Creating a language

[Nateskate]

This question might have much more meaning in fantasy and sci fi realms, where new definitions are coined in every chapter. However, everyone can make up words and meanings. Anyone here speak Klingon? Elvish?

I wanted to talk a little about the process of making up words for your reality. I'm sure there are many ways of creating words, and I use more than one. I loved the idea that Tolkien made up entire languages. And some of them are based on ancient roots.

I'm neither a linguist or philologist. In fact, I can barely speak my own native tongue. However, I am familiar with aspects of ancient languages, without actually knowing more than a few words I can't string together into a sentence. Words were fewer in early human history. To convey a meaning, a writer would bridge together several words, and it would take on a new meaning.

For instance, what translates as "King," might actually be "ruler of stars". In the evolution of languages, someone could have blessed their leaders with a common saying, such as, "You shall rule over this kingdom as the stars rule over the night." And the term star could have over time come to mean prince or ruler.

So when you string the words together, what is translated as "King" could literally have been "Ruler of Princes".

Also in ancient language, the same word could have multiple meanings, and it is contextual. For instance, we might see "Yar" repetatively "Bayar, Malyar, Yartobin" One might mean Prince, the other cheif, the other Captain. How can the same word have multiple meanings. It is like our word "love" which can mean lust, cherish, befriend...etc. We know what it means from how it is used in a sentence, "I love ice cream"

In my story, I do not use the word 'Yar', but I will use this word to illustrate the point. In this situation, "Yar" is a common word that means "Above". And it can be used to signify "Lord over". But it is contextual, meaning that it's meaning changes depending on the context you use it. In one context it could mean lord over the janitors, which is head janitor. Or in another, "Lord over Princes", or the Cheif Prince. It could also mean "Captain", as he is given authority over the men who are under him.

But once you define the word, and people begin to understand how it is applied, then you do not have to repeatedly define every word, although it doesn't hurt to have an appendix. Tolkien used this type of technique to create the language of Rohan- using the Eo sound repeatedly. "Eo"-was the word for horse, and so you see words that mean "Horse Lord" or "Horse Master". EOwyn, EOmer, ThEOdin...etc.

I have not sought to mimic Tolkien. However, I want my languages to simulate real languages, with root words, so that someone might recognize, "Lord of the Stars" when they see it.

What ways have you used language in your stories? Do you have any techniques you'd like to share.

[Jaws]

You can do a lot worse than peruse the conlang (constructed languages) resources at http://www.langmaker.com/, which includes several (not always consistent!) pieces on Tolkein's development of Elvish, among others.

[sunandshadow]

www.zompist.com

and the one I wrote: (warning, big file)
http://members.gamedev.net/sunandshadow/modellanguages.doc

[azbikergirl]

I invented a language with which humans and whales can communicate. Well, not in real life (that I know of), but in my fictional world.

[Sage]

One of the major themes in my WIP is language, so this is a really interesting thread for me. :popcorn:

My WIP uses English (of course) & bits of Japanese. It also has a language that is "made up," but with the exception of some specific words & specific rules I made up for those words, I don't have the language mapped out our anything (it's not LOTR ;) ).

Much like your "eo" explanation, there are specific suffixes & prefixes I add to the words of the language when they apply. For example, I know that if a word is referring to a person, it will have the suffix "nin" to it. If it is the best or the ultimate version of something it will have the prefix "te." Thus the ruler of the entire world (as far as the people know the world) is called the "terei'nin," while a lower prince of a specific region (or the son of the main King (women rulers have a slightly different word)) would be known as "rei'nin."

But at the same time, I have places where characters are speaking in that other language and my MC doesn't understand what they are saying. In some cases, I just put sounds (that make sense to pronounce & that sound right based on other examples of that language) together & call it done. There aren't many cases of the language in the story except for the specific words (which are ones that encompass a foreign concept to the MC's culture, & therefore don't have a word to translate to), & those are the only ones that are really worth knowing the definition to.

[Nateskate]

I invented a language with which humans and whales can communicate. Well, not in real life (that I know of), but in my fictional world.

Excellent. In the first age (not called an age) of my fantasy world, the animals speak a common tongue. This was one of my worries when I began the story. I didn't want readers to think I was going Disney.- all cutsie animals talk. Not that I don't like Disney, but it is meant to be an edgier kind of story.

