Young Folks, Old Folks, Everybody Come

I've always enjoyed singing the alternate versions of Bible stories. The chorus goes

Young folks, old folks, everybody come
Come join the Sunday School and have a lot of fun
Please check your chewing gum and razors at the door
And you'll hear some Bible stories like you never heard before

So without further ado, here are some verses I've come up with

Israel had some children, they made a few mistakes
Complained against Jehovah, so He rustled up some snakes
Couple bites and the kids said if He fixed it they'd applaud
So Moses grabbed a serpent and he wrapped it round his rod 

Lot and his wife found Sodom fairly cosy
Till one day they had guests and the neighbors got too nosy
Well, a pesky crowd around the door began a-hammering
But even though they squinted they still couldn't see a thing 

Lot had a couple daughters, and, boy, they liked to date
But they ran out of prospects when their city burned to flakes
They looked upon their father and they said, "Hey, you're a man"
It took a couple drinks but now they fill a twelve-seat van

Noah lived a long time, six hundred years or so
A whole life at a desk job had made it go real slow
One day he saw some elephants and got an affixation
So he started herding animals and changed his occupation

Saul was a tall man, he also was the king
But, boy, did he get jealous of that kid who had the sling
One day he grabbed a spear and said, "David, you should know
That you're not the only person in this castle who can throw"

Abraham and Isaac went marching up a hill
Cause that's the primest real estate when you've got things to kill
Well Isaac got to looking and said, "Where's the sacrifice?"
Abraham said, "Snap a selfie, make it look real nice"

The children of Israel out in the wilderness
They stuffed their mouths with Mana and made a crummy mess
When they were done they smacked their lips and said, "Our mouths are dry"
So Moses fought a boulder and he made that boulder cry

Evoking the Fantastical Milieu: Naming

This post will focus specifically on names and words.

Names are powerful. Glance over the two following lists of names:

• Daniel, Samuel, Adam, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, David, Zach, Aaron, Benjamin, Jonathan
• Abdon, Dishon, Jerah, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Phallu, Urijah, Vophsi, Zeror

If you were raised in a biblically influenced country, the first list will likely seem mundane to you. However, the second list will immediately transport one to a land far away and so unlike our own. In case you didn't guess, all of the above names are from the Bible. If you know your audience, you can evoke impressions and emotions by choosing the right names.

In The Dinosaur Lords, Victor Milan lifts names straight from Spanish (Spañol), French (Francés), German (Alemán), English (Anglysh), and Russian (Slavo). He references countries and principalities in approximately the same locations as Spain, France, Germany, England, and Russia. The primary difference from our world is that they use dinosaurs for warfare. I personally would have preferred an alternate world rather than just an alternate history, but Milan did what he did so that he could immediately put impressions of these countries in our heads without having to devote much time for cultural backgrounds. A shortcut, if you're not looking to build a whole world.

Your names need a sense of uniformity in their foreignness. One option is to pick a language and lift all your names from that language. For Stoneslayer I used Hebrew. I made some rules, like all B's became V's. I often changed A's into E's. The particle 'om' means god (instead of 'el'), so lots of names end with that. Some other things like that. By my count, there are 96 separate names (some are used more than once though). Evrom, Matek, Shaleyu, Verutz, Lahilokh, Hayam. They have a sense of coherency, yet none are familiar to the reader.

For Orluvoq I used Greenlandic. It's a base I've essentially never seen in the books I've read. Orluvoq, Naalagaa, Ikingut, Nunapisu, Arsarneq, Arpap, Paarsisoq, Sinik. Once again, all very foreign, but all similar.

If you have multiple cultures, you need to make sure your naming bases are separate. Choose phonemes (basic units of sound) and some rules, then apply them to your names. In Augmentals I have one language that has a sound where they kiss the M. To represent it I use 'mm'. They also have the voiceless lateral fricative, which I represent with 'tl'. These are things that the reader will likely never consciously know, but their subconscious will pick up on the uniformity and whisper to them, "This is a solid book."

Ruination of Transliteration: How Two Loanwords Changed History

Source

Transliteration happens all the time. We often call them loanwords. Some examples from Arabic (remember, it reads from right to left):

• القرآن‎ (Al-)Quran: The holy book of Islam. It's a verbal noun of the word قرأ (qar'a), meaning "he read" or "he recited".
• مسلم Muslim: A follower of Islam. Its meaning is "one who submits", derived from the verb أَسْلَمَ (aslama), meaning "he resigned". إِسْلَٰم (Islam) is the verbal noun meaning "voluntary submission to God". You can see the relation in the S-L-M root.

Here are just some other random words that we've appropriated from other languages (note: some of the transliterations have changed over time):

• Czech: dollar, pistol, robot
• Etruscan: antenna, arena, autumn, serve
• Old French and Latin: letter, person, budget
• Icelandic: saga, geyser
• Algonquin: Mississippi, Wyoming, Chicago, Illinois, Wisconsin, caribou, hickory, moose, muskrat, pecan, raccoon, skunk, squash
• Nahuatl (Aztec): avocado, cocoa, chocolate, coyote, guacamole, tomato
• Arawakan: barbecue, canoe, hammock, hurricane, potato, tobacco
• Various American Languages: cougar, cashew, bayou, manatee, igloo, kayak, jerky

There are many other loanwords that I didn't include (safari, zen, chi, zebra, luau, ukulele, guru, buddha, fjord, tundra, et cetera, et cetera), but I think you get the picture. We like to borrow words instead of translating them. A noteworthy exception to this rule is Icelandic, though more loanwords are creeping in. Instead of using a variant of telephone (a Greek word), they resurrected the word sími, an old word for "long thread". Another one is læknastokkrós, meaning marshmallow. As far as I can deconstruct this one, að lækna means to heal and stokkrós means hibiscus, a member of the mallow family. The healing hibiscus. They do this so that the new words will comply with Icelandic grammar.

The Biblical Conundrum
Now that we've overviewed transliteration in English, let's look at two Greek to Latin transliterations that changed the world.

First, βαπτίζω, baptizo. This comes from the word bapto meaning to dip; therefore, baptizo means to immerse or submerge. This was all fine until around the fourth century when Latin became the primary language of Christianity. At that time, baptizo was transliterated into Latin. It was adapted to Latin grammar and changed to baptizare, making baptizo the first person singular present tense, i.e. "I baptize".

What this did is sever the tie between the root understanding and the definition. What was once understood intrinsically as an act of immersion became an act of mere ablution (ceremonial washing), and was altered to include aspersion (sprinkling) and eventually exclude immersion. The alteration of one holy ceremony is a beautiful precedent for further alteration.

Second, βιβλία, biblia. This is the plural of biblion, book. Once again, before the fourth century, the extant holy writings of Christianity weren't compiled into one body. Rather, they were a collection of texts called ta biblia, the books. As Latin became Christianity's primary language, they once again transliterated this word from Greek. Biblia is what they called them—it. To explain, Latin has a conjugation system that allows you to distinguish between singular and plural. What started as "the books" eventually migrated to take on the meaning of "the book". 

What this did is set in the minds of Christians that canon was immutable post fourth century. You had the Book, what more could you need? Gone were the days when God could speak as He pleased through servants that He chose. Because who needs the Books when you have the Book?