Words

Some estimates claim there are over 9,000 languages spoken in the world today and another 1,000 or more no longer used. Latin anyone?  Are all those written languages captured in books?  I get excited about my book sales, but in the scope of all the words ever written, my writings don't even qualify as a drop.  My books are less than a drop, perhaps as small as an atom in the body of combined works of all languages across the years since humans first created writing.

From FB

I've read books translated to English from their original language. It's not always smooth but even the strange phrasing adds its own brand of interest. Many of my author friends have their books available in other countries and other languages. I wonder how if the readers of theirs wonder at some of the phrasing in their books.

With the ease of buying ebooks and translating tools available, more people in more parts of the world will be able to purchase literary works formerly unattainable. I love it. 

But I also appreciate the feel and weight of a print book.  I love browsing through used bookstores where they have copies of books from a hundred years ago. I have my own small collection of aged pages that I've built over the years.  Most of them were given to me by family and friends.  They found them at estate sales or yard sales. On my next trip to downtown Harrisburg's Midtown Scholar Bookstore, I intend to add a volume of old prose to my meager shelf of antiques.  It will be fun deciding which one.

I will be buying a title written in English, though it might not be American English. The written word provides endless fascination for me and in nearly endless languages.

Do you own any books in a foreign language? Do you own any 'old' books?

The Name in the Game

I had an amusing moment recently when I was speaking with an employee of Medallion Press as we prepared for an interview. She told me how they'd joked in the office about one of the words I use in my books. The Futhark Chronicles is the series I've written for Medallion with the first book, The Keepers of Sulbreth released January 1st, 2010.

Kristina told me the office jokingly substituted Futhark for a less kind word as in, "What the Futhark is going on?, What the Futhark does that mean?"

We both laughed but in actuality, Futhark is not a made-up word as they believed. I wasn't trying to be sly and clever when I used the word, Futhark. Futhark, more fully referred to as the Elder Futhark, is the most ancient form of a runic alphabet used by Germanic tribes in the 2nd to 8th century. Most knowledge of this ancient rune language is forgotten though a Younger Futhark is still in use today. The Elder Futhark likely derived from an even more ancient Phoenician alphabet. There are many books and websites describing modern runic languages and often speaking of the history of Futhark.

What does all this have to do with my book? Why did I select this word for the title of my fantasy series? Two reasons. i wanted a word with meaning but that would be different than those seen on the bookstores shelves. Many books have the word 'rune' in their titles. Many have the word, 'elf' in their title. There are many more common words to the fantasy genre but I wanted something more unique but still within the boundaries of genre knowledge.

The second reason is kind of the opposite of the first but it also made sense to me at the time of my choosing. If you google 'Futhark' you are led to all kind of sites dealing with the rune languages of yesterday and today. And you know what else is often on those sites. Buy links to my books. Right beside all those publications about Futhark the language is my fantasy novel. A few more connections can never hurt.

So everytime The Chronicles of Futhark appears anywhere on the Internet, all those invisible little veins and capillaries will lead to my books. The Keepers of Sulbreth is available now and soon so will the second book, Beyond the Gate, and then the third book, Beneath the Mountain and finally that fourth unnamed series ender. And all of them will have Futhark on the front cover.

Names can be important. Often a title leads one to pick up a book. Often the names of characters inside keep the story in one's thoughts for a long time.

So are there runes involved in this novel? Will the Elder Futhark play a part in this epic fantasy series? Well, you'll have to read it to find out.

Have you ever read a book with names that stuck with you forever more. And no fair saying 'Mr. Darcy.' Have you ever written a book where you researched the names before you started tapping away on the manuscript?