Translations In the Real World (Photo by Tflanagan at KSU, Saudi Arabia, Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)
One of the first things people ask me when they read certain of my stories is “What’s the right way to pronounce all these weird words?” My stock answer is: “However you like! It’s all made up, whatever sounds right inside your head is fine by me.”
Starting the process of doing an audio book for All That Was Asked has forced me to face the fact that, well, really there is a “right” way. For one thing, the story centers on language–in fact, the working title of the book was “Translations by Ansegwe.” In general, for the stories where I have a made-up culture with their own language or an “evolved” culture that’s grown from more-or-less familiar cultures but uses a language other than English as their root language, I do know how those words should be pronounced. I’m that wonky sort that blows off an entire afternoon at Worldcon to attend a linguistics workshop, so, well, that’s where I’m coming from.
In the real world, I know French pretty well, I watch a lot
of foreign-language TV (though of course I’m relying on subtitles), I live in
place where I hear Spanish and Russian regularly, and I have technical-world
acquaintances with a great variety of language “homes” from India to
Europe to Africa to both Chinas. I’ve
struggled to learn a smattering of my culture-base language–Gaelic. And I grew
up being hauled around to various places in the U.S. and England. I even still “hear” (and alas for
spell-checkers, spell) most English as Brit-style. End result:
I love the interplay of languages and the way everyone talks. I
do not claim to be a polyglot, but I’m a diligent researcher and I just love
all those sounds.
In my writing, most of the problematic words are names, because I think of such stories as having been “translated” from the alien/alternate history language set. Names tend to get left over after a translation, because even if I’m translating a story from French to English, I wouldn’t change “Tourenne” to “Terence” or “Gervais” to Gerald, because a) the names aren’t really the same and b) the sounds of names add the flavor of a language without requiring a reader to actually know a foreign tongue directly. Spoiler? My current work-in-progress has characters named Tourenne and Gervais, and they live in a francophone culture that doesn’t exist anywhere in the real world.
In the made-up language base for All That Was Asked, I have lots of names for people, place-names from more than one country in the alternate-universe world, and a few name-based terms. (The academic types in the story have dreams of winning their version of the Nobel prize, so they talk about it a lot. The Nobel prize is named for a person, but . . . it’s a thing.) I wanted the central names to make sense, to have relateable sounds, and to have some commonalities. For instance, in English we have a lot of names that end in ‘-y’. I selected some sound elements that would fit into different names and tried to make them sound like they came from a distinct self-contained culture–except for a few names I made up specifically to sound like another culture, in the same world.
I decided on a family-personal naming order that made sense
for the culture–Family first, Personal second, and most people refer to each
other and address each other by their personal names, because everyone knows
what family everyone else belongs to. And
I made names longer than we’re used to in English. In our culture “power names” tend
to be short, in theirs, most people have multisyllable names, and powerful people
tend to have longer names.
For other sets of words in this story, ones that are “translated” to English, I “hear” the words in British/European English rather than American English, because that fits better with the social style of the people and gives it a little bit of distance for American readers. It may sound really fussy–especially for such a short little book–but I think having a clear auditory sense going into it helped me with building the alien culture. I just have to hope it carries through to readers and listeners–not a burden to cope with but an added feature of the story.
In my next post, I’ll give you a blow-by-blow pronunciation guide for All That Was Asked, with a few background bits to liven it up a bit.
New Horizons has flown past Pluto successfully, and is now on the way to check out other Kuiper Belt objects. Here’s Corwin Wray’s simulation (made with Pixel Gravity, his software for doing multi-body models on your laptop), which concludes with a wistful look back at our Solar System:
Like New Horizons, you can explore further too.
Itâs worth your while to start by tracking down Guy Ottewell. Yes, heâs on the web, folks, and you can connect with him! Start with his Home Page, which includes all of his books, including the latest version of the book form of his Thousand-Yard Model as well as innovative ideas in several fields, from voting systems to landscape design:   He has a Facebook Page on which heâs been more active as of 2014, sharing art and world news:   And he joined Twitter in 2013 and tweets regularly, especially on human-rights topics, which should interest anyone whoâs become aware of just how small our human community is in this huge universe: find him as simply @GuyOttewell on the tweet machine. A few of his books are available at Amazon, but take careâthe latest updates are best obtained by purchasing directly from the author.
Of course, you might want to follow some of informational links given in the workbook pdfâs for this project:
And of course we have an active mission beyond Pluto right now. It’s an APL project, so they have a great page on the program: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory presents Guy Ottewellâs original project description from 1989 online:
A wonderful collection of poems and quotes related to astronomy, gathered by Michele Stark, an astronomer with a wonderful page she created while lecturing in physics at the University of Michigan, Flint. l  Youâll also find astronomy labs sheâs created for non-majors interested in the field, under âOutreach and Educationâ
A relatively exhaustive listing of scale models in place around the worldâmost are designed for point-to-point driving or cycling tours, so scroll to the bottom portion of the list for walkable models, several of which are roughly on the same scale as that presented here. Check before you set outâsome of these installations were only temporary, as part of larger events and some are virtual (i.e., online). I would like to imagine astronomy fans travelling to all of them, as baseball fans travel to all the major-league parks.
The National Center for Earth and Space Scienceâs âVoyageâ program has a âsomewhatâ pricier scale model in Washington D.C. but also offers up lots of useful curriculum materials:Â Â http://voyagesolarsystem.org/Â Â Their program is fee-based, not by any means free, but it is very comprehensive and aims to involve parents, teachers, students, and their communities: http://journeythroughtheuniverse.org/home/home_default.html
You can keep track of the Voyager spacecraft in real time at http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/index.html  Theyâre in rapid motionâVoyager 1 is travelling at over 38 thousand miles per hour (over 17 km per second).
