Sy’e lie daya’ano

It’s true, my lovelies. I do, indeed, love each and every one of you that reads my crazy hectic blog. You make me feel…bigger in this gigantic world of blogging. Usually, I feel microscopic…but don’t we all?

 

I have sadly neglected my duties to you, and broken a few promises along the way, so I’ll be honest. Dunno how often I’ll be on. Hopefully a few times a year, at least. Maybe more. But that’s not what I wanted to write about today. That’s such a depressing thought and today is not one for sadness.

 

“Sy’e lie daya’ano.” Pronounced SIGH-ay lee-ay DIE-ah-ah-NU. Strange, yes. An actual language, not yet. BUT, I fully intend for it to become the next Tolkien-esque language. Perhaps… (My dreams are just as grandiose as the next person, ok? Don’t judge me.) It’s an actual language in the sense that it is not random syllables and letters jumbled together in the pretense that it’s an “alien language.” No, I took too many years of Latin and Spanish and Greek for that to be allowed, specifically in regards to the Latin. Definitely an…interesting language. Looking back, it was a blast. At the time, I wanted to gouge my eyes out.

 

It’s based on the romance languages, specifically Spanish and Latin. I wanted to create something of substance, where I had a set of rules that I could turn to and rely on. They all change in their endings, just as the romance languages (and, I suspect, many other languages) do. The nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs all do it. And it’s so. Much. Fun. To. Write. I never thought I’d be smart enough, let alone creative enough, to write my own little language. It’s so exhilarating!

 

So, here’s today’s question: What language have you made up, and what would you lay as its foundation?

The Hubbie’s Got a Competitor….

And he’s tall, dark, and handsome.

Well…he is if you count my dearest Rashir as a competitor. Really, it’s not even a person who’s challenging DH. It’s a book. No, even that’s not right. It’s a genre. This genre is my one true literary love. (Note: I am madly in love with my husband. Books and storylines do NOT really compare to actual relationships. Just for those of you panicking and calling all your friends.)

 

Still, like most romances, sci-fi wasn’t my first love. No, that title goes to fantasy in the form of Erin Hunter’s Warrior series. Forgive me for my cliche adolescent mindset, but I was obsessed with animals. The lovely Erica introduced me to this world of imagination and possibility and I was hooked. I was so in love with the idea of cats having a life and society of their own that I wrote my first fan-fic off of it. I’m still shocked that I came up with 330 pages, especially at the ripe age of 13. I’m still somewhat afraid to go back and read it. I probably should, but it’s like looking at prom pictures 20 years down the road. Some of those memories just make you cringe and go, “What was I thinking??”

It was soon after I finished my fan-fic that my father introduced me to science fiction. As any daddy’s girl, I eagerly took the proffered book, entranced by the creatures dancing across a green cover. It was Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight. The soaring dragons, the down-trodden heroine, the helplessness of the people all caught me and pulled me in. This was a world unlike any I remember reading: a people entrenched in a renaissance culture but centered on an alien planet, a setting so obviously out of our own but still tied together. The society, the weyrs, the dragons: it was love at first sight. I haven’t looked back since.

I still have a soft spot for fantasy. It’s an old boyfriend I dated for years and then decided wasn’t quite right. Sci-fi is my literary heart and soul, though. Not that it can compare at all to my amazing husband, but…well… When it comes to imagination sci-fi is my everything. It is what energizes me, gets my brain thinking, wakes me up in the middle of the night. I find myself staring out the window, wondering about what parallel universes are brushing against ours. I imagine my pterybirds as the faint outlines high up in the sky. It surrounds me, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

What about you? What was your first literary love, and have you found your true love?