Worldbuilding with Wiktionary
How to use place names and languages to fuel worldbuilding
I love worldbuilding. The art of putting pins on maps, creating people who live there, and the stories they tell about the world around them literally fills me with purpose, and a reason to live. I also love language. The way people communicate, the poetry in the words they use for themselves and the places they live, and the sheer unbridled nonsense that is etymology always makes me marvel at the tumbling madness and brilliance that is Humanity.
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| A language family tree, Minna Sundberg. It shows two stylised trees growing from the earth, with one having many branches each ending in a language in the Proto-Indo-European family, and the other following the Uralic family. |
Conlanging should be done by those likewise blessed with the conlanging spirit (which occasionally includes myself), but that doesn’t mean everyone else needs to consign themselves to worldbuilding without language. Let me introduce to you my method for Worldbuilding with Wiktionary!
What is Wiktionary?
If you’re not a linguistics and language nerd, you might not know about Wiktionary, but I aim to change that post haste. Wiktionary is a Wikimedia Foundation effort to create a “multilingual, web-based [...] content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistics reconstructions, etc.), in all natural languages.” Essentially, it’s a massive collated dictionary where you can look up a word or phrase and it tells you the definition of it in as many languages as it can. Often these languages cross-reference with one another as well to show etymology — their history and progress through loan words and cultural contact — and derivation.
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| The Wiktionary home page. It shows a bunch of Scrabble-like tiles with different scripts on them, surrounded by links to different languages with the number of entires in said language listed, with lastly a search box at the bottom. |
For example, you can go to Wiktionary and type in something like “bongo” and it spits out all the possible translations of that one word, giving meanings for it in English, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, Italian, Japanese, Lingala, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Romani, Sambali, Spanish, Swahili, and Ternate (and that’s just the languages for which people have added definitions for “bongo”)! Each entry also gives potentials for other spellings in a see also, often gives examples of common first and last names in the languages/cultures it lists which are similar to the word, and so on. Honestly, it’s a wild resource.
But How Does That Help Me Worldbuild?
Have you ever looked at a fictional map — whether one already made for you or a blank canvas you’ve been working on — and seen a random word written above a village, mountain range, stream, or road? Sometimes they speak in tropes and/or plain English: “The Forest of Shadows,” “Forsaken Bridge,” “The Tomb of Annihilation.” Other times, however, they’re just sounds: Faerûn, Dagobah, The Valga Sea.
Now, in some settings — like the aforementioned Legendarium — these all have translations… But for the vast majority they’re just sounds someone spat out because they sounded cool at the time. Which is great! Sometimes you just want to travel to the fortress town of Akitani and be done with it! But what if there was a way to have all the depth of a fully-conlanged setting without all the hassle? What if there was a way to get the names on your maps to work for you.
Malko: A Case Study from Warhammer Fantasy
…or atleast, my take on Warhammer Fantasy — Beehammer, if you will — as my opinions on the setting-as-written are well-documented and scathing.
I’ve been prepping a new Beehammer campaign called Südsiedlung (using Stonetop RPG, because, well *points to the above sentence*) set in the Border Princes, a region of sporadic micro-kingdoms in a constant state of unrest, which are loosely based on the Medieval/Renaissance Balkans. Naturally, one of the steps in my prep was to grab all the maps I could find online, and try to justify them all (as with any setting that old, there are going to be lots of conflicting cartography). One of the maps I really liked, which focused on the region I was zooming in on, had a town in the middle of it called “Malko.” The various Warhammer wikis had little to say on the subject, so I got to work.
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| A very old map of the Border Princes, found in an old White Dwarf wayback machine campaign. It shows a town — Malko — in the middle of a network of crossing roads and rivers, with mountains to the north, and plains to the south. |
Enter the Unreliable Narrator
Now, I need to go on a slight tangent for a moment: it is my belief that a good setting — that is, one with good worldbuilding — should be in media res. We shouldn’t be looking at a setting which is Brand New™, fresh off God’s Six-Day-Work-Week. Some time should have passed. Things should have risen and fallen and risen again to some extent. There should be dirt in the corners, moss in the cracks, and the history books should read more like a table of drunk partisans in a taproom on Election night. “Scholars” in the setting should be debating things, truths, facts. The Narrator should be unreliable. Reliably unreliable; we should know that what we’re writing isn’t the whole (or even necessarily partial) truth, and that the facts of the matter are lost to time.
But the people in the setting still have beliefs about their world! They have conflicting stories, false histories, and fake news that they tell one another, hold close to their heart, and read about in libraries. They have cultural myths-taken-as-gospel. They have folk etymologies.
So when I hit Enter on Wiktionary, and I get my list of meanings for Malko, I don’t just grab one and say “Yep, that’s it, that’s what the town’s name means.”