The Project Astro Notebook used to be sold as a huge expensive bulky (and still wonderful) binder. Soon, youâll be able download at least some portions in pdf format from the free government-sponsored education resources site eric.gov. However, for now your best bet is to buy the DVDâs at http://astrosociety.org/astroshop/index.php?p=product&id=577&parent=1
Why use a FIFA 4 or 5 ball? Well, the dimensions are good for it. But any similar-sized ball will do for this project…like the tennis-ball-patterned playground ball I have. Guy Ottewell likes to use a bowling ballâbut notes that itâs kind of heavy to lug around. http://www.achallenge.com/t-faq.aspx
If you need more reassurance that science and math are not only fun but also funny, visit http://www.xkcd.com (but do prescreen before sharing with studentsâthis webcomic does sometimes use âPG-13â language.
For the jacks ball, you can pick up a jacks set anywhere. Online (e.g., www.orientaltrading.com , theyâre often sold in party packs of a dozen sets. But any bouncy ball bigger than žâ and no bigger than 1â in diameter will do the trick.
If you decide to buy a playground ball or soccer ball online, locate an air pump before your shipment arrivesâtheyâre often shipped uninflated.
And if you buy on Amazon, be sure to sign up for smile.amazon.com first, so your purchases can support your favorite charity.
Oh, my, letâs unpack this one. First off, this book is a good choice if you’re shopping for a scifi story for someone who maybe isn’t all that into science fiction but loves kids and understands the parenting life, or anyone who’s given any real thought to what artificial intelligence might be like and what it would mean for ordinary people.
Building Baby Brother is a story made for Silicon Valley parentsâwherever they may live. It has such a multi-layered dimensionality, youâll be peering at your neighbors, wondering if thatâs them, if this story isnât fiction, but thinly-veiled fact.
The story begins with a typical divorced father managing a well-ordered shared upbringing relationship for the child he and his ex are raising together…but separately. The ex has her issues, Dad has his failings, but they both care about Josh, a wonderful kid whose one ask is âwhen can I have a baby brother?â
Parents want to provide for their kids. Donât they? And this dad, once he stops to think about it, realizes he has the capability to provide his son with some of what he needs: a companion to play with, a buddy to share secrets with, a fellow child to grow up with. Gavin is just what Josh needs. What Dad needs Josh to experience.
WaitâŚ.back up a minute there. Secrets? Before Dad knows it, Gavin’s doing things he hadn’t designed him for, because Josh taught him new things, ways to access information Dad didn’t think Baby Brother would need. But what were the kids to do when they needed to make just a few improvements to their favorite video game? What would a Silicon Valley kid do? Of course, they get online and add the mods they want. And Gavin’s got the inside track on modifying software, being mostly software himself.
Gavin is an AI. And also a child. And what does a child do best?
Learn. And what do you do for a child that needs to learn, who is a good person, one whoâs your other childâs best friend?
You help. Of course. Because thatâs what a parent does.
What follows shouldnât be a spoiler, unless you failed to read the blurb on the book.
EXTREMELY MILD SPOILER ALERT.
Stop here if need be. Grab tissues if youâre ok with indirect spoilers.
What happens when a child has learned all they can from their parents?
You mean when theyâre all grown up?
<nods>
Oh. Right. That.
<holds out tissue box>
END OF SPOILER-ADJACENT MATERIAL
Building Baby Brother isnât fear-the-AI, instead it drives straight to that point all parents say theyâre working towards, but that tears them apart, all the same, when it finally happens. If youâre a crier, be sure you have tissues handy. If youâre a parent, be glad you have all those years ahead.
Or do you? Itâs you, isnât it, with the workshop and the spare parts and the know-how? Think, first. OK?
We played books on tape (remember tapes?) for our children during long car rides. Our oldest taught himself to read at preschool by playing tapes and reading through the accompanying books.
And now it’s become of the main ways people get their stories–in audio books, so they can listen in the car, while exercising, or while ignoring the rest of the people trapped in their house during a pandemic.
I’ve now had the experience of helping to create a new audiobook–the audio edition of All That Was Asked has just come out on Audible (accessible via Amazon, too, of course). If you’re not already on Audible, there’s a free trial offer running that you can take advantage of (and keep the books to collect during your trial, even if you cancel).
We should have the iTunes version out Any Day Now.
I suppose this is a tiny bit like being a playwright and seeing your script being acted out on stage for the first time. First, you squeal, “eeeeeeeee, someone is reading my words!” and then you whine, “heyyyy, that’s not how you say ‘Ansegwe’!”
We have a wonderful reader, Trevor Wilson, who was amazingly patient with all my OCD-level requests for adjustments…especially with all those alien names to learn in this book. I know–they’re made-up names, right, so should it matter? Well, yes, since they all go together to help create a sound-image of an alien culture. I’m so happy Trevor made time to put his mark on this book. He had some really fun, creative takes on ways to make individual characters jump out of the text.
Trevor isn’t just a narrator, he’s a voice actor. That makes a world of difference. To create, in sound, the character of Ansegwe, he came up with three distinct voices–Ansegwe the memoirist, looking back on his youthful escapades, the younger Ansegwe, in dialogue, and the thoughts in young Ansegwe’s head. Each character, major and minor, has their own distinctive voice. He even gave two brothers–who only drop by in a few scenes–a unique, shared accent that still cracks me up, after, what? fifteen listens?
So if you like your books in sound format, mine is there for you, now. Enjoy!