But in order to accentuate that the world we've inherited is a lesser world, I wanted to portray the world in its blissful ignorance. So, they not only talk, but like three-day-olds who could talk, wondering if humans could fly. The human doesn't know the answer to the question, and makes some feeble attempts. He doesn't land well either!

It's a risk going from Hobbit like lightness, to Silmarillion like darkness in the same book, but that's what it does.

It also magnifies the sadness when the "Dullness of thought" overtakes the animals. In a sense, it was meant to portray that the animals suffer for our stupidity. They did nothing but inherit our curses. And obviously this becomes heart-wrenching to those who've befriended the animals. Still, that is a small part of the story.

[Nateskate]

One of the major themes in my WIP is language, so this is a really interesting thread for me. :popcorn:

My WIP uses English (of course) & bits of Japanese. It also has a language that is "made up," but with the exception of some specific words & specific rules I made up for those words, I don't have the language mapped out our anything (it's not LOTR ;) ).

Much like your "eo" explanation, there are specific suffixes & prefixes I add to the words of the language when they apply. For example, I know that if a word is referring to a person, it will have the suffix "nin" to it. If it is the best or the ultimate version of something it will have the prefix "te." Thus the ruler of the entire world (as far as the people know the world) is called the "terei'nin," while a lower prince of a specific region (or the son of the main King (women rulers have a slightly different word)) would be known as "rei'nin."

But at the same time, I have places where characters are speaking in that other language and my MC doesn't understand what they are saying. In some cases, I just put sounds (that make sense to pronounce & that sound right based on other examples of that language) together & call it done. There aren't many cases of the language in the story except for the specific words (which are ones that encompass a foreign concept to the MC's culture, & therefore don't have a word to translate to), & those are the only ones that are really worth knowing the definition to.

Sounds great. I'm trying to do something similar, and I've split the difference with Tolkien. Though the Silmarillion is a great story, it is a terribly hard read, and not reader friendly. And that's not an insult. He never felt it was ready and it was published after his death by his son, who had to guess which order and which versions of the story to use.

Occassionally, I'll translate words through the characters. "In, the "At..." tongue, it means..."

[jules]

Have you read Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series? That's a talking animals story that's quite a long way from being Disneyish... :)

[Nateskate]

Have you read Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series? That's a talking animals story that's quite a long way from being Disneyish... :)

No, I'm sorry that I haven't. I've read other stories with talking animals that were serious. Animal farm...etc.

My concern wasn't talking animals, but what tone I set at the outset, and would it appeal to the audience I hoped to get. YA- adult.

Adults tend to be more forgiving of cutsie than teens. C.S Lewis addressed his Narnia stories to his neice, who he pressumed would be "too old to read them" until she grew up. It's a human nature thing, where at a certain age, teens don't want to have anything to do with anything smacking of "Children's book".

But those who read further will quickly find it is far too grave a story for children.

[jules]

Didn't stop my school setting a few of them for class assignments. :)

I think we read TLTW&TW and Voyage of the Dawntreader. But that was many years ago. :(

[Sage]

I hope teens can forgive me my talking "animals" in my WIP. I've made it clear that they're actually aliens & that real animals don't talk, but still, if they see a wolf in their mind's eye that talks, I hope they don't think they're too "cutesy" & Disneyish

[Danger Jane]

Might be helpful...

Words that are contextual in one language are not necessarily in another. Our thousand meanings for love could be a thousand separate words in WallyWorldSpeak. In Latin, they didn't really have a word for please. They would add "amabo te" onto a sentence--literally, "I will love you [if you go get me a soda]".


And Sage...as a teen, I can tell you that the "talking animal" thing isn't cutesy if it's done right. Ever heard of Tamora Pierce? She's hugely popular, but the "talking animals" thing is major in many of her books. Be realistic--if the alien-non-animal is meant as a sentient being, it can think in a human (trivial) way. But if it's a lower-order being...it probably won't be concerned with how Susie The Other Slimemold has a higher-paying job.

[Nateskate]

Might be helpful...

Words that are contextual in one language are not necessarily in another. Our thousand meanings for love could be a thousand separate words in WallyWorldSpeak. In Latin, they didn't really have a word for please. They would add "amabo te" onto a sentence--literally, "I will love you [if you go get me a soda]".


And Sage...as a teen, I can tell you that the "talking animal" thing isn't cutesy if it's done right. Ever heard of Tamora Pierce? She's hugely popular, but the "talking animals" thing is major in many of her books. Be realistic--if the alien-non-animal is meant as a sentient being, it can think in a human (trivial) way. But if it's a lower-order being...it probably won't be concerned with how Susie The Other Slimemold has a higher-paying job.

