Simple question: is it considered offensive/bad practice to use words and phrases of actual foreign languages to indicate differences in dialects in a fictional world? Examples: use of the term "bellechou" as a term of endearment in one of my world's cultures, or calling a boiled spider dish "pavou-bouillie" (the latter being a combination of French and Czech) Thanks!
I don't see what adding words like those really does to your fiction. I don't know those words. And as a reader, I'm really not interested in being confused or having to learn a language on the side. I know authors do it, but most of the time I don't thing foreign words add much if anything to a story.
I don't think it would be offensive. Many authors use real-world cultures as basis for their fictional ones, as well as the language. It makes it easier and can help portray another language without the need to translate everything. It shouldn't create confusion though or require an appendix to understand. For example, if you're writing for a European market, most people will probably recognize the words donna, domina, doña, dame, madame as words for woman, so using something like dama or donnia as a form of address for women in your fictional world should be fine. ETA: it could get offensive if your bad guys are foreigners and you rely on the language to indicate that foreignness. Especially if it's languages like Hebrew, Arabic or German.
My purpose is just to indicate that dialect is different. In another region I use purposeful misspellings of a select few words to achieve the same, though I'm not sure I'll keep that in the final draft. I don't plan on using foreign words prolifically. I only plan on using them in contexts where the meanings could be guessed at (or in the case of the boiled spider, it's explained what it is), and even then sparingly. I definitely don't want to distract the reader -- just keep the flavor of different dialects in the dialogue.
Thanks for the feedback. I know I've seen it done; I just wasn't aware of what the general consensus on offensiveness was. I know I've seen instances of outrage aimed at sci-fi works that did this, but I'm aware that those portrayals also included stereotypes of the cultures they were drawing from. The fact that it's easier to draw from existing languages is the entire reason I wanted to do it. I've got eight distinct cultures in my WIP and I want all but two of them to have unique dialects. My concern is that the in-universe cultures don't match the real-world cultures that most people would associate any real world language with. For instance, the French/Czech-hybrid inspired dialect is being used by a race of underground-dwelling spider-squid creatures that love incorporating decorative luminescence into everything from architecture to clothing. I intend to give an Australian inspired dialect to a race of insect-fairy creatures that live in a non-competitive society (almost communistic) comprised of colonies, not nuclear families. It's the dissonance between real-world language inspiration and in-universe cultures that I'm worried will offend people. I probably should have said that to begin with, but I don't think I'd pinned that down as the source of my worry when I first posted.
I think its best to avoid including a second language in a work of fiction, as your story will look messy. Wether your langauage be a real one or a fictionalized one, don't do it. Unless, its like a common phrase in pop culture like "Et tu, Brute" or "Carpe Diem" or it be a phenomenom in life such as a "menage a trois" or a "folie a deux." Just because these are common phrases in real life, and not just shoe horned words. The other acception if its some sort of prayar practiced in many religous ceremonies. (fictional or not) I'm not sure if your into fanfiction or fanfiction about anime, but back in my day (I sound old) I noticed anime fanfic writers had this really goofy trope of adding random japanese words for the sake of looking "more realistic," when the actuality was they looked really stupid. The phrases they used had english words, but they decided "fuck that, let me show off my weab-ness." Whenever I make this sort of arguement, this is my go to example of how to NOT use different languages in your story: "Arigato (thank you), Hanzou Kun." Sakura said with a blush. She looked so kawaii desu (cute) in her school fuku. (uniform or suit) Hanzou retracted the rose and looked at Sakura in confusion. "I thought we are speaking english?" Sakura cocked her head. "Nani (what?), but we are in Japan. We should be speaking nihongo! (Japanese)" Bottom line; DON'T use two languages in your story.
Hmm, you make a good point with that. I think I'll keep exotic names for things like foods, since dishes are often referred to in the language of the culture they originate from, but I'll avoid tossing in foreign terms that aren't well known outside of those specific cases.
As with most things, if you do it well, there's nothing wrong with it. The example given to you with the Japanese words was overdone - and you're clearly not going to be doing that. As long as the foreign words make sense in context, it's fine. The real question is what does it add to your story? Is the linguistic or cultural difference an integral part of your story or character development? Your choice should be defined by your answer to that. Is it fantasy or historical fiction or - what genre? Certain things are more acceptable in certain genres. You should experiment with short pieces, go nuts, throw in all the foreign words you want in all different ways - and then see what's right and what's wrong for your story. Then apply it to your novel. You just have to do it well, and you can find out how to do it well by experimenting and practising. If you decide later you don't wanna include foreign words, that's fine too - just make sure it's an informed choice for the benefit of the story you want to tell, and not avoid something just because the writing tool you used happens to be someone's pet peeve.
Cultural differences are very important to my story. The linguistic differences are just me trying to emphasize that the different cultures rarely interact; little interaction means different dialects and eventually different languages developing (though there are hidden forces working to prevent the latter). As such, linguistic differences are just adding flavor: they aren't critical. The genre is high fantasy, but I still think I'll try to minimize using foreign phrases. If I just make up phrases belonging to a fictional language instead, I can avoid some of the issues I'm worried about, but if I do too much my OCD would insist I start making up rules for the language, and that is way more work than I want to do. As I mentioned in an earlier post, using real-world languages just makes things simpler for me in that regard. Either way, I'm starting to think I've been worrying too much about this. For now, I'm going to keep things simple and keep the usage of foreign terms to a minimum. When I go through the story a second (or third, etc.) time to touch things up, that's when I'll really look at how additional inclusion of foreign terms affects the flow. I agree, though, that when I do get there I should try experimenting more. If I can make it work, I would like to, because I don't really have that many places where cultural differences are shown very well (and I really want to show that), and I think that emphasizing different dialogues will help me with that.
