Kevin's Watch

Is Donaldson making up new words?

I only ask, because I had the hard-back of 'Runes of the Earth' round my 'Out-laws' this weekend (they're Dutch) and my sister's brother (who is a BIG fantasy geek) recognised what I was reading...he's read all six of the previous installments, and the ONE thing he asked me was..."Was it an easy read?" (He had also read them in English)....at first I said 'Yes', then I looked at a single page of Donaldson's writing...I understand it due to context; yet if given the word alone I doubt I could give it's meaning...

...or is it just me?

No, they are not made up, for the most part. Many of the terms are, however, obscure, archaic and, in some cases, obsolete.

Peruse a copy of The Oxford English Dictionary, sometimes acronymed as the OED, to get the full flavor of the language.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the way he writes, yet it is hard to get many of my friends, whose first language ISN'T English, to read the books in their original form. I read the first half of 'Lord Foul's Bane' in Dutch and the translation SUCKED!!

Trust me, I'm aware of how horribly wrong translations can go.

SRD related, in the gradual interview, how the French translation of Lord Foul's Bane twisted Saltheart Foamfollower into Briny the Pirate.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Glaive wrote:Is Donaldson making up new words?

I only ask, because I had the hard-back of 'Runes of the Earth' round my 'Out-laws' this weekend (they're Dutch) and my sister's brother (who is a BIG fantasy geek) recognised what I was reading...he's read all six of the previous installments, and the ONE thing he asked me was..."Was it an easy read?" (He had also read them in English)....at first I said 'Yes', then I looked at a single page of Donaldson's writing...I understand it due to context; yet if given the word alone I doubt I could give it's meaning...

...or is it just me?

Welcome to Donaldson in English. I love his expansive vocabulary and his writing style.

I was continuously reaching for my dictionary throughout the Chronicles (but only once during Runes, uninterestingly)

I haven't found a word yet that's totally made up. Some forms are uncommon, I believe (brunted, for one, which made its second appearance in RotE after a debut in The Wounded Land), but that's just from my own reading experience, and, for example, I haven't read Sir Walter Scott, who I think is part of SRD's lexicon. I have a list of a bunch of the more bizarre words used in the Chronicles online. It's at www.naples.net/~dsaddison/srdamd (I don't mean to be self-promotional, but I put the list online to be helpful for readers.)

On an aside, I also found much fewer new "SRD weird words" in RotE than in others, though there were a good number from the previous books that resurfaced.

Useful list, thanks!