I'm not entirely sure how to explain what I'm looking for, but I'll do my best. Years ago I read Ella Enchanted for the first time and I absolutely loved the fact that she knew the languages of all the magical beings and that several words in those languages or terms their cultures would use would come up multiple times in the book. I loved that there was a glossary that defined these terms and I'm looking for something similar, it doesn't necessarily need to be a book with a full conlang, but I would love a book with extensive fictional slang or something similar. Give me some options! Thank you so much.
by Delaney20
8 Comments
Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper series has a lot of fictional slang in it. The first one is *Terrier.* It’s a fantasy mystery series.
Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess is somewhat famous for it’s slang. In fact there is a wikipedia entry about it (look up “nadsat”). Note though if you are unfamiliar with the book it is quite grim and violent, not at all like Ella Enchanted.
Riddley Walker is almost conlang, and uses a very phonetic dialect, big glossary in the back. British author so some britishisms on top of that, which can trip up Americans. Ie, it helps to have a bit of passing familiarity with punch and judy shows.
The language is persistent within the whole book though iirc, rather than being learned or discovered by a character.
For something more similar to Ella Enchanted, the Feegles in Terry Pratchett’s Wee Free Men series have a bit of their own Scots-based dialect, and glossaries are included in the sequels. It’s a fun read.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison starts with 26 pages of glossary and pronunciation guides.
John le Carre made up an extensive tradecraft language for his fictional spies that was so compelling that *actual spies* started using it. (For instance, the idea of calling a long-term embedded spy a “mole” comes from him.)
It’s most obvious in TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY.
What Moves the Dead has quite a bit of original vocabulary, as well as some verb tenses and gender-specific terms. It’s enough to be interesting without being distracting.
The characters in 1984 by Orwell speak a modified english. There’s an interesting essay at the end of the book explaining “newspeak”
The Pretties series by Scott Westerfield has a lot of fun slang and sci-fi concepts.
The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan certainly has a deep vocabulary that suits the world-building. Complete with a glossary in the back!