrying about how I was going to be received.  It was the same old group, displaying the same old cantankerous dichotomies.  At one extreme, the reactionaries – at the other, the progressives like myself.  The cosmic physicists, who think everything should be left alone and merely observed, versus us molecular biologists, who believe nature ought to be actively improved and enlarged.  The Noli Tangerines vs. the Revolutionaries!  And then there is always that gang in the middle that I call the Tinkerers … those old-line life scientists who have very little imagination and prefer to simply fudge along cautiously the way they have always done.”

       “I suppose it’s too much to expect reconciliations.”

       “Definitely!  Mimito, I couldn’t keep myself from speaking out.”

       “Was that wise?”

       “Well, everyone knows where I stand.  I found old Afarinand’s harangue so annoying that I stood forth and said that if she had her way, either chaos would prevail or change would be obliterated, and that it was up to us bioengineers to make sure neither of those things happens.  Then Kaihanga, whom I rank among the Tinkerers although she likes to think she is progressive, said that certainly change was necessary but that my approach was far too extreme.  I countered by asserting that being innovative didn’t mean forsaking careful thought and appropriately documented research.  We live in such a fragile environment that simply abandoning it is out of the question, but we daren’t just loiter along in infinitesimal steps, either.”

       “Oh, I quite agree with you, Crescent!  You know that!”

       “Of course I do!  But I think I’ll go check out my creatures.  They are a little like my offspring, you know.”

       “You’ll find them in good order.  I made sure of that!”

       … presently …

       “The little characters are coming along swimmingly!  Ha, ha!  Swimming is all they know how to do!  I want to set up some fresh experiments on how they react to varied exposure to different types of radiant energy – determine if anything has changed while I was gone.”

       … later …

       “Everything looks good!  I also ran analyses on their response to increased levels of carbonic acid in their culture medium and to abrupt alterations of temperature, and there were no surprises.  If everything continues to proceed at this pace, I should be ready for the field trial long before it’s scheduled!”

       “Oh, that reminds me!  You have a message from Metod about the target area.”

       “Curses!  Let’s see here – what does the Division Chief have to say now?  … Well, we’ve been over all this before!  ‘We continue reluctant to authorize the utilization of Target Area 3075/444-3, which is demonstrating characteristics that limit its suitability, to wit, a tendency to be subject to radical climate shifts.  We strongly suggest that you search out a target area with a lower incidence of tectonic activity.  Your work is too significant to throw it into an environment where the probability of life-failure is high …  ’  Humbug!  I’ve factored all those so-called flaws into my calculations!  In fact, they’re the main reason that I selected this area!  But these obstructionists simply aren’t willing to concede that my hypotheses could have any merit!”

       “I have to say – I can see some grounds for Metod’s position … ”

       “Mimito!  Even you?”

       “Now, don’t take it like that – you know I’m your biggest advocate!  That’s just it – I’m really in awe of your work, Crescent.  What if it does fail?  The characteristics that you’ve engineered into your lifeforms are so difficult to achieve that you haven’t been able to grow many of the creatures.  That means that you will have to implant the whole colony in order to have any chance of success.  With nothing in reserve, you would have to start from scratch if they die out.  Likely you would not get permission for that.  Then what will happen to your goals?  How will life suffer?”

       “It’s not going to fail!  If ice does come to dominate the target area (and I’m positive it will), it won’t last forever, and these creatures are structured to withstand all kinds of extremes and to flourish under conditions of radical change.  Really, you’re becoming a bit too much of a reactionary yourself, Mimito!”

       “No, I protest that statement emphatically!  But I’m not the genius that you are, Crescent.  I haven’t passed beyond photosynthetic slime mats.  I suppose I must admit to being one of those old-line biologists you were talking about … one of your Tinkerers, if you will.  I can’t grasp the long-range prognosis the way you can and I don’t have your innovative imagination.  I’ve always said it:  if you can pull this off, you will be the leading candidate for the next Zibentak Prize.”

       “Well, I’m flattered.  You’re a good friend, Mimito, and I apologize for my testiness!  And I assure you that I mean to do everything possible to prove all your fears unfounded!  But now I suppose I’d better get down to work and formulate a rebuttal to Metod’s cavils.  It must be Area 3075/444-3; I investigated literally thousands of locations and, in spite of her complaints, it’s the perfect place to test my theories.  Maybe I should just threaten to abandon the project altogether if the University doesn’t go along with what I want.  No – better not do that!  They might take me up on it!”