Hopefully a good story will take care of readers tollerance. But I think having a realism, that the same prefix could have two meanings, might be interpreted as an error by some, when in fact that happens in real translation. I think a Savvy reader will hang in and give the writer the benefit of the doubt.

[NeuroFizz]

Nate,
You may be able to find some encryption algorithms that you could modify and use. I don't know of any, but a search of the internet may turn something up. You could even develop your own. A simple one could give consistency in translation.

[victoriastrauss]

The way I see it, all fantasy is literature in translation. It makes sense to me in most cases, therefore, to use the nearest equivalent English term, rather than to invent languages.

- Victoria

[goatpiper]

I have a novel idea that I'll write someday that involves fantasy and invented languages. I'd never go as far as JRRT did, but he had the languages first, then decided he wanted a context for them.
I try to keep it simple when I'm coming up with stuff. My first concern is sound. I want the words that relate to a certain concept or people to sound like they do. My next thing is to come up with simple words (roots, as has been mentioned at the beginning of the thread) and see how they work to create bigger ones. So my word for 'sun' literally translates as 'great fire', because of how the sun was created in my creation myth. Elementals are a big part of my story, and they literally translate as 'earth children', 'fire children', etc. I usually string things together with the modifiers before the main word in any given name. I have a race of people known as 'People of the Darklight', and their name literally translates as 'dark light people'.
I'm somewhat of a simpleton with this, I know, but I wanted to throw in my 2 sense.

Cool thread!!!!

[brinkett]

The way I see it, all fantasy is literature in translation. It makes sense to me in most cases, therefore, to use the nearest equivalent English term, rather than to invent languages.

Yes! The same goes for most science fiction (or whatever the politically correct term is these days). It's unlikely the characters and narrator would be speaking 21st century English, so the assumption is that someone translated the work and used terms the target audience would most likely understand.

[sunandshadow]

Yes! The same goes for most science fiction (or whatever the politically correct term is these days). It's unlikely the characters and narrator would be speaking 21st century English, so the assumption is that someone translated the work and used terms the target audience would most likely understand.

Ah, but what if people in your world speak more than one language, and you want to talk about translation difficulties?

[brinkett]

Ah, but what if people in your world speak more than one language, and you want to talk about translation difficulties?
There would still be no need to make up new languages or words. We've got plenty of existing languages to go around. Heck, even regional variations on the same language might work, or the same language from different time periods.

[victoriastrauss]

Ah, but what if people in your world speak more than one language, and you want to talk about translation difficulties?Then you might need to work something out. Or if your character lands in a situation in which s/he has to learn a new language. But as brinkett said, there are plenty of existing languages from which to extrapolate--you don't have to make up a whole system in order to render a few words and phrases.

One thing that bugs me, especially in tight third person POVs, is when a character who doesn't know a language is listening to someone speaking it, and what s/he hears is rendered as dialogue, as words and phrases. If you're not familiar with a language and you hear someone talking, you'll get an impression of sound and rhythm and maybe be able to infer meaning by context and tone of voice--but you probably won't be able to separate any of that out into individual words. It'll just sound like a string of gibberish.

Of course, if you like inventing languages, that's great. It's just that many beginning fantasy writers seem to feel that they're not doing things "right" if they don't make up a language or two. Also, made-up languages are like any other element of world building: badly used, they can make your book seem overstuffed, rather than compellingly detailed. Or, worse, you can be like those writers of Cold War thrillers in which the Russians' dialogue was all in English, but they all said "da" and "nyet" and "tovarisch". So I think it's important to emphasize that language invention is not something you have to do--that you can create a perfectly believable world, complete with people who speak different languages, without ever making one up.

- Victoria

[brinkett]

Or, worse, you can be like those writers of Cold War thrillers in which the Russians' dialogue was all in English, but they all said "da" and "nyet" and "tovarisch".
Or like movies in which the Russian says "nyet" with a British accent.

[DamaNegra]

Well, for a novel I'm writing, I invented a whole new language, along with an alphabet and gramatical rules and pronunciations and all of that. It's great, because that way I can construct sentences that actually mean things (for me) and add them into my story so it actually looks as if they are speaking a real language. Introducing a new language adds a great touch to a novel.

