I've found the basis for 4e-style fantasy words

[Libramarian]

e.g. shadowfell, feywild, macetails, bloodspikes, etc.

James Wyatt believes fantasy should be written in "Anglish"*, which is English that only uses Anglo-Saxon (i.e. Old English) words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglish

I like some Anglish words: birdlore instead of ornithology, worldken instead of physics.
But some are pretty disgusting: wordstock instead of vocabulary.

This is in stark opposition to 1-3e-style fantasy diction, which taking after Jack Vance is generally MORE Latinized than regular English rather than less. e.g. "Alacritous Cogitation".

This is an important battleground for the future of D&D. You must take a side.
Should D&D fantasy stuff be written in classic fantasy Olde English, or science-fantasy hyperlatinized English?

*I don't think he actually believes this, but the correspondence is interesting.

 

[TerraDave]

Their approach to Dinosaurs (sorry, Biglizards) is some of the earliest evidence on this, and some of the most damming.

 

[Umbran]

This is an important battleground for the future of D&D. You must take a side.

Okay. I pick the *outside*.

Should D&D fantasy stuff be written in classic fantasy Olde English, or science-fantasy hyperlatinized English?

I think it should be in both - use the two styles to imply the existence of two mixing cultures, like the various migrations the populated Greyhawk...

Or maybe just take the hyper-Latinized forms to create the Olde Englishe constructs, to make the verbiage as complicated as possible.

 

[saskganesh]

You *should* plunder any culture that you feel is worth plundering in order to build immersion.

For example, if you run a game set in a mythic setting populated by neo-romans, alt balts, and vampiric pseudo-ptolemaics, insisting on the anglo-saxon lexicon for naming purposes isn't going to help verisimilitude.

But by all means, be interested in language.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Fantasy words, just like real words, should be cobbled together from esoteric sources, often misapprehended, bastardized, or butchered, and should compete against other such words in death matches until the best words rise to the top.

 

[Grydan]

It should be noted that classic D&D names like Greyhawk, Blackmarsh, Dragonlance and Ravenloft all follow this apparently '4E' compound naming convention.

It should also be noted that, if translated from their Latin/pseudo-Latin/Latinized Greek forms into English, many of the 'proper' scientific names for dinosaurs (terriblelizards) are more of the same as well. Tyrantlizard kings, Three-hornedfaces, Roofedlizards, thunderlizards/deceptivelizards …

 

[Shemeska]

Bury the donkeyhorse loothaulter in a shallow grave. Salted. And on fire.

Not nearly enough Xs and apostrophes

That said, I find the 4e naming conventions terribly grating.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

O donkeyhorse, where art thou?

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't see why we can't have a little of both. I think the old-to-the-point-of-silly is nice in moderation, and I feel the same for the hyper-science. I imagine someone once discovered a giant lizard and being a well learned and scientific type, gave it some sciency-sounding name because he thought he had some rudimentary form of classification for animals. At the same time, I'm sure that many cultures have learned what to call an animal from running into another culture in whose language the name essentially means "furry little jerk." Or as we know it: Raccoon.

 

[Ace]

MMPH, A serious answer for a sillypost ...

I think D&D books should be written in the plainest language possible, the age of 1e of game book as vocabulary, err wordstock building exercise is long past

However if I could get a group of players into it, I'd like to try and keep all in character common tongue usage in Anglish. It would make for an interesting game especially combined with some props and appropriate food and such .I draw the line at cosplay though . Too nerdy for me.