       … a great while later …

       “Mimito, I’ve got it at last!  All my reasoning and nagging and heckling have finally paid off!”

       “They’ve authorized Target Area 3075/444-3?  Crescent, I’m thrilled for you!  When can you make the implantation?”

       “As soon as I can get my project inserted into the light transference schedule.  The area is in a pretty obscure sector, so special transportation is required.  But it can’t be very long now!”

       “We’ll have to celebrate!”

       “Nifti and I are going to the Social Hall tonight for some dancing.  Do you want to come along?”

       “I won’t be in the way?”

       “Of course not!  It’ll be Nifti who does all the dancing anyway.  I’m getting a little old for such flitting around.”

       “Well, that makes me feel good, since we’re the same age!  But I guess I’d better accept your invitation.  I hate to think of you sitting alone while she is out capering.”

       … The Social Hall, lit by floating balls of luminescent gas …

       “Isn’t she beautiful, Mimito?  So graceful …  It really was worthwhile taking the trouble to have an offspring.  At the time I was rather grudging about how it distracted me from my work, but now I’m glad.”

       “I believe it was the experience of propagation that gave you some of your ideas, Crescent.”

       “Oh, maybe a little.  You ought to try it.”

       “Oh … I don’t think so.  It’s not my style.  I’ll just remain bound to my piddling little experiments with the slime mats.  But, Crescent, I’ve always wondered what your opinion is about something and somehow this seems like an appropriate time to ask.  About the old deity thing … ”

       “The deity thing?  You mean, that theory that an Almighty Power sits off somewhere and manipulates our lives?  You’re surely not serious!”

       “Well, nobody can really prove what came before … you know, before the First Burst … or what will come after everything drifts back into the dark … ”

       “And I suppose our University is just a speck in that Power’s culture dish, and that Power itself is just a thought in some greater Power’s mind, and so on to infinity!  No, I think we are what is, Mimito – we and the control we exert over our environment.  That’s the truth as I see it, and it quite satisfies me.”

       … Mimito may smile and nod agreement, but in her soul she is not sure …

*        *        *

       … the Great Hall of the University, set among glowing dust …

       “Fellow members of the University Assembly, colleagues, friends:  I greet you all!

       “I could declare that I never expected to be standing before you accepting the Zibentak Prize for Significant Contributions to the Development of Life, but I will not make that statement because it would be a falsehood.  I always had great faith in my hypotheses and I knew that if I could prove them, honors would follow.  And time has justified my faith and verified those hypotheses – that if the life-codes of certain photosynthetic microorganisms could be manipulated so as to confer the abilities to withstand the extreme conditions of volatile planets and to adapt rapidly to environmental change, a process would be set in motion that would result in a biosystem that differed from anything ever envisioned.

       “Target Area 3075/444-3 was one of those locations where a previous generation of cosmic physicists sought to create a closed atmospheric and hydrological system during their investigations of the interactions of gravity and matter.  Their work with satellites of Star 3075/444 succeeded admirably in the case of the geologically dynamic third planet, although it failed in the case of the smaller fourth world, which lost its electromagnetic field too soon.  Hence, the planet under consideration provided a good area to test the earliest experiments with corporeal lifeforms; its oceans were long ago successfully cultured with archaic sulfur- and nitrogen-converting microorganisms and then with chlorophyll-bearing slime mats. 

       “However, as with most of our experiments, the resulting biosystem remained stagnant.  So I set about infusing its oceans with my engineered microbes and then I waited for certain climate changes to take place.  And just as predicted, the shifting of this active planet’s tectonic plates nudged its continents into an equatorial alignment that ensured a universal freezing of the oceans.  The rampant volcanism, however, provided open holes and undersea hot spots that gave my extremophiles just enough edge to allow them to endure.  Several subsequent intervals of melting and refreezing took place before the continents drifted once more into a configuration that permits the maintenance of higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.  Now the ice is retreating toward the poles and the seas have been boiling with carbonic acid reactions – quite an interesting sight!  The elevated carbon dioxide levels have allowed my lifeforms, along with a few of the planet’s original microorganisms that managed to survive the ice, to burgeon and release a huge burst of oxygen gas into the atmosphere.  