[Andrew Jameson]

Real languages evolve and grow and change, incorporating new concepts and inventing new words, giving old words different nuances, developing idioms, and a host of other things. Human beings are also attuned to language--the feel and the structure.

That's a dangerous combination, because that means that developing a fantasy language that mimics the complexity of a real language is hard. And, if you don't get it right, readers will hate it. It'll look like baby talk or random collections of letters, because it won't have the feel of a real language.

Sure, it can be done. Tolkein did it. But Tolkein was a linguistics scholar.

If you (the collective you) want to give it a try, then hey, give it a try. But I'd think long and hard about doing it, because I can't think of any other bit of world-building that takes so much effort and has so large a risk of unsuspending the reader's disbelief.

[katee]

Definitely, if you're going to invent a language (and be thorough about it) you'll need to bone up on your linguistics. There are a lot more components to a language than people realise, particularly if you are monolingual.

On the good side, IMHO, linguistics is a fascinating subject, and well worth studying :)

[Sage]

Ah, but what if people in your world speak more than one language, and you want to talk about translation difficulties?
There would still be no need to make up new languages or words. We've got plenty of existing languages to go around. Heck, even regional variations on the same language might work, or the same language from different time periods.

Yes, but why would people of another world, for example, be speaking German, Swahili, Tagalog, or whatever language you want to borrow from, unless they were a people from Earth originally.

Now in my novel, the main characters are on a different planet & speak Japanese primarily, although they are well versed in English. This is because the world is colonized by humans. However, when they meet a race that has never even heard of Earth, why would that race speak an Earth-based language?

And you want to confuse people? Just wait until you write the other race speaking Swahili & then all it takes is just one reader who can read Swahili to pick up your book to a)ruin the illusion of the non-human characters speaking an alien language for that reader, b) find out just how wrong your translation was no matter how hard you researched it (which, btw, is probably at least as much work as creating a language), & c) let the secret out, so that the illusion is possibly broken for others as well.

Just my two cents on using a premade language for non-Earthlings.

[TeddyG]

Some have mentioned Tolkien and the "elvish" he created, as Tolkien was a linguist. But it may also pay to take a look at Frank Herbert in his Dune Series as well.

Herbert was obviously very familiar with Hebrew and Arabic, as many terms he used in his Dune series (which most people think are a made up language) are taken from ancient Hebrew and Modern Hebrew as well as Traditional Arabic.

To give two instances off the top of my head:

Jessica belongs to a secret group of women called the "Bene Gesirit" witches. (Not sure how he spells it exactly.) Well that is just a bastardization of the name "Benei Yeshuran" which is also the name of many Temples, as it means Children of God (loosely from Hebrew).

A more interesting term he uses for Paul (the Messiah) is "kwitzat derech"
which is straight from Hebrew and Kabbalah (Jewish mysticsm) called "Kvitiztat ha'Derech" meaning "he who jumps in time over the path"
The Messiah is referred to someone who has the ability to jump in time...thus shortening the time until he arrives (again a mystical concept.)

In making up languages, which I have also dealt with over the years in a WIP, I think you have the choice of Tolkien (making it up with its rules etc.) or basing yourself upon some unknown or little known langugage and then changing here or there so it fits your "scenario".

Just depends on what you are looking for, and how much research on invention you want to get into I think. Also depends on the background of your work as well. Herbert was in the far future, and Tolkien was in Middle Earth a time never "grounded" for us.

Teddy

[MarkButler]

Just to throw in a monkey wrench.. I find the whole "other language" thing makes a book that much harder to read. A couple of words or some stilted dialog to establish that the char is different is all thats needed.

I suppose that there are readers who will drool at the whole "another language with its own rules and letters" but I doubt the mass market is that interested. When faced with one of those 15 syllable names or sentences full of gibberish I know I tend to start skimming on to where it gets easy to read again.

I think minimalism is best on those types of things.

I remember my wife getting halfway through 'Footfall' and giving up on it because she hated the wierd names of all the creatures so much - and that was just the names.

Mark

[scarletpeaches]

I never managed to get through LoTR...I'll never get back the time I spent fighting to get to page 180 before giving up. I'm sure I went into a boredom induced coma for a few months...as for the languages made up for that damn book, they didn't interest me at all. If I want to read a book with another language in it, I'll get a travel guide and go to college to learn the language. When I read books, I want them all in English. That's my mother tongue, and that's the language I read best.

