Language as Lore

August 2024 ‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒ 7 minute read

Words are the purest form an idea can be expressed. While most words express just one idea, some words carry not just an idea, but an entire body of peripheral cultural baggage.

It's in this way that language is used not just to express lore, but become lore.

Before delving deeper into this, there remains the question of what lore actually is in the first place. The cleanest definition I've seen:

Lore is anti-marketing. Marketing is the story insiders tell outsiders to influence them in some way. Lore is the story insiders tell themselves to manage their own psyches. — Venkatesh Rao, On Lore

My interpretation? Lore is the collective cultural artefacts, stories and traditions of a community.

To further understand lore, its helpful to consider the historical context of how lore has come to evolve over time.

Broadly speaking, lore is not concerned with the rise and fall of empires, or any of history's grand narratives. Instead, lore is located on the fringes of culture - within communities, not countries.

Historically lore has been unique to geographical communities, encompassing traditions, customs, myths, folktales and any other similar cultural phenomena.

Fast forward to the modern era and you have a proliforation of communities, all of which have begun to develop some level of lore.

Some broad catagories:

Media-based lore is linked directly to the worlds created within each form of media, though it especially applies to franchises¹This is because franchises are able to collect larger and more aligned communities. The larger and more aligned the community, the more lore generated by that community. Importantly, media-based lore is not concerned with the overaching narrative, but rather in the subplots, the origin stories, the side quests, the back stories, the gritty details of everything outside the main plot. Although this lore is a key component of worldbuilding, lore isn't created from the process of worldbuilding itself, but rather by the community who explore, examine and catalogue this world. It's from here we obtain the lore of cinematic universes, gaming worlds, fantasy and sci-fi novels. In these cases the cultural baggage is already somewhat prepared... To a degree it's just waiting to be picked up.

Lifestyle-based lore is linked to any facet of how people live, ranging from diet and excerise to sleep and work/life balance. Again, lifestyle based lore is not concerned with the overarching question of how to live your life, but rather the niches of how to live specific aspects of your life.

Web-based lore is linked to the detailed history of web content, and can express itself in a variety of shapes and forms. This may be in the ecosystem of an elderblog, in the comments section of a creator streaming content, even in the discussion of the history if the internet itself. Interestingly, web-based lore doesn't live primarily on the mainstream internet, but rather in spheres such as the indie web, the small web or other digital reccesses.

Not only has there been a proliforation of communities, there has also been a paradim shift in the way communities interact. With the rise of the internet, there has spawned a new type of community: the online community. Compared to the communities of bygone eras, online communities are no longer bound by geography, and can subsequently interact far more collaboratively, effectively and easily.

Because of these societal shifts, lore has proliforated, albeit invisibly. That's because with each new and aligned community that springs up, lore is the inevitable, natural output.

The reason communities produce lore is due to a concept known as a semiosphere. A semiosphere is a cultural space where signs and symbols are created, shared, and interpreted, forming the basis of communication and meaning within a localised society... that is, a community.

What the idea of a semiosphere expresses is the cultural innovations of society as a whole compressed down into this much smaller yet equally powerful form.

Let me now come back to language as lore.

Language is used to communicate. The smallest unit of language - a word - is used to convey the smallest unit of communication - an idea. Most of the time a single word is aligned with a single idea. But, some words are packed with far more than just an idea. Some words are packed with anecdotes and origin stories and memes and images and music and so much more than just an idea. This is language as lore.

Compare the words 'rad' and 'cool'. Although both words are imbuned with the exact same idea, only one of them is also imbuned with the lore of the 80s. To say rad is to conjure up teenage mutant ninja turtles, skateboarders, 80s music, 80s clothes, 80s TV; in short, one word summons the cultural smorgasbord of an entire decade.

Language as lore can also be used to express an archetype. This is when one single name is given to specific type of person; more than just a stereotype, such people accumulate lore with the addition of every fresh example. Take the idea of a Karen. Instead of calling an entitled middle-aged white woman an entitled middle-aged white woman, we give them the label of Karen, a term which encapsulates not just entitlement, but both a specific type of entitlement as well as every example of such entitlement we've ever heard.

One more example. Take the word 'inception'. If you haven't seen the movie Inception, then all 'inception' means to you is strictly limited to its definition. If you have seen the movie, then the word 'inception' takes on an entirely new meaning, a meaning complete with additional ideas like recursion, consciousness and existentialism, as well as additional paraphenalia like the Inception theme, Leonardo Di Caprio and a silver spinning totem. With such lore now enrichening this word, you can now begin to use it in completely different ways; for example, when someone gives you an idea and you call it an inception moment.

All these examples relate to the idea of language being idiomatic. To be idiomatic refers to expressions, phrases, or language usage that is natural to native speakers, but is often not directly translatable or understandable from the literal meanings of the words. For example: the slang used by each generation of youth, the colloquialisms used within different regions or even the jargon used in different industries. All these are examples of the idiomatic nature of language as lore.

With the terminology used thus far, I can now bring a loose definition to the table: language as lore is the idiomatic cultural vocabulary used within a given semiosphere.

Though it also applies to lore more broadly, there are two useful catagories through which to consider language as lore. The first I'm going to label as macro-lore. This is lore which anybody can find; that is, if you search it into a search engine, it will show up, whether in Google, an encyclopedia, wikipedia, Urban dictionary, knowyourmeme or any other forum of equal accessibility.

All the examples mentioned before - generational slang, geographical colloquialisms and industry-based jargon - are each usage of language as macro-lore. To those outside their respective communities, such vocabulary may sound like gibberish. However, because such communities are widespread, it is possible to search for and find the meanings.

The second catagory of language as lore I'm going to label as micro-lore. This is lore which does not exist on the broader scale, but is instead highly localised, found in private discord servers, exclusive group chats or within the minds of an insular network of people.

Language as micro-lore includes nicknames, coined sayings and easily summonable inside jokes. Each of these are known only to the group, which tends to be fairly small. On top of this, the group in cases of micro-lore tend to be far more insular, resembling something closer to a team at work, a friend group, a sports team or any other isolated collective.

All language as lore begins life as micro-lore in micro-communities such as these. Its only through the process of hyper virality that such language transitions to become macro-lore.

The human experience is too rich to deny any new means of expressing it. Language as lore allows for the crystallisation of entire bodies of cultural expression. By its very nature lore is meant to be expressed, and yet how much better to be expressed in language rather than by language. In a world full of mostly shallow and meaningless content, language as lore is able to capture depth of cultural meaning.

To be without language is to be without expression.

To be without lore is to be without culture.

To be without language as lore is to be without cultural expression.

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