Etymology is not the first thing that comes to mind when one sits down at their desk to begin penning a jaunt through lands replete with wizards and dragons. It’s simply not as entertaining as building out the world or navigating the twists and turns of a suspenseful plot. But with its focus on the roots of language, I will argue that it is thereby the bedrock of originality; and by way of originality, a fully realized world. Attention paid to etymology will thus pay dividends in how it inflects these wizards and dragons with that crucial vitae obscura which transmigrates a Fantasy story into something more than the sum of its parts.
For starters, let’s take the word ‘laconic’. Meaning pithy or terse, usually inflected with a lack of care. It’s a nice word. Cuts through the verbiage to deliver the succinct measure of a succinct response or declaration. Few and often best are the words that relay a concept or feeling in just a few syllables. And in literary or otherwise traditional fiction, this is a wonderful tool. There, ‘laconic’ is a useful deployment. With one step across the aisle, however, into the realm of (some) genre fiction, this is not the case. Only Horror as a genre escapes this inconvenience.
The root of the word ‘laconic’ stems from many anecdotes throughout Greek antiquity, but here is one that is perhaps the most famous:
Philip II of Macedon–father of Alexander the Great–had invaded southern Greece and sent word ahead of his host to Sparta. His desire was that the Spartans should submit to him as other city-states had already done, lest they be laid waste.
His message asked, “Should I come as friend or foe?”
The Spartans’ reply: “Neither.”
Another message came. “If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out.”
“If.”
In this way, Laconia, being the region of Greece in which the city-state of Sparta was sited, provided for the later use of ‘laconic’ in the writings of the English King James VI in the late 16th century. From thence, to the English language at large. While we’re in the weeds on Greece, more specifically Sparta, the word ‘spartan’ likewise entered popular use in the 17th century as a byword for spare or frugal and without luxury.
Other examples are ‘en masse’ or ‘en route’, both of them French phrases and used often in secondary world settings. This can also take the shape of expressions or turns of phrase that have become so enmeshed as colloquialisms that we take them as somehow native to the English language. We can even extend this rule to the usage of dialects that are the products of sociological forces local to our world. The most egregious offender here is the use of Cockney slang and mannerisms as the lingua franca of the underclass across innumerable Fantasy settings.
I’ve met several people who use this type of word and phrase in conversation and are unaware of their origin, much less in writing fiction. How could they be, without some background knowledge of history and the like? Indeed, most readers will likely remain unbothered by the deployment of loanwords and bywords and expressions. It is a level of particularity without use to those who read strictly for entertainment, a preference with which there is nothing wrong. That said, I am of the harsh opinion that a lack of such particularity robs a work of its ability to transcend the confines of genre fiction into something more palpable and authentic. It creates the foundations for an organic secondary setting to be born and flourish all of its own accord and nature. Indeed, the ease with which we as readers lose ourselves in Middle Earth is owed to Tolkien’s having begun its creation largely with the simple passion project of developing the Elvish tongue.
Language is the vital spark of culture, and culture begets the movements of history that elevate a world into one of self-evidentiary tangibility. It seems trivial that the use of ‘laconic’ in a world governed by elves and strewn with ogres might undermine its authenticity. After all, look at the success of A Song of Ice and Fire despite: the actual War of the Roses undergirding most of the plot; Westeros being a near copy-paste job of the isle of Britain; and Martin poaching the bulk of its more fantastical elements from Lovecraft (Cthulhu) and Howard (Conan). But it is exactly that sort of specificity and care which unfetters the fantastical from contrivance and allows for the seriousness with which fiction ought to be undertaken.
All of this begs the question of whether we should allow ourselves to inherit the mythologies and mythological creatures of our world–goblins, dwarves, trolls, oh my!–but that is, alas, a question for another time.