[TeddyG]

I never managed to get through LoTR...I'll never get back the time I spent fighting to get to page 180 before giving up. I'm sure I went into a boredom induced coma for a few months...as for the languages made up for that damn book, they didn't interest me at all. If I want to read a book with another language in it, I'll get a travel guide and go to college to learn the language. When I read books, I want them all in English. That's my mother tongue, and that's the language I read best.

thud..falls...hides face...faintsssssssssssssssssss
not get through LOTR??????????
heretic!
OMG .. the end of my faith in AW ....

sighsssssssssssssss
and goes back to reading it for the upteenth time..

[scarletpeaches]

Haha, my aunt has the same reaction, she's read it as many times as I've read GWtW or Forever Amber...It just didn't tickle me at all, and to be honest, I think a lot of people rave about it in an Emperor's New Clothes way. 180 pages into it and I was still thinking, when's the effing story going to begin???

[TeddyG]

The story begins with Hobbits..

HOBBITSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
and a ring
and a quest
sheesh
and Gollum
and elves
and dwarves
and dragons
and Eagles
and wizards
and ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh sheesh
now I have to start all over again

[scarletpeaches]

It's on my list of "Books By Which I Shall Not Be Beaten" along with War & Peace, the Bible and A Suitable Boy. I'll save it for when I'm feeling stronger. Like, when I have a ton of chocolate to hand.

[TeddyG]

It's on my list of "Books By Which I Shall Not Be Beaten" along with War & Peace, the Bible and A Suitable Boy. I'll save it for when I'm feeling stronger. Like, when I have a ton of chocolate to hand.

I knew it. A heretic of the worst kind. Not only won't she read LOTR but the truth comes out. She won't read War & Peace. Tolstoy should never join AW. That great work and he hears it won't be read?????????

Burn at the stake. Tar & Feather.

OMG...next we will hear that Dostoyevsky is also waiting for chocolate.

This is too much for my old heart...

[scarletpeaches]

I read Anna Karenina and loved it, in fact it's on my list of favourites (I add at the most one a year, so there's not even 30 on my list yet). Does that redeem me? :D Sadly, I haven't yet read Dostoyevsky. Note I said yet. C&P is on my TBR pile on the bookcase beside me as we 'speak'.

[TeddyG]

Read "The Idiot" first by Dostoyevsky, in my humble opinion it is perhaps one of the best books ever written.

But then again I read LOTR a million times..so my opinion is blah!!!!!!!!
Hah!

Teddy

[MarkButler]

Try making it all the way though Dune

[brinkett]

Yes, but why would people of another world, for example, be speaking German, Swahili, Tagalog, or whatever language you want to borrow from, unless they were a people from Earth originally.

The aliens don't speak English (or French or Japanese or whatever), but whatever they speak has been translated into language(s) that readers (currently 21st century Terrans) will understand or have some familiarity with. Go back to Victoria's statement all fantasy is literature in translation.

[Sage]

I don't know about anybody else, but I know that when I'm talking about making up a language, I'm not talking about substituting large sections of the story or dialogue with it. Like I've said before, language is a major theme of my novel, & the fact that it doesn't always translate perfectly plays into that. I think I have maybe four lines of "dialogue" in the other language throughout the whole book (well, seven, but three are repeated in a song). What I really have worked on are the concepts that wouldn't translate. My MCs are being thrown into an entirely new culture. It's natural that there are going to be some things that are ingrained in the one culture that can't translate into a simple word even with the help of magic doing the translation (or a universal translation device if we're going a sci-fi route). It works the same way in the opposite direction, although the readers will be less struck by it because they will, of course, understand the word the first time.

"We worship the xia'nin"
"Is that like your god?"
"I'm sorry, that didn't translate. What's a 'god'?"
"What's a 'xia'nin'?"

Like in this example, if someone had never had a concept of "god," & you tried to explain what one was, it would take more than one word to encompass the entire meaning of a god.

As victoria(?) mentioned, most people hearing a language they don't understand, won't be able to follow the words of that language. Maybe a short sentence, or one spoken slowly to the person ('cuz for some reason people always think that if you speak slower you'll somehow be able to understand it), but for the most part you'll be able to write it off as some variation on "he couldn't understand what she was saying as she spoke in her native language...." And I would hope that most of the time your main characters can understand the people they're interacting with, otherwise, it will be more than just your average reader who's put off by the situation.

