How to Use Fictional Languages in Your Story
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My last post about creating your own fictional language got some pretty positive feedback so I went to work on this one as soon as I could! And BOY is it a LONG ONE! Thanks to everyone who read the last one and wanted more! <3
So first: Formatting. I recommend using italics any time you include non-English words in an otherwise English piece of work. That goes for fictional and real languages. You’ll see some examples a little further down.
I’d also like to remind everyone reading this that nobody else knows your fictional language so your job is to teach your readers how to understand and accept it as part of the world. How do you do that? Repetition, restraint, not-awkward translations, and seamless integration.
Repetition: Use the same few words or sentences over and over in your books where they feel natural so readers will start to remember what they mean.
Restraint: You can definitely have too much of a good thing. I don’t recommend having a full dialogue between characters be carried out in a fictional language or an entire paragraph. Use your language sparingly. Too much information too quickly can be overwhelming for a reader.
Translations and Integration: When using a fictional language in a story there’s a lot of ways you can approach translating and integrating it. It’s easier to just show you how I usually do it so here goes:
Option 1
With this option, we have the full sentence in Wey (the name of my language) in italics. Cadence, not knowing Wey, tells the voice she doesn’t understand and so it’s forced to say it again in English.
Option 2
This is probably the most obvious way to throw in a translation. It’s right in the same line of dialogue. The only issue with this is that it can come off a little stilted. There aren’t a lot of instances in real-world speech where people would speak in one language and then repeat themselves in another immediately afterwards without prompting.
Option 3
***This option should only ever be used when all the other characters in the scene speak the same language and can understand what they’re saying.*** This gives you an out so you don’t have to actually write out a full sentence in your fictional language but it tells the readers that the character speaking is doing so in something other than English.
Option 4
This is the other way to go about the whole “using your fictional language but not really” route. If the other characters in the scene don’t understand the language you can express the language like the above example. I also recommend using descriptors for how they’re speaking to better convey the message. Even if a character doesn’t understand the words, they would probably be able to tell that they’re being said with anger, joy, or fear.
There’s also ways to throw in some fictional words in otherwise English sentences, like if you’re insulting someone or greeting them. You don’t have to provide a proper translation if it’s obvious in context.
Aaaaaand that’s all I’ve got for you, folks! Well, I could probably write about this all day but I think I should probably end it here because this post is just way too long as it is. If anyone else has any other tips, feel free to let me know!
@dawen-nightmaiden because you specifically asked me about this post! Hope it lives up to expectation!
