On August 12, 2011, Caitlyn wrote, ….My story is set in modern times, but it has a group of major characters who have been around for a few thousand years, and English is not their first language. Though they speak English around the MC, in stressful or emotional situations they revert to their native tongue. Many of those lines of dialogue are left uninterpreted, at least for a while.
I feel like the language needs to be included for authenticity’s sake, so I was wondering: what is the best way to include another language in a story? Is it necessary to interpret every single thing they say immediately? And is it better for the author to say something like “He spoke to his companion in German,” or to include the actual German dialogue?
I’m with you, Caitlyn. I think your impulse to have your characters lapse into their home tongue is good, very likely what they’d do.
Naturally, as in most things writing, how to handle a language other than English (or the native language of the writer) is up to you. My only certainty is that if the other language exists and you decide to include it, everything needs to be correct, not only grammar and spelling but also expression. If the language is German it has to read as if a German-speaker had written it. (Kudos to you if you’re fluent in another language!)
Of course if you include more than a few words at a time in the other language most readers will skip the passage. Some will read through even without comprehension, especially if the sounds are pleasing or interesting. When I read and reread The Lord of the Rings trilogy I used to say the language of the orcs out loud because I loved the sound. The more euphonious elves’ tongue didn’t appeal to me as much.
It’s fun to use languages in books, in my opinion. There’s French in A Tale of Two Castles, anglicized French, meaning that I gave French words an English spelling. One of the streets is Roo Street. In French, as you may know, rue means street. Fun! The ogre’s name is Count Jonty Um, which comes from the French gentil homme, and the meaning of his name has significance for the story, although it’s okay if the reader doesn’t get it.
I think it’s fine to write out the foreign bits sometimes and at other times to say merely that Karl switched to German to better express his feeling of elation, for example. You want to be kind to your readers and not use so many unknown words that they get frustrated. I don’t think you need to translate everything, but you don’t want readers to feel lost – except when you do want them to. You could heighten suspense by putting in a few critical words in an unknown tongue. The judge pronounces Milo rewnee and sentences him to seven ubils in yokto. The reader cares about Milo and zips on to the next chapter desperate to find out if rewnee and ubils and yokto are good or awful. You can write a romantic moment in which all the terms of endearment are incomprehensible. Or you can have Milo ream out his assistant Kristen entirely in the language of Xic, and Kristen can blush and babble an apology.
It’s cool to teach your reader a new word in an existing language or in a made-up one. A former student of mine is now in the Peace Corps in Moldova where Romanian is spoken. I read her fascinating blog about her experiences, and she uses the word frumos so often that I’ve picked it up. Means beautiful but, as far as I can tell, as relates only to a person; I don’t think you’d call a sunset frumos.
I’ve made up fragments of several languages, and there are some decisions to be made:
∙ How will the language look? Gnomic in Ella Enchanted, for example, is punctuated backwards and the capitals appear at the end of a name and at the end of the sentence. When the reader sees these features he knows that he’s looking at the language of the gnomes. You have punctuation marks, capitals, and repeat letters or omitted letters to work with. If you come up with exotic signs that require calligraphy, you’ll be creating a problem for your publisher, so I’d suggest staying away from them.
∙ How will the language sound? Each of the languages in Ella Enchanted has a particular sound. Abdegi, the language of the giants, for example, is accompanied by emotive noises, like whoops and howls. Every word in Ayorthaian begins with a vowel and ends with the same vowel.
∙ Will there be consistent meaning? When a word repeats in one of the languages in Ella Enchanted, it’s the same each time. For example, the Gnomic word brzzay always means digging. By contrast, in Ever the word for digging might be ioopll the first time it shows up and eressc the next. I just hit keys on my keyboard at random. My thinking was that Wadir where the language is spoken is a dreamlike place with shifting meaning.
∙ Are you going to deal with grammar, tenses, plurals, etc.? I never have. I did a little with plurals and past tense in Ella Enchanted but not much and I wasn’t consistent. However, more power to you if you go all out.
At the beginning of Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand there’s a sad song in Mermish, the language of the mermaids, which has no consonants, only vowels, because I decided that consonants would be hard to form underwater. I performed the song once for some friends. Afterward, one of them asked me why I had to read, why I couldn’t simply sing any vowels that came to mind. I just looked at him in astonishment.
When we fool around with other languages we’re exploring language itself, a worthy endeavor for a writer. Here are some prompts to prime your language pump:
∙ Above I wrote, You can write a romantic moment in which all the terms of endearment are incomprehensible. Try doing exactly that, you adorable quayth. It’s up to you whether or not both people in the romance speak this strange tongue.
∙ And I wrote, Or you can have Milo ream out his assistant Kristen entirely in the language of Xic, and Kristen can blush and babble an apology. Now write the tirade in Xic, maybe along with thoughts in English. Make decisions about the kind of language you want, how it should sound and look on the page.