But because I don't use paragraphs of New Language dialogue, I expect that those words that come up often are going to be paid attention to by the audience. If a major character is saying that she needs to find the xia'nin & gives a brief roundabout description (& those of you paying attention to the whole thread may have already caught that it was a person :Clap: ), I would hope that readers would be cataloging the single word for future use, especially when she uses the word about 20 times in the following pages.

Make sense to anyone else?

[Euan H.]

Dune rocks. How can you not like Dune?

@Nateskate

The way you're describing your language as working makes it sound like an agglutinative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative_language) language. If you want to get a feel for how these work, try doing some research on languages like Nahuatl, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl_language) Swahili, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language) or Turkish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language), all of which are agglutinative. If you write your own rules on suf-/pre-/infixing (maybe just stealing the rules from one of the language above), then your words will sound consistent. People may not be able to work out exactly what the words mean, but I'm not sure that's all that important; I didn't know about 'Eo' being horse until I read it in your post.

[Sage]

But the average English-speaker doesn't speak Japanese. Even if you chose a language that is taught in high-school, like Spanish or French, not everyone who took it can understand enough to read it. And not everyone took the same language. So what you seem to want to do is put it in a language so that the average reader can read it, but still make it foreign enough to seem like a different race. But what you're really doing is putting it in a language that some, but not all, readers might be able to read, but shatter the illusion that they are speaking an alien language (whether that be alien like Klingon or alien like elvish) for anyone who can recognize it as an Earth language.

Yes, if I'm focusing on non-English-speaking characters, I'm translating them to English. This is true beyond fantasy & sci-fi. I could be writing about a guy in France & translating all the French into English. But if he meets a Russian tourist on the street who asks in Russian where the Eiffel Tower is, should I translate the Russian into English too, considering the French guy didn't understand him? Or worse, should I translate it into Spanish so that the American readers can better recognize the language?

If your main characters who are translated into English meet up with another race who don't speak their language or any other Earth language, there is no reason to translate that other language into English or any other Earth language. It's like translating Russian to Spanish. Now, if you change the POV to that other race, then you can do English, because the audience is getting that POV & should understand it like that character does. The reader understands that the characters aren't speaking English, but that it was written that way so they could read the story. But I'd put down a book if a writer expected me to suspend my disbelief when presented with an alien who speaks Spanish (assuming, of course, that the alien didn't grow up in a Spanish speaking country on Earth).

[brinkett]

but shatter the illusion that they are speaking an alien language (whether that be alien like Klingon or alien like elvish) for anyone who can recognize it as an Earth language.

See Victoria's post at 3:01PM. She explained it much better than I can.

[Nateskate]

Some have mentioned Tolkien and the "elvish" he created, as Tolkien was a linguist. But it may also pay to take a look at Frank Herbert in his Dune Series as well.

Herbert was obviously very familiar with Hebrew and Arabic, as many terms he used in his Dune series (which most people think are a made up language) are taken from ancient Hebrew and Modern Hebrew as well as Traditional Arabic.

To give two instances off the top of my head:

Jessica belongs to a secret group of women called the "Bene Gesirit" witches. (Not sure how he spells it exactly.) Well that is just a bastardization of the name "Benei Yeshuran" which is also the name of many Temples, as it means Children of God (loosely from Hebrew).

A more interesting term he uses for Paul (the Messiah) is "kwitzat derech"
which is straight from Hebrew and Kabbalah (Jewish mysticsm) called "Kvitiztat ha'Derech" meaning "he who jumps in time over the path"
The Messiah is referred to someone who has the ability to jump in time...thus shortening the time until he arrives (again a mystical concept.)

In making up languages, which I have also dealt with over the years in a WIP, I think you have the choice of Tolkien (making it up with its rules etc.) or basing yourself upon some unknown or little known langugage and then changing here or there so it fits your "scenario".

Just depends on what you are looking for, and how much research on invention you want to get into I think. Also depends on the background of your work as well. Herbert was in the far future, and Tolkien was in Middle Earth a time never "grounded" for us.

Teddy

I do not use Aramaic, but have used the roots of Aramaic to form the language I use in my book. No, I can't read it, but I have done studies of many words to try to understand the meaning. It joins many root to form words. I love how words like Jerusalem can break down into multiple metaphors. Peave flowing like a river...etc.

It is a perfect language for Duel Meanings. So, that in a single name (Edom/Adam) you can have a metaphoric meaning as well as a literal meaning. It's a wonderful tool for fantasy where encoding a secret meaning is half the fun, whether or not anyone ever gets it.