What word are meant by tomorrow?
I want to write a novel despite the historical context of the subject. What would I like to do first? English, Latin, Old Welsh and other similar languages from that time period were used in these stories. I mean, it features a lot of vampiric characters. Over the years, vampires have developed their own terminologies to refer to common things like relative time, without referring to daylight.
Today is easy to conjugate into tonight, and yesterday similarly transfers to yesternight, although that sounds somewhat odd in our language. If tomorrow is easily understood, then it’s important to understand.
Morrow comes from the Old English morgen which means “very early”. What the Old English speaking vampires would do is come up with their own words tomorrow (source: American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition) If a vampire had come up with their own word tomorrow it would mean tomorrow (the next morning) (Source: American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition)
What words in a historical context allow the speaker to refer to time periods without necessarily connoting day? What would realistically have evolved given the languages?
Tomorrow is the word giving me the most trouble, but I’ll accept other answers that explain how I can refer to time without referring to the daytime. My main concern is staying in context; I don’t want to make up words that have no etymological basis.
Where a word was found and how it was used (along with the language it derives from), or an explanation of where the roots they are using to derive the new word and why it makes sense to derive the word from those roots.
I’ll also accept and accept phrases, since language is complex, & there might be no single word that does the
topic justice.
I haven’t no good answer for ‘next night’, but I commend to you ‘yestreen’ — a word meaning “yesterday’s evening”, which was still in (possibly) use in the 19th century. Is it ‘yestereven’? See also ‘forenight’. The next time that the word “yestreen” occurred was 3600, not necessarily old English, but definitely unlike modern English.
Also, you may be happy to know the existence of ‘Saturnight’, ‘Sunnight’, ‘Tuesnight’, ‘Wednesnight’, ‘Thurseven’ and ‘Frinight’. In all cases, these referred to the night prior to the corresponding day. All were labelled Old English (also earlier than 1400).
This is the OED’s earliest noted use of ‘Thurseven’: Against Elf-Sickness (Royal 12 D.xxl) in
G. Storms Anglo-Saxon Magic (1948) 222 Gang on unres fen, onne sunne on setle sie, r u wite elenan standan.
I am supposed to be able to help you with a translation. Can you help me with translations?
What do you mean by “The end of the night, just before daybreak”? If that’s you then you’ve met ‘ughten’ I believe that Beowulf is in the Germanic/Saxon/Old-English mishmash at the time.
Straying into invention, I suggest ‘to-fall’– a word meaning ‘beginning of night’, whose examples in the Oxford English Dictionary (which I’ve used for all the words listed) all look to the future. Has the French words been used since 1475?
How much information does this question need to be answered?
On moonrise
or
tofnung (To as in tomorrow, fnung from fnung, Old English for evening)
I read your post twice. Why? Is it true that in the vampire world, they talk about night as periods of activity the way we talk about day/daylight as being a period of activity?
If so, the usual non vampire terms are still used as they are. I would think that even the word “day” would be appropriate, as there is only the modern expression “daylight” to make reference to light. Well to them, their periods of activity are ‘days’, and there are 7 in the week, etc. “I’ll see you a few days from now” seems perfectly valid and understandable.
Now in period fiction, you want to take the reader along by changing from the modern expressions and ways to express/say/represent things.. Is that possible? I have to hear that we also don’t want our children to have their own slang. Can they make a slang. The existence of the English language (English) has simply grown out of it, what with kids today barely required to learn 1 language (Europe/Earth) in comparison to the ‘good old days’. Well, you are free to completely make up words at that point, but a basis in an older language (are we talking Europe/Earth?
I find in Fiction the vernacular much more plausible in a suspension of disbelief if I don’t know words being used. After all, is this a place that should feel familiar to me? Why is it a given that it’s not a good day to fail?
What I would suggest is that you have a little linguistic fun and utilize ‘root’ words in your language/slang/dialect that can be extended/redesigned. I know this sounds like a lot but the fact is that some are not. Why does a Klingon has no structure and no explanations that I don’t see happening in a scene?
So while all the ones for books & film were designed to invoke exactly what you are doing, I think you shouldn’t be able to glean a lot of pointers based on how they all approached the same issue.
Is it better to reply to an answer you asked for then to give a more detailed answer? [ can help you in the long run, where language and parlance itself brings the reader to a different place & time. How do I explain words to the reader in a book? 🙂
Good luck Pitch for the year!
What does it mean to go in and out on the town?