∙ I like invented sayings as well as invented languages. In A Tale of Two Castles, Elodie spouts expressions from her home, the island of Lahnt. Here’s one with a creepy medieval feel: Love your lice. Only skeletons have none. Here’s a moralistic one: He who gambles his worth has already lost his worth. Go to a story you’re working on or one you’ve finished. Make up three proverbs that would go with the culture of your world or the personality of one of your characters. For example, I would expect the aphorisms of ancient Sparta to be warlike.
Have fun and save what you write!
Caitlyn says:
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question! The language I'm dealing with in my story is a real one, and it's sort of rare (Welsh). I'm not fluent in it, but I have a lot of respect for the language and the people, so I want to get it right. I'm using Google Translate to help and as a sort of place-marker, but I know internet translators usually get things very wrong. Do you have any advice for getting in contact with a native speaker to help with the final product? And would you recommend waiting to submit for publication until I've gotten the translations absolutely right, or can I go ahead and submit and possibly get some help finding a translator from the publishing company (if my manuscript ever got picked up)?
I love what you did with Roo Street and Jonty Um! I never would have noticed, but I took some French in school, so when you pointed it out I went "Oh!"
Charlotte says:
prompt #1 reminds me of my mum, who makes up terms of endearment and nonsense words as she goes along. Like for example, my name is Charlotte, and she has called me everything from Charley-Barley to Lottie-Gotts to Dottie to Lots to Dots, and many more. When people forget the word for what they're trying to say, a lot of people will say "thingamajig" instead, but dear old Mum ends up with something more like "skushkanumpa" (not exaggerating, either.) I can't believe I didn't notice it before, but her speech mannerisms could make for a really interesting character someday… 🙂
gailcarsonlevine says:
Caitlyn–For your first published book, if that's what this is, you should try to get everything as close to perfect as possible before submission. I don't know how to find a Welsh-speaker, but a few ideas that spring to mind are Craig's List, a university where Welsh is taught, an inquiry to the British Embassy. Is anyone reading the blog fluent in Welsh?
Charlotte–Your mom sounds delightful!
writeforfun says:
Interesting post! When I started taking Spanish this year, I purposely invented a Cuban character that spoke little English so that I would have to fill in her dialogue with the Spanish words I was learning! Now I'm going to go back and try to make her thoughts and intentions as clear to English-speakers as if she were saying them in English. Escribo feliz (happy writing)!
Brianna says:
Hmm, I have this problem… I feel like I should explain/translate everything my character says. ie, I once wrote a story in which one of the characters is Italian, runs an Italian restaurant, has Italian customers, and the two MCs travel to Italy, where most of the story is set. I pretty much just translated and put the words in the chapter at the beginning of the chapter, which is a TON of work and rather a heavy load for the reader. Should I or should I not translate? Maybe just throw in a few things, hope that the reader can come up with the meaning through context? That's one ofm y weaknesses, so is there another way??
unsocialized homeschooler says:
Hello Mrs. Levine! I have a question, although its not related to this post, (which was wonderful by the way.) I don't think you've answered one like this yet, but maybe I missed it.
In many of my writings, I have groups of important characters together. Often times a character will be there in the scene, but not doing anything. I don't want to add a lot of extra descriptions of meaningless things the character is doing, but I'm not sure how to make them present but silent, with out saying there asleep or something. Any advice?
This is a wonderful Blog by the way,and I look forward to reading it every Wednesday!
carpelibris says:
I like to save other languages either for concepts for which there is no English word, or for times when the character is really emotional or disoriented.
This happened in real life once. I have a co-worker who speaks perfect English, but her original language is Spanish. One day she got really sick, and she was talking to the paramedics in Spanish and didn't know why they didn't understand her. It was like the illness wiped out her memory of English. Once she got stabilized, her English was fine again.
I used that in a story, too. The character is from Puerto Rico, and he speaks English, except for endearments, but when he's dying he reverts to Spanish.
welliewalks says:
I have always liked it when, in a story in which a character(s) speaks another laungauge, the author writes in English but uses a few select words of the langauge.
I have a question similar to the post… I am a dancer (ballet mostly, but other styles too) and I started a novel about a dancer a while ago and I was having trouble with naming some of the ballet steps. They are all in French (ballet started in France…) and so I don't know if I should keep a glossary of what all the names ARE (what the movement is) or just transelate/describe right there.
Caitlyn- Welsh? That's awesome! When I lived in England (we moved back to America in January),my family and I went to Wales for a week! It's an amazing place! 🙂
Homeschooler- here's Gail's post on that: http://gailcarsonlevine.blogspot.com/search/label/ignoring%20characters and least I'm pretty sure that's the post. I scanned it and I am pretty sure.
I have another question… I dont know if I asked already? If so, I'm sorry!
Every year, I must do a history project, lasting from January to the end of the school year. This year I am allowed to write a historical novel!! :D. I'm feeling really daunted though, doing research and writing a historical novel realisticly. Any advice for me? Thank you!
Pororo says:
On a similar note, how could I write different dialects of English?
In lots of my stories there is always at least one person who is from England and therefore speaks British English… and I'm not British personally so I don't exactly know how to put it on paper.
Any tips on this?
Thank you!