If it's high fantasy, then I'd probably avoid using real-world languages because that's gonna make readers think immediately of the real country you're lifting the language from. Making up cultural phrases and idioms - and through that, interesting and perhaps hilarious misunderstandings and culture clashes - sounds like a very good idea to me! I really enjoyed the book Girl in Translation - about a 12 year old girl who emigrated from Hong Kong to the US to make a life for herself, and initially she didn't speak any English. The author uses phrases that are translated literally from Cantonese straight into English in dialogue, so keeping everything only in English but really it sounds very quirky and foreign. I liked it a lot. There's a phrase, for example, that could be translated as "You melonhead!" (You idiot!) Translating phrases like this could potentially add more flavour than just using foreign words.
This was my first thought as well. I mean, provided someone who spoke the language you've used read your book... I bet it'd take them out of the story immediately. This has happened to me whenever Finnish words are used in a setting that has nothing Finnish in it. Like the martial art Teräs Käsi in the Star Wars universe. It just looks and sounds really stupid because "Steel Hand" (teräs = steel, käsi = hand) doesn't sound very cool in Finnish due to the word "käsi" also referring to someone who's a complete klutz. So I'm imagining all these martial artists are actually kinda clumsy.
Hehehe. Sounds like a similar thing to all the Europeans who love Chinese script and then end up with a soy sauce advert tattooed on their backs I honestly did see a girl's top once printed with a complete soy sauce label, a list of ingredients included, in pretty silver and another one with a single character printed on it, occupying the entire front, which read: Table
If you use a certain language then people are going to assume you are using it to show that the culture of the character is somewhat similar to the culture that the language is from.
Yes, that makes sense, and that's not what I want. I've come to the conclusion that I'll not be using foreign languages for the purpose of flavoring dialects, so thanks to everyone for the input on this.
have you ever written fantasy before? Languages and foreign dialects somehow fuel the story giving it a more real feel to it.
I can't see that being offensive, but I also think the word offensive has been prostituted into meaninglessness in 2018. A good example of the kind of thing you mention in your question is China Miéville's The City and the City. Long story short: two cities that sit side by side, street by street, where the denizens of one city are expected and trained to "unsee" the buildings and people of the adjacent city, even as they drive past them in the street, walk by them on shared sidewalks, etc. The two cities are Besźel and Ul Qoma, and distinctly different sounding words are used to easily distinguish things from the two cities. Though the words used to describe Besźelenese things, people, and locations are not written in any real Slavic language, they are written with a heavy use of unusual diacritics and modified Latin letters that the English-reading eye associates with the look and feel of Polish or Czech "diacritic overload". Everything in/from Ul Qoma is vaguely Arabic or Sanskrit. The story concerns the investigation of a murder and until the victim is finally identified, she's referred to as Fulana Detail, which is a direct pull from Spanish, where Fulana de Tal / Fulano de Tal is how we say "random woman" and "random man" whose name we don't know. So, this is everywhere in literature. As others up-thread have mentioned, you included, just don't be heavy-handed with the use. Don't drop these words in places where the reader's inability to parse their meaning causes an informational blank spot in the story. As for the zeitgeist's current obsession with clutching its proverbial pearls over everything and anything, it's time to stop giving the zeitgeist the unwarranted attention it seeks in this regard so it will give those atrocious pearls a rest, and so that real issues don't get swept aside under the Boy Who Cried Wolf™ dynamic.
In Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series there are peasants living out in the sticks of something like a parrallel dimension (very Earthlike but different) and they use a lot of spanish words but also speak with a bit of a Scottish dialect. It's hilarious. It's also jarring because duh! Scotland/Mexico makes a strange mix. It's jarring and it's great at the same time because it's so skilfully done you just stop noticing the similarities to those real places and simply immerse yourself into the story. It's all so real in that fictional world that they seem like real people (even if it hurts my brain to imagine it )
There must be some kind of cultural similarity. If Pratchett or Tolkien used words that had some kind of Finnish sound connected to folk or character that had some kind of Finnish "sound” it does not bother- quite the opposite. If Nac Mac Feegles aka Free Wee Men call a sertain black bird Corbie (raven is korppi in Finnish) it is like getting a medal because it is so easy to connect with Free Wee Men and their culture & habits. (I would OK a martial art that has a Finnish name if that name would be something like Turpaantirvasu, Nöössien kouluttaminen, Oikeen Huolella Pyyhkäsemine, Saunantaakke Viäminen or Silimäkkeesee Polokaseminen and it would me more martial than art. )
In old Swedish comedy "The Adventures of Picasso" is a lady who sings. The song is a recipe from 18:th century and tells how to bake certain type of rye bread that has small fish and pig grease baked in. (The name of that type of bread is kalakukko.) "Näin laitat kalakukkoa. Ota vettä ja suolaa. Sen jälkeen voita, jauhoja. Sen jälkeen vaivataan. Nyt raaka kala, silava..."
