Since I speak a tiny amount of Spanish, and a passable amount of English, you would think all my main characters would speak English.
Yet, for some reason, I’ve been drawn to MC’s that speak more than one language, and have found ways to fold that into my stories. In one young adult story, my MC was fluent in Polish as well as English, and was studying Arabic. At first, I stumbled along with Google Translate for the few bits of language that I needed for color. But I quickly found myself getting in trouble when I wanted more than a single word or common phrase, in a language that was, well, foreign.
In a stroke of fantastic luck, it turned out one of my writing group members speaks fluent Polish, and was able to give me the appropriate fixes for my language messes (as well as some tasty tidbits of Polish culture).
In my current middle grade novel, the lingua franca of the Peacedom is Galactic Standard Mandarin. Most of the characters speak English, but in one scene, everyone needed to speak Galactic Standard, because one member of the lunch bunch didn’t know English (although he spoke a dozen dialects from the sub-continent of India). This is how that went:
“Duncan, wo zui hao de peng you! Ni hao?” Walid said, which roughly translated to Duncan, my most good friend! How are you? but which Duncan took to mean Duncan, dude! What’s up?
“Wo Hen Hao,” replied Duncan, indicating he was fine.
The rest of the conversation continues, translated to English although they are still speaking in Mandarin. Along the way a beta reader (thank you Rebecca!) suggested inserting some more color by substituting a common spoken word (alright, okay) with its Galactic Standard Mandarin equivalent. I’m thinking this is an extremely cool idea, ala Firefly, and immediately hop to it. Unfortunately, this is one of those slippery words that depends a lot on context, like “no problem” and “alright” and “okay” are sometimes interchangeable, but sometimes not.
According to Google Translate . . .
hǎo ba = alright
hǎo de = ok
hǎo = good
Then I found this, a website for fans of Firefly who want to speak Mandarin! Who says the web doesn’t have everything? At this point, I realize there was actually a whole lotta cussing on Firefly, most of which is probably not useful for my middle grade novel. Alas, nowhere can I find the translation for the simple “okay.”
So, I will plunge in and pick one that suits me, and hope for no Chinese readers who may be offended.
Hǎo de?
Do you use snippets of other languages in your writing? Are you fluent in those languages, or do you rely on others (including the interwebs)?
If I was really awesome, I’d create my own language, like Klingon. I would call it Blastulan, or some other insanely strange name reminiscent of multi-celled organisms, for my budding new language for invading aliens from the planet Blast.
But I’m not that cool.
1. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Hǎo ba,” she said. “Let’s go.”
2. “Everyone you can send it to, okay?”
“Everyone you can send it to, hǎo ma?”
3. “Okay.” He hugged her briefly. “It’s late. You should be sleeping.”
“Hǎo la.” He hugged her briefly. “It’s late. You should be sleeping.”
4. “Right away, okay? So I can shut down the engine.”
“Right away, hǎo bu hǎo? So I can shut down the engine.”
It’s a good thing I’m not flying solo on this one . . .
My MC also speaks Japanese, and has some phrases in Chinese as well. Both languages made it into the manuscript.
I speak only English fluently, plus intermediate French and introductory Japanese and Greek (modern).
Galactic Mandarin could be a spot on prediction … my wife, who's half-chinese, is miffed at her mum that she didn't teach her more of it growing up. Asian languages are quite difficult, for sure, and the wif's mother laugh's whenever this gringo recites the Chinese nursery rhyme he knows (something about a big hat, I think)
Bane – Ha! Are you sure it's a nursery rhyme? 🙂 I've found a friend with a co-worker who might be able to help me with my hapless language skills…
CKHB – Awesome! Now, if I ever wanted to use Japanese, I would have no problems. I have a friend who married into a Japanese family and they are teaching the kids to speak it. Hmmm…maybe for my next MS…
How cool! I'm writing a science fiction, too, and in it I wanted to show that language has evolved and shifted. The first things that shift in language is slang–so I took some modern slang and came up with different words for them (kind of like how Firefly uses "rutting" or "gorram").
As someone really interested in linguistics, I *love* it when people use them in books. Yours sounds great!
(btw, I saw you on Rebecca's site and came on over. lovely blog!)
Beth – thanks and welcome (and thanks for letting me guest post next week – now that it's written, I can't wait to see what people think of it)! Are you writing SF for kids or adults?
As evidenced above, I'm clearly not a linguist, but I think it's cool nonetheless.
I made up a slang word or two for my future-setting-YA novel, but nothing as cool as gorram.
And what the heck is gorram anyway? Or maybe I shouldn't ask. This is a PG blog after all.
This is really interesting, Susan. I didn't know google has a translator program, and I've never heard of Firefly. Whoa! I need to get with the program. 🙂
Firefly was a sadly canceled scifi TV program (also a movie: Serenity) – some of Joss Whedon's genius. Definitely worth watching on DVD!
Is there anything Google doesn't have?
I