Words, words, words...
#WorldEmber is all about hitting that magical target of 10k words and my post-December mind got hung up on a follow up on all 35+ articles I had a pleasure to read. So.. I wrote around 300 words. Then again, if all of the judges went that path, we'd have around 23 x 300 = 6900 words. The stream would likely enter the realm of 3+ hrs, making it a director's cut of WorldEmber Stream, but I'm digressing.
I'm here to shed some more light on the #judging of the #Language template and share a few articles, which caught my attention.
General stuff
Language is more than grammar and quirky signs. It's a time-travel machine. Language is a bridge between the generations, sometimes several generations. It may be a broken bridge, but a bridge nonetheless.
What I was looking for were stories. Stories of the people bound together by the common beliefs, perspectives and perceptions; the language. Stories of how it originated, how it thrived and died. My ideal was an article that would read lightly, tell a story and provide enough building blocks, so I could play with the language. I had an attention span of a goldfish so the form was equally important.
For the judging itself I sorted the titles based on the number of Views; ascending. This was to level out the bias of the "High Views == High Quality" mindset.
Honourable mentions
There were some articles, which in my personal opinion deserve an honourable mention. These are, in the order as they were read:
- "Argentian Common" by Lady Wynter - a concise take on a language used in trade
- "Silken Tongue" by Heavy - interesting take on writing with sound by using threads of different types and the nature of the wind
- "The Language of Nharith - the tongue of forgotten light" by ptahsekhet - clever idea of parts of the language being "lost in translation" and impossible to reproduce, leading to its gradual change
- "Claw Scuff Stepping" by Brinsmead - communication between dragon riders and dragons through dancing
- "Tongue Flashing" by elspeth87 - a fun and quirky one with reptile-shaped Suuu passing information on a distance
The winning combination
And finally there was an article that had an interesting story, read lightly and had enough quirky stuff (writing system + grammar) to play with. It was Aiterean by Dhelian.
"Aiterean" kept the information to an engaging minimum, while making me state new questions in the process. I liked the origin story and how it led to the evolution of the language. The "one and/or many" theme popped up several times -- in the language, the physical distribution of the Brelish and the multitude of dialects, and I enjoyed how it tied everything together. The script was fun to decipher as well -- it was a small but neat idea to use an alternative name in the title.
Some, less approachable "language rule chunks" were isolated to form clearly distinct sections topped with a packed dictionary (3k+ words). Smart choice to not risk losing the reader on the technical intricacies.
Feedback, anyone?
I kept notes throughout the judging period, so if anyone submitted their Language (and had the Competitor mode on) and would like a written feedback on their article, I'll be happy to help. You can reach out in the comment section or in the Discord server.
Finally, a huge "thank you" to the Competitors for submitting 30+ dialects of creativity and imagination.