       “The scattered configuration of the continents should persist for hundreds of millions of the planet’s cycles – long enough to ensure that the target area remains a suitable natural laboratory in which my theory can be further tested, or rather, where the results of the introduction can be monitored.  The newly enriched oxygen atmosphere is providing a protective shield against certain hostile stellar emissions, and the content of dissolved oxygen in the oceans is increasing.  Within this positive new milieu my lifeforms are diversifying and adapting quickly.  They have already begun to form a multitude of distinct organic forms and even cooperative multicellular creatures with specialized parts … and they are reproducing prolifically – one of my foremost goals!  A few are beginning to take advantage of this new fecundity by abandoning photosynthesis and acquiring their energy from the process of engulfing fellow organisms, utilizing the abundance of dissolved oxygen to metabolize their corporeal content.  Yes, you may shudder, but it seems that a variety of life a step removed from dependency upon radiant energy is in truth manifesting itself!

       “But the most remarkable feature observable in these phenomena is that the changes are taking place entirely on their own!  Those organisms that are especially adept at transforming themselves to utilize new resources grow larger and more dominant, while less able varieties cease to exist.  Before now, the potential of evolution as a sculptor of lifeforms was only a controversial theory, but now it may be emphatically stated:  The theory of evolution had been conclusively proved!  The lives of us Shapers in the University’s Biodiversity Program have just become immensely easier!  No longer will it be necessary for us to tortuously craft every molecule of every minute creature, only to fall into despair as we watch 95 percent of our endeavors fail.  My persistent labor has yielded far more than the successful results of a single experiment.  It has produced a whole new method by which biodiversity may be created!

       “I cannot accept this honor without acknowledging the work of those prodigies who came before me, who first conceived the possibility of corporeal, carbon-based life and then engineered it into reality.  My contemporary colleagues also deserve my gratitude, especially my friend the Shaper Mimito, whose successes in refining the action of photosynthesis in chlorophyll-bearing organisms are at the foundation of my advances.  I would also like to thank my offspring Nifti for her patience with my single-minded devotion to my task.  She herself is now studying to become a Shaper of Life, and I expect great things from her a few million cycles into the future. 

       “When that future comes, I would hope that we can all hover together above the laboratory world called Target Area 3075/444-3 and view the consequences of the handiwork of the Shaper Crescent of Galactic Division #3075 of the 9th Parallel University.  Perhaps we will observe beings there that are something like miniature, corporeal versions of ourselves:  with brilliant minds that speak to one another … with ten limbs and seven eyes … with fleshed offspring budding profusely all over their integuments … evolved in the image of their Creators!  And yet perhaps no such outcome will occur:  time may reveal to us something entirely different – even more incredible and totally unforeseen.  Can any prospect be more exciting?  It is what makes the kind of science that we practice more rewarding than any diversion ever devised by any of us supreme beings since the Burst first spawned us.

       “And then there is the possibility that one of us (perhaps my offspring – who can say?) will venture to carry these achievements farther yet – to contrive ways of implanting seeds of this new evolutionary life-system on less receptive worlds, or even to produce corporeal lifeforms that can endure outside the nurturing milieu of water.  Perhaps one day creatures will be able to absorb dry oxygen and glide across the barren rock as easily as we Shapers dance through the void between the stars.  Perhaps novel ways of engineering life from elements other than those we have come to call organic will make the most intractable of matter throb with life!  Likely by that time I will have slipped back into the starlight, but that does not make the possibility any less exhilarating to me! 

       “And so I conclude with a challenge to you all – forge forward!  Do not idle in self-satisfied complacency!  Strive to make us Shapers worthy of that appellation that some of us believe to be our due:  the Omnipotent Masters of Creation!”

END

Notes:

This was written in August of 2003.

In English “crescent” derives from the Latin crescere, to come forth, grow, akin to creare (see create).  The word “create” is from Latin creare, from IE base *krī, to grow, cause to grow, cf. cereal.

In Maori, Kaihanga is Creator; Atua is God.

In Hungarian, Creator is teremto.

In Finnish, to create is luoda or laatia

In Farsi, Creator is âfarinande, while Creation is âfarineš

In Sanskrit, one word for to create was mimita

Last but not least, in Beowulf a word for Fate, Creator, or God is Metod.

Zibentak is adapted from Sieben Tag, German for “Seven Day,” thus the last division of creation.