The Articles of Dragon: "Even Orcish is Logical"

I've been fascinated with languages and alphabets since I was a young child. Consequently, when I discovered roleplaying games in late 1979, it didn't take me long to start including snatches of made-up languages and scripts into my games. By the time I'd created my Emaindor campaign in high school, I was ready to try my hand at a full-on constructed language – which I, in fact, did, complete with a script imagined for me by a friend of mine in college. That language, Emânic, wasn't very good, as conlangs go, but I was nevertheless pleased with myself and used it primarily for place names in certain regions of the setting.

A major catalyst in my decision to do this were articles in Dragon, especially the pair that appeared in issue #75 (July 1983), the first of which I'll discuss in this post. Entitled "Even Orcish is Logical" and written by Clyde Heaton (who'd previously written another inspirational language article), it offered excellent practical and theoretical advice to the novice constructor of fantasy languages. That's important and big reason why the articles in this issue had such an impact on me: they were more than high-minded musings about language; they provided lots of advice and examples on how to make your own languages.

In the case of "Even Orcish is Logical," Heaton spent a lot of time talking about the "feel" of a language, from its sounds to its grammatical constructions to its vocabulary. His thoughts would probably not pass muster with actual linguists, but that was beside the point. Heaton was providing useful guidance to referees who wanted to make languages that are suitable for use in RPG campaigns rather than ones that could withstand the scrutiny of professional academics. So, for example, Heaton notes that the Orcish language, which he uses as is his example, has "mostly harsh, guttural sounds." While he attempts to ground this in something "real" – the protruding fangs and tusks of the Orcish mouth – that's not his main concern. Rather, it's that the Orcish language sounds "right" for the language of savage humanoid enemies in Dungeons & Dragons.

Heaton opts for a similar approach when looking at the grammar of Orcish. Orcs are not a refined people, so the grammar of their language is simple and direct. Again, this approach wouldn't stand up to careful study by a scholar of languages, but it works well enough for fantasy RPGs. At least, that's the lesson I took from it: establish a frame or lens through which to imagine the language you're planning to create and then make decisions about its sounds, grammar, and vocabulary that fit that frame or lens. Unless you're very dedicated and want to follow in the footsteps of Tolkien, this is a reasonable way to proceed, I think. Heaton also points out that there's no need to create an extensive vocabulary for game purposes, since even real languages use only a very small number of words for everyday communication. The number needed in a RPG are probably even smaller. This is important to point out, particularly to readers like my youthful self, who might otherwise have spent weeks or months coming up with words for all sorts of things I'd never need for my campaign.

"Even Orcish is Logical" is a terrific article, one of my favorites from the period when I was reading Dragon regularly. When paired with the other language article from the same issue (about which I'll write next week), it played a significant role in my development as a referee and roleplayer more generally. Re-reading it filled me with a lot of memories and good feelings from that summer just before I started high school. It was a frightening but heady time for me, as I made a transition from one stage of my life to another. Having RPGs and magazines like Dragon available to me made it much less scary than it otherwise might have been and, for that, I'll always be grateful.