Sophie says:
When it comes to language and the use of language in world-building, I've always held Tolkien to be the master. While he does include extensive bits of Elvish and other languages in LotR (some untranslated), I think it adds rather than detracts from the feeling of depth that one's setting gains to sometimes leave the meaning in the shadows. But I also think (linguistics geek that I am :D) that it helps to give invented languages consistent vocabulary, grammar, and phonetic characteristics. Anyway.
@Pororo: I would look up some of the expressions and the words unique to that dialect, or maybe words that have a different usage. For example, I've heard my British friend refer to his coat as a "mackintosh" and dessert as "afters". You could also change the spelling of a couple words to show how different people would pronounce them–a common trick I've seen is people putting in "Ah" instead of "I" to bring across the slight slur in a Southern (US) accent.
@welliewalks: you lucky duck, writing a novel for class! 🙂 Historical fiction has always been my favorite genre to write because it can be enormous fun trying to set the scene and "go back in time" per se. If you get scared, remember that it's historical fiction, so your imagination can take you where research can't. Good luck!
marveloustales says:
You make me want to write something with bits of foreign language in it. The most I ever did was a novel set in France. The characters were speaking French for the whole book, so of course it was just written in English, but once in a while I threw in a word I thought American readers would recognize–merci, for instance.
I read an old book (c. 1890, I think) that had whole swathes of conversation in French, untranslated. It was very odd and I don't recommend it–I still don't know if I missed anything important!
Agnes says:
I would not recommend Google translate for translating whole passages, I use it sometimes for single words or such. But I know from experience not to trust it with large amounts of text. My Mom had some German sewing patterns and although they worked pretty well without the benefit of knowing German. She still needed some help… Well you should of seen some of the translations.
Mary says:
First of all, I've been posting as Elizabeth on the guest book for a while, but now I have a Blogger account, so I'll be posting as Mary directly onto the comments section now.
Second of all, I agree with Sophie about Tolkien. I am currently reading Lord of the Rings, and he has an excellent blend of made up languages and English. I also agree that if you make up a language, it should at least have a consistent feel to it. I think that how much detail you put into a made up language depends on how much of the language you have in your book.
Alex says:
@welliewalks: I'm currently writing two kinda historical novels (meaning they're set in history, but they have magic and stuff in them). They take place in ancient Egypt and Victorian England, which are two really different places, but they work because I think they're really interesting. So choose a time period that you think is interesting, one that you don't mind spending hours looking over.
Second, it helps if you've been to the place you're writing about. If a big event happened where you love/a place you know really well, that helps cut down on the book research a lot. It's easier to know what the weather's like at a certain time of year, what flowers are in bloom, that kind of thing. Plus, museums about the area's history help a lot.
Sorry for the long answer. : I hope this helped!
Alex says:
I meant 'where you live,' not 'where you love'.
Sigh.
>.<
gailcarsonlevine says:
Brianna–I can't tell. Sounds like either approach is fine.
unsocialized homeschooler–welliewalks gave you the right link. If that post doesn't help, please ask follow-up questions.
welliewalks–A glossary sounds good, and sometimes if the step is complex or important to the plot you may want to expand on the explanation right there in the story. And you may find my post of May 26, 2010, helpful for your historical fiction, especially when I talk about writing DAVE AT NIGHT. Come back with more questions if you need to.
Brianna says:
Also, in my novel one of the characters was going to be Hispanic, so he would revert back to Spanish occasionally. I was writing the novel in 4 parts, one for each different character in 3rd person, but in Hector's (the Hispanic's) part he is totally American, and whenever I try to stick in a few Spanish words to keep it consistent, it comes off as forced and awkward. Toss the Spanish dialogue completely or work it into all the other parts?
welliewalks says:
Pororo- Sophie says that her English friends call desert 'afters'. My English friends said 'pudding'. I mean to say that many people, of different places, use different words, so don't feel like a word is either correct or wrong! Like Sophie said, do some research and ask around to find someone who has lived or been to England. 😉
Alex- I think that my topic is interesting. I'm a Christian and the novel is going to be about a girl who literally follows Jesus, like in person. Oh, good idea about having BEEn somewhere. I think that'd help a lot. Unfortunently, I haven't been to Israel BUTBUTBUT my MOM has, so that's a great idea, to interview her, that you have given me- thank you!
Mrs. Levine- thank you very much for the link and idea about the glossary.
Thanks all for all your advice! I SO appreciate it! 🙂
carpelibris says:
Santa brought me Ever, Dave at Night, and A Tale of Two Castles- and I have a week off to relax with some good books! 🙂
gailcarsonlevine says:
carpelibris–How nice! Good old Santa!
Amber Dawn says:
For those of you looking for people to help you with languages and things. NaNoWriMo is a perfect place to find people who love writing and are from all over. The wedsite has forms which you can post questions or find others who are in the same boat as you are. Just an idea.
Amber Dawn says:
Also. I just finished reading the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. His books deals with several races and languages as well as speaking with the mind. Lord Of The Rings and Gail's books are also great referances for ideas on how you might deal with languages in your writing.