Fantastical Localization

Before you read this. I really don’t know if there is an actual name for this kind of trope, though I do know the topics do exist.

One of the big things we do in worldbuilding is building culture. One of the most fun things to do are letting thoughts travel and see where the rabbit hole leads you.

If your Venetian Venusians are just done terraforming their planet, a broad stroke would talk about what comes next for their civilization, but if they’re humans they’d de trying to make three or four holidays to justify eating their expensive Earth Food, and carrying on with their lives. Their routine on the short term wouldn’t change much.

You’d get collectors trying to get the Play Station 35’s new model that is shaped like their boats. You’d probably have some economy boost propaganda to get new jobs to increase population. There would be some prejudice against those new colonies because “they weren’t here when things where though 80 years go”, even though, neither was the 50 year old criticizing them.

But the real talk would be the worst timed scandal is that the list of the only sex toys manufacturer in Venus was written in Space Excel with no password and everyone is talking about how does the President and her wife use the Coiled Tentacle Horse Pre-Order edition.

So much to think about. About how rowing a boat is a a parallel to that old manga Aria, and the irony of that being set on Mars instead. What tabletops, cards, and other pastimes when raining or solar flaring is happening.

In Portuguese the word “world” and “mundane” share the same etymology for a reason. To me it is that the ordinary is what makes life, it has to be everywhere in the world, and most of it can be boring, but it is your job to make it interesting. There will be endless discussions on basket players from Earth having more stamina due to the slightly stronger gravity, while Venusian ones are taller.

That is their culture. It doesn’t even need to make sense, but we can’t assume their life will be like ours in the far future, and some things, if the past is anything to go by, remain very similar.

And that example before is just futuristic sci-fi, what about fantasy language? And I don’t mean just in a con-lang kind of way where the true experience of the book has to be read from bellow, with their own glyphs, and each word sounds like a Japanese person’s accent while reading Aramaic. I mean what translates to us.

I recently was introduced to the term “Ground Zero” which is heavily associated to 9/11. Before that it seems to have been used regarding Nuclear Explosions. Not only this is a bitch to translate to my native language… it would be for my world too. Does that make sense for me to use it? What about an expression like “Getting the hell out of Dodge”? Should I just replace it with local slangs that may or not ever get explained?

Me being bi-lingual makes me want to write in both languages, so I try to think a lot about what would be a correct wording for both of us. I can enhance my vocabulary tenfold but it would just make my job on the long run harder. I can do puns, but I need to accept they’ll be translated differently, I try to think of my world as having its own messy language, and you are just being offered a translated version of it.

Some vocabulary may align, some simply do not. It is fun to make a saying from one language exist in another, and have my world does use a little of both, just to make people need to pause a little and think about how it is an expression they don’t use, but it makes sense.

20 years ago the adjective “virtual” was heavily associated with computers. “Real Life” and computers were not integrated with one another, so it was the marketing language at the time, Virtual Boy, Virtual Pets, Virtual Life, Virtual Friends. Where I lived most wouldn’t understand it in another context, would it feel weird back then, to use it when describing Elf magic without it sounding like they’re Digimons?

What about the word “modern”? Today it means recent, but it was a period of time that just… stayed there. To what extent should it remain like that instead of sounding like “Renaissance” to a Greek themed society? Would the Greek-ish architects and engineers of the Effeminate Acolytes use to describe their work?

How do you describe their society anyway, in world? Sure those arrogant femboys are the intelectual elite of the, loosely based, Yavana Kingdom, but when they talk to foreigners, or are spoken about foreigners…? What do you use? Indo-Greek? Greco-Buddhist? Hellenistic…Something?

If you name their city Alexandria… to quote Batman… WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?

Why did I mention femboys earlier? Well, because you study history you may find constant references to “roommates” or “masculine top” and other things that are undoubtedly homosexual behavior, but definitely not a form how we’d find acceptable nowadays, and don’t even let me begin with the misogyny. Are you gonna use the word “hysteria” how we use nowadays or are you gonna be historically accurate on your fantasy world?

Since we’re here, how do they refer to medical terms? Is ADHD a thing or would they use “Mind Wanderer” term from fliers on 1908? What about Shell Shock? Seems old enough but there were even shells to refer to it? Do you just use the same guy’s name for Parkinson’s disease?

At what point the etymology is acceptable? Are we borrowing the aesthetics and geography that resulted into it, and mentioning Greece, but Greece doesn't exist there? Are we using their gods or just analogs? What about our historical characters that have their name on everything?

There is so much to think about, so much to write, you introduce a character that has X or Y and comes from Z and suddenly you need to open a note to write down your own thesaurus.

I hope you have as much fun as me writing your own.