No. I take all of them.
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| A screenshot of Vivec from Elder Scrolls Online, one of fiction's greatest unreliable narrators. It shows a floating, meditating 'mer' (Elf), with half blue-black, half golden skin, radiating power. |
You Got Some Aramaic in My Slovak!
So what did I get when I hit Enter on “wiktionary:malko?” Not a whole lot, honestly. I got an entry for Basque ‘tear,’ and a hyperlink to a see also which took me to Slovak a male surname, and a bunch of declensions including Malka, which took me to a Hebrew malká ‘queen’ and Aramaic malkā ‘king’ which in turn led me to the diminutive form of malko ‘“little” king,” or “prince.”
With a little more clicking around I also found out the word malo in Slovene means ‘a little,’ and that Malco is the Italian version of the name Malchus, a character in the four gospels of the Bible who participated in the arrest of Jesus.
Sooooo, Malko could mean any of the following:
Basque malko ‘tear; small pear’ (I looked into it further using a Basque–English Dictionary, and it’s tear like a teardrop, or the shape of a small pear, not as in a rip or slit) — perhaps describing a feature of the landscape such as a teardrop-shaped bluff, or a grove of pear trees, or maybe because of a historically tragic event that occurred there,
Aramaic malko ‘little king, prince’ — perhaps because it was first built by a prince (fitting for the Border Princes), or by a servant/underking of a greater ruler,
A corruption of Slovene malo ‘a little’ — perhaps because it was built on a little piece of land, or atop a bluff (I’m looking at you, Basque!) where there wasn’t much land to build on,
Or a corruption of Italian Malco ‘Malchus’ — perhaps because that was the name of the person who settled there, like how Alexander the Great named everywhere after himself, or maybe it’s the name of a Saint or something, as a lot of Warhammer worldbuilding stems from jokes about Christian alternate histories.
Real Languages for Fictional Etymologies
Ok, that describes why a real city called Malko could be named that… but how does that help us when we’re worldbuilding for fiction? These are real world languages… We can’t just have our people speaking Basque and Aramaic and Slovene and Italian, right?
WRONG.
There are essentially two schools of thought when it comes to using real world languages in fictional — specifically non-Earth — settings:
The people here just happen to speak languages that sound very similar, or even identical to, real world languages,
Or that the real world languages act as an approximation for the vibes of the setting’s actual languages; that they are in fact translations for our — the audience, the players, the readers — benefit to understand the world and its equivalent context.
Either is fine, in my opinion.
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| A depiction of the cosmology of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld, showing a flat world on the backs of four elephants, themselves standing atop a giant space turtle. Illustrated by Josh Kirby. |
The second approach might be more palatable to some, though, once again due to the origins of language-focused worldbuilding: Tolkien himself did something similar, with the Hobbits having “English-y” names, the Rohirrim having “Anglo-Saxon-y” names, and so on. He specifically “translated” the sounds of their actual names and languages into loose approximations to ignite the correct vibes and imaginations of Earth-bound readers. Did you know that Frodo Baggins’ real name is actually Maura Labingi?! That’s not very Young Englishman goes to War and then comes Home to find Everything has Changed, now is it?
So, whether they’re actually speaking those languages, or whether they’re speaking the vibes of those languages, we’re next going to look them up on Wikipedia. Go to the panel on the right for each language, and check out the “Language Family” section. Click a couple of the links going back, and see how they’re related to one another. If you’re using a European language, a diagram of the “Proto-Indo European” language family might be useful. All those branching points? That’s what we’ve been looking for, baby!
Language Families: Collaboration, Migration, and Invasion
For those uninitiated in the gumbo-esque mess that is linguistics, language families might be a little confusing. On the surface, the phrase makes sense: different languages are related to one another like a family of parents and children, aunts and cousins, Nonnos and Bambinos. But why are languages related? Why do languages change over time? Why would a people on one side of a country start speaking different from those on the other?
Well, because language families are actually the legacy of human interactions. They are a map of how different cultures collaborate, migrate, and invade one another. The reason Ancient Greek is so different to Modern Greek isn’t because modern Greek people decided to just talk different, it’s because of Roman, Ottoman, and British occupation. The reason Slavic languages all sound similar but a bit different is because of widespread Slavic migrations, interminglings, and counter-conquests by new locals and angry neighbours. The reason Romani is so similar yet so different from other PIE languages is because of a very long history of migration and oppression within other communities: they carried a language from Ireland to India and back again, picking up words along the way, and evolving everywhere they stopped.
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| Barbarian invasions, Encyclopedia Britannica. Despite its name, it shows a pretty good description of the invasions and migrations of many non-Roman peoples around the 4th and 5th centuries CE, including the movements of the Frankish, Gothic, Hunnic, Vandal, and Saxon peoples. |
Malko: The Slovene Connection
Slovene is a Slavic language, which in the grand scheme of things is a HUGE umbrella, so let’s simplify it for our purposes. Looking at the other cultural groups in Warhammer, we have a clear parallel with the Kislevites, who themselves are made up of a coalition of various Slavic-like peoples, including a Russian and Siberian analogue. We know these people in the Warhammer world migrated to their current position — far far to the north of the Border Princes — by crossing the World’s Edge Mountains to the east long ago. What if their migrations came in waves, and not all of them cross through the northern passes, but some travelled south and took the Mad Dog Pass?
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| A screenshot of the World's Edge Mountains from Total War: Warhammer. It shows the massive wall of mountains in the middle, the fertile valleys on the western side, and the arid "Darklands" on the eastern side. |
This would give us a people who moved into the Badlands, who may have intermingled with the fallen Vampiric kingdom of Morkain, and who eventually turned north and settled in the region of modern-day Malko. Though once nomads, the high population of Orcs and Beastmen in the area would have given rise for a need to settle more defensible positions… And none are better than the top of a sheer-sided bluff! Used to living on sprawling scrubland plains, this Slovene-speaking people — let’s call them the Zednji meaning ‘last ones,’ as they were the last group to migrate over the mountains — would consider the meagre land atop the bluff to be very small (malko ‘a little’).
Huzzah! We have an indigenous group that came here via migration! Ready for subsequent invasions from the colonial Empires and Kingdoms around them, and perfect as the underdogs of our story.
Malko: The Aramaic Connection
Aramaic is a Semitic language, like Arabic, Hebrew, or Maltese, which in the context of Warhammer would place its origins down south around Nehekhara, or — in my head canon — Sartosa-as-Malta. That’s a very long way…except, we know from the Timeline of Nehekhara that the Border Princes were once invaded — very long ago — by one of its ancient Pharaohs: Setep of Baghar. What if one of Setep’s generals — a minor prince of one of Khemri’s client city-states, AKA a “little king, prince” — settled the region where Malko now stands in the ancient past as a fortress during said invasion? Perhaps a Prince from Zandri, a port city in Nehekhara, would be a good namesake for the town?
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| The Extent of Alcadizzar the Conqueror's Realm. It shows a map from the Warhammer world with an empire stretching from Nehekhara, all the way north, through the Border Princes, and into the lands of the Empire near the "savage [Gothic] tribes" there. |
This etymology then demands some strict inconsistencies with the local indigenous name origin, making the town potentially thousands of years older than at first believed. Additionally, such longer and lost history means buried secrets and — gasp — maybe even Ancient Egyptian themed dungeons on the site!
But is also means more than just that! A people with conflicting origin myths and stories is extremely fertile grounds for nationalist and nativist ideologies. A perfect example of this would be Lebanon in the real world, where the cultural identity is caught between a struggle of identifying with an Arab origin or a Phoenician origin. There’s a lot more depth to it than that, and it’s not my argument to weigh in on, but one product of that I can speak to is a far-right group who call themselves “Neo-Phoenicians.” Think of them sort of like those Nazi losers who believe in Hyperborea, and that they descend from a master race of tall white giants. Utter tosh, but fascinating motivation for a mystery cult in a fantasy setting.
What if there is a group of the indigenous Zadnji population who claim descent from these original Zandri settlers (after all, “Zadnji” and “Zandri” do sound similar enough). They believe that when Pharaoh Setep was forced to withdraw from the Border Princes thousands of years ago, he left behind a small population of loyalists who would keep the lands safe for his eventual return. These cast offs took the Aramaic word for chaff “Otebnaa” as their name, and are now known as the “Sons of Otebnaa.” When Setep did return in the Warhammer Timeline, we can say that these Sons helped his invasion, and managed to throw open the gates of Malko during its siege. When Setep was eventually repelled once more, it is believed all of the traitorous Sons of Otebnaa were put to the sword…but what if some survived? What if a cult still exists in its duty streets, ready to bump into the PCs?!
Malko: The Basque Connection
Basque is what’s called an “isolate,” which essentially means its relationship to other languages around it is unclear, so far removed that a lineage cannot be found, or that — as Wikipedia puts it — it “has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages.” It’s an odd enclave, almost always representing an indigenous language in an area.
Basque — in the real world — is a language found in the Pyrenees, the mountain range that separates France from Spain. In the context of Warhammer Fantasy, Basque country would fall in the Irrana Mountains between Estalia and Bretonnia, quite some distance from where we’re writing in the Border Princes… We could interpret this — given it is an isolate — as just being in the Border Princes instead of its Real World–Warhammer equivalent, but personally I think it’s more interesting if this is an example of a folk etymology, especially given we’ve already decided on a native population for the region.
