Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Welcome Back Angel Martinez!

Greetings fans! Welcome to Michael's. I'm happy to have Angel Martinez back on to promo her latest release! I can't wait to read. 



Language creation, it can be argued, is the oldest form of human creative expression on the planet. From the moment hunters realized that they needed something more complex than the point and grunt in order to cooperate efficiently, we’ve been doing it. Inventing language, that is.

Anyone who states that someone’s speech or word choices aren’t proper has forgotten the most basic rule of language: it is not static. Language is fluid, recreated constantly. The famed linguist, Noam Chomsky, reveals that children don’t learn language. Each child painstakingly recreates it. Every child. From scratch. All over again.

So I suppose it’s not surprise that writers, whose driving creative force is language, are often driven to create new ones as well. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings, was a prolific creator of languages, and even invented a term for language creation for artisitic purposes: glossopoeia. His elvish dialects, which were originally inspired by (but not based on) Finnish were incredibly complex and complete – he had created over 15 distinct dialects before he died.

Science Fiction has also been fertile soil for language creation. It’s such an obvious question: how would alien languages sound? Absolutely irresistible to the SF writer. Star Trek TNG has several marvelous examples of linguistic experimentation, from the well-developed Klingon language, with it’s fierce, harsh consonants and growling vowels, to the episode where Captain Picard must learn to communicate with an alien ship’s captain who speaks only in analogy.

Knowing all this and recalling those who came before, I approached language creation in my newest SF novel, Gravitational Attraction, with care. With trepidation. With a certain amount of OCD. The regular humans all speak a common language, but the Corzin and their fellow planet dwellers needed something…different. I have, on previous occasions, borrowed less common Earth languages and adapted them, always with some reason for choosing the language. Basque for an ethnic group of fierce nomads. Tibetan for a genetically altered people living on an ice planet. But aliens need an alien language, one that takes into consideration their physiology and temperament.

T’tson’ae was born out of this mess of variables, a language where compound nouns are the norm, clicks are just another part of speech, and the letters “m” “p” and “b” don’t exist. I don’t want to give too much away, though… You’ll just have to read for yourself (and keep in mind that I did leave you a glossary at the end, if you’re so inclined. Nice of me, eh?)

A New M/M Science Fiction Novel - available now at Silver Publishing

"Get involved in this, in any way, it's going to bite you so hard on the ass you'll never be able to sit down again."

Captain Drummond's words of advice quickly become prophetic. One bitter, failed fighter pilot with a bad neuro-implant, one shattered, lost mercenary who's not sure if he's just caused a bloody catastrophe, one quirky, talented crew, one power-mad admiral, and a mysterious planet in the quarantined zone - all run through the cuisinart of Angel’s tilted brain for your reading pleasure.

And don’t forget to check out the return of the Endangered Fae Series! Starting 3/3/12 at Silver Publishing? 

2 comments:

S.Lira said...

TY for visiting Angel

Angel Martinez said...

Thank you for having me and putting up with my weird rambles :D