The True Language of Baria–How (and Why) It Happened

[Many potential editors] have /told/ (me) that /writing/ [my debut novel] in [this manner] /is/ (a) [death sentence] for (a) [first-time author]. But at (the) [end] of (the) [day], when (you) get [right down to] (it?) (I) [just] have (a) [lot more faith] in [my readers] than (they) do.

In truth, I’ve been reading fantasy for half a century and have had more conversations with my fellow nerds than there are leaves on a tree. Something that I can guarantee you (and it’s something that editors don’t always get) is that fantasy readers ain’t dumb. Yes, we’re a varied bunch from all walks of life, but something we all have in common is that we can most definitely keep more than one idea in our heads. And we’re not intimidated by something new.

When I started writing Prelude to the Storm, one of the most challenging aspects of the story (for both reader and author) was the creation of the True Language. I have a fierce love of vocabulary and have always been fascinated by slang, dialect, and etymology in general. Not just how words and phrases came to be sounded the way that they did, but why they did.

This was my opportunity to explore not just a new language, but a new way of communicating. In the world of Auren, there is only one language that is spoken by everyone–although the Temple Tongue was known by some in the distant past--and even the Barians of the north speak it…when they articulate words at all.

I began by thinking of how something like the True Language would evolve. What its origins might be and how it would develop. Obviously, our own world has a rich history–with many different languages and cultures–in methods of communication through gestures. Some sign languages came into being so that different communities could transmit simple ideas across language barriers. A trade tongue of sorts for some societies, a means of imparting ideas during mourning periods or to honor vows of silence for others.

But in Auren, a culture developed in the north that was militant; they needed to communicate quickly. They weren’t fighting other humans in Baria, they were fighting fast, huge, and vicious demons. Quickness in battle was important, but so was speed in communication. The gestures needed to be simple, but simple didn’t allow for the expression of complex ideas or tactics.

I like the idea of the deities of Auren being very present for their children, but in subtle ways. An argument could certainly be made that Garith’s gift of recall is a passive miracle–if “miracle” is even the right word. Similarly, the fact that Barians can choose to walk softly on snow and have an empathic ability to understand subtle nuance could be seen as a weak gift to warriors who have to fight supernatural creatures bred and designed for violence.

How the gods make their presence known upon Auren is something that will be explored in depth as the novels progress. I’m hoping it’s going to be a huge conversation point among readers, if we’re being honest. There’s a reason that Tirnashc doesn’t choose to give his Barians preternatural strength or speed to fight monstrosities that can outperform the humans in everything except guile, but that’s a topic for another time.

When a Barian can say, “We are going to go over the hill and see what is on the other side,” as “Be go over see be on,” we’re looking at an idea being conveyed in a third of the time that it would take to speak the common tongue. And even if a demon understood the tongue of man, it wouldn’t be able to parse out very much from such a short stream of apparent nonsense.

Thus, from early on, I had a militant reason for the True Language, but there was a societal one that I wanted to address, as well. There is a cultural shorthand in being able to get an idea of how people feel about one another without speaking. There’s less drama in courting someone, for example, less chance that someone might be inadvertently offended by an innocent remark. Community is extremely important in Barian society, and when every person in a village is a part of the cooperative ecology that exists to protect the southern lands, you want to keep that weapon well-maintained. 

My next task as a storyteller was to create something that was logical and consistent. I needed rules of the language that made sense, not just for the Barian culture, but for the reader of the novel, as well. Part of Imar’s evolution as a leader is going to be his inability to speak the common tongue well and how he’ll deal with it. I needed my audience to see where he fails to communicate, but I wanted to remove myself as a heavy-handed narrator from the equation. I needed a reader to see what mistake Imar makes when he speaks without me explicitly pointing this out.

For anyone who’s studied language, you know that most verbs are tricky. It can sometimes feel like there are dozens of ways to articulate the various tenses of them. And it’s frequently inconsistent. Take a look at “go”. Seriously, how did we get “went” from “go”? Why can’t we just say, “I goed over the hill yesterday”?

So I thought, let’s streamline it. All Barians say “go,” and through context and their empathic ability to feel what the speaker means to say, we know whether the speaker meant “went”, “will go”, or “was going to go”. Similarly, listeners will know who the speaker refers to. Thus, “she” or “me” doesn’t need to be articulated. Nor do articles such as “the” or “an”. 

Proper nouns are always said aloud, as are other smaller parts of sentences. The prepositions, conjunctions, and determiners. The thought process that I had here is that, yes, these are smaller parts of a sentence, but I didn’t want all small parts to be implied, as that would “overload” the empathic channel. The Barians aren’t supposed to be telepaths, after all.

Finally, nouns are simple gestures. Things that can usually be done with a single hand or a single hand with an empathic nudge. So two fingers and a thumb held up could mean “three”, “thirty”, or “three hundred”, for example. 

And now we have all the rules in place. For expediency, the Barians gesture at the same time they speak, their empathic abilities putting everything in the right order for the listener that the speaker intended. 

This left me with the task of determining a method to signal to my readers what was happening. Early on, I decided that parentheses were best used for the implied parts of speech that were neither articulated nor modified. From there, I came to the conclusion that brackets worked for the nouns to imply hand gestures. For me, it seemed an organic choice, but I couldn’t explain the why to you beyond that.

The most difficult thing that I struggled with was how to show the verb conjugations, however. I went through many iterations, at one point even considering just writing the infinitive and letting the reader determine what was meant in a misguided effort to let the audience “live in the world”. Thankfully, my brain told me that was…unwise. I didn’t want to use a different type of bracketing, such as {ran} or <ran>, as I felt a third iteration of (ran) and [ran] would be too many similar symbols. 

And then I thought of /slashes/. Hmmm…they already look like someone running, right? I mean, kinda-sorta? I put them in the mix and, yes, it ends up being a little punctuation-heavy, sure, but you can differentiate between them pretty easily.

“(We) make no [mistakes]” is the first sentence spoken in the True Language in Prelude to the Storm. It’s a small sentence that also has a superscript leading to the Glossary, which explains (briefly) how the True Language works. The next time it’s spoken, it’s at the council meeting in Drahl, and another sentence is used to organically describe how it works–this time in the narrative of the story–implying at the logic behind the weird punctuation.

And that’s it. Thereafter, although I hint at what’s happening with gestures and implications, I stop holding my readers’ hands and let them walk with it. 

The True Language might be a challenge to readers, yes. I can accept that. But as the novel progresses, what my beta readers and editor all saw was how it pays off later on. I, as an author, don’t have to tell my readers when my characters switch back and forth between the common tongue and the True Language–they can see it. And this allows me to step away from jostling your elbow and pointing to things and let you just take in the story. 

It’s a really big story that I want to challenge your perception of how our world is and how stories can be told. There’s going to be some subversion and a lot of surprises because I also want to challenge certain preconceptions about fantasy and gods and prophecy. But more than anything else, I want Auren to feel immersive and as real to you as Middle-earth, Tel’aran’rhiod, Toril, or Roshar has been for me. 

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you stay a while. 

All artwork by Forge. Copyright Leonard J. Chastain 2026