I have an OC who speaks several languages. Her native tongue is Arabic, the setting she normally is in speaks Japanese, and the language I'm writing in is English. She speaks more, but these three are the important ones.
I occasionally write a scene in the story from her POV, where she speaks Arabic at home with her grandfather, and Japanese with her friends and strangers. There are also other scenes where she may speak with a friend in Arabic and Japanese (a mix of sorts), and another friend in all three of Arabic English and Japanese, and other scenes where she talks to herself in Arabic in the presence of other characters. As a result I've a number of closely related questions:
How do I indicate that she's changing languages when writing from her point of view?
Is it necessary to? If so, when?
How do I do so organically without having to explicitly "tell" it?
Where does transliteration become necessary?
Arabic is a very God-centric language, where God is often mentioned in the most mundane (though not vain!!!) contexts. English is not so much. How could I "translate" that into the writing when the language POV is Arabic, considering that I'm writing in English?
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Multilingual Character Issues
How do I indicate that she's changing languages when writing from her point of view? Is it necessary to? If so, when? How do I do so organically without having to explicitly "tell" it?
This is one of those situations where it's absolutely fine to "tell" the reader the language that they're speaking. For example...
Grandfather was sitting on a bench enjoying the afternoon breeze. "How are you doing today, Grandfather?" I asked in Arabic.
If you have multiple scenes that have cultural and character cues that will let the reader know where the character is, and therefore what language they'd be speaking, you can potentially highlight those cues and use language cues to "show" the language without a direct tell. Using Spanish as an example, something like this:
My abuela was working in her garden, probably picking fresh ingredients for tonight's pozole. ¡Hola, mi chiquita! she said, looking up with a smile. "I hope you've brought a big appetite for supper."
You can still pepper in the occasional reminder that they are, in fact, speaking Spanish. Again, it's okay to tell when you think it's necessary.
Where does transliteration become necessary?
If you're using mostly English to convey the other language, relying on telling and contextual clues to illustrate that it is the other language, I'm not sure when transliteration would be necessary. But, using my Spanish example above... I do not think it would be necessary to either transliterate or translate "pozole" or "chiquita." The general meaning of both are relatively clear via context. If she's gathering fresh ingredients for tonight's pozole, and later asks her granddaughter if she brought her appetite, it's pretty clear that pozole is a food. If you wanted to add more context for exactly the type of food, you could have the character muse about other preparations she's likely to have already made for other ingredients, or imagine tasting the hominy and meat-based stew. Transliteration... conveying how a word is pronounced... isn't necessary, especially when you have a story that's potentially going to contain a lot of words in other languages. Transliterating all or even some of them would bog down the story.
Arabic is a very God-centric language, where God is often mentioned in the most mundane (though not vain!!!) contexts. English is not so much. How could I "translate" that into the writing when the language POV is Arabic, considering that I'm writing in English?
Well, first of all, I don't think that's true about English at all. English-speakers often weave God into everyday/mundane language in much the same way as Arabic speakers, and not in vain. Some examples:
-- God willing, we'll have good weather for the game tomorrow.
-- Praise God, the line is finally moving!
-- As God as my witness, I will ground you if you're a second late.
-- Oh, thank God my paycheck came in a little early this week!
-- God bless, she is just the sweetest creature alive!
And, at the end of the day, even if you're using English to write what is supposed to be spoken Arabic, the context isn't English. So, when it makes sense, just be direct. But sometimes it doesn't make sense to be direct... using Spanish as an example again, someone might say, "Hoy voy a echar la flojera en casa," which basically means "I'm going to be lazy at home today," but the literal translation is, "today I am going to throw laziness at home." This is one of those cases where it just wouldn't make sense to be literal. It would be better to just have the character say, "I'm going to be lazy at home today," because as writers, our ultimate goal is clarity. We never want to sacrifice clarity for ambience or anything else.
I hope this makes sense, and please keep an eye on the comments in case any Arabic or Spanish speakers have anything they want to add, or in case I got something wrong.
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