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| A piece of art showing Bretonnian troops (yeomen, wearing pot helms and holding board shields) fighting Tomb Kings (Egyptian-style skeletons with lots of gold and blue). In the centre is a Grail Knight on a pegasus. In the above etymology, this sort of conflict couldn't have happened, as the times didn't sync up, but I'm sure a painting like this exists in the world to justify the Bretonnians being there. |
Bretonnian knights — especially Knights Errant, those at the beginnings of the Grail Quest — have a long history of adventuring in the Border Princes, so perhaps a noble scion from southern Bretonnia once found his way to Malko some hundred-or-so years back. We know Malko is in the middle of a barren stretch of hills, so maybe this overly dramatic fop came upon a pear tree, and — out of his mind with hunger and thirst — imagined the tree in the shape of the Lady of the Lake, the chief Goddess of Bretonnia, and the keeper of the Holy Grail. He took a pear from the tree — claiming it to have been the Lady’s tears spilled from the Grail Itself — and decided to name the area “Malko” in the words of his humble countrymen.
Of course, the town of Malko had been there long before he ever got there, and the Lady of the Lake never actually appeared to this fool. But he was a strong and wealthy knight, and with a few bribes and swings of his sword, he became a petty Prince of the region and seized Malko for himself. To legitemise his rule, he decided to tie this far-from-home spot into his cultural mythology. Kinda like the Mormons claiming — quite offensively — that Native American tribes are actually one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Real revisionist, colonial bullshit. Perfect for Warhammer Fantasy.
Malko: The Italian Connection
Lastly we have Italian, which already has a long established parallel in Warhammer: the warring city-states of Tilea, which lie just to the west of the Border Princes. These Italian-analogues share many similarities with the Renaissance Italian mercenary groups that warred back and forth across the peninsula, fighting for whoever paid the most. However, alongside being hyper militaristic, they were also hyper religious.
Tilea favours a Goddess of Strategy and War known as Myrmidia, who is believed to have once walked the world as a mortal conqueror. During her lifetime, she gathered many shieldmaidens and generals to her side, many of whom have since been canonised as Saints or even minor Gods themselves, ultimately in service to Myrmidia. Given we have the name Malco ‘Malchus,’ and the Biblical reference, this seems like a no-brainer to me.
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| A depiction of Peter striking Malchus, from The Capture of Christ c. 1520, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. A bald, white-haired Peter with a halo above his head swings a messer at a terrified young Roman soldier. We can assume in the above etymology, the roles are reversed somewhat. |
Let’s say after a few decades of awful governorship by the Bretonnian Grail Knight mentioned above, the native Zednji managed to scrape together enough coins to hire a Tilean mercenary band called the Camozzi ‘Wild Goats,’ who are specialists in mountain and hill fighting and sieges. Maybe they’re adept with climbing gear, and use long billhook polearms to assault fortress walls up high ramparts, and then drag their foes from the battlements themselves. Real elites at what they do. These folk come in, oust the Bretonnian, and then after they get paid they realise they like the place and choose to stay. They set up a new government, a new regime, and elevated their Captain to Prince.
Maybe this is just my own Maltese heritage coming through, but the idea of an invited ally double crossing the natives and becoming the oppressor instead just sings to me. It’s also an interesting mirror of Rurik and the creation of Russia, once again reinforcing the Slavic vibes of the Zadnji.
Of course, a small enclave like the Camozzi wouldn’t last long in a region like the Border Princes without some serious backing, and I want these folks to have been in power for about a hundred years or so. A handful of generations, trading a mercenary charter for a dynasty. So the Camozzi invent justification for their seizure: they proclaim that Malko is actually named after Saint Malco the Jailer, one of Myrmidia’s closest confidants, and is the sacred resting place for his bones. This justification works well, as it was he who penned the chapter of the Luccini Conventions — my tongue-in-cheek version of the Geneva Conventions, which is a holy book of the Cult of Myrmidia — that covered war criminals and the just treatment of occupied lands as spoils of war.
The Cult of Myrmidia accepts this justification, and they send official support to the occupying Camozzi, thus cementing their rule in the region. Religious and political corruption at its finest. Premium Warhammer.
The Politics of Language
Here we can see how a handful of translations of a random name scribbled on a map can give rise to a whole timeline of cultural context; conquest, cooperation, and intermingling. We have a town now rife with ideological divisions, of warring factions, nativism, jingoism, corruption, and religion. We have villains to despise, underdogs to support, schisms to be wary of, outside influences to fear, dungeons to delve, and mysteries to solve.
And all because we cracked open a browser, typed in “wiktionary:malko,” and hit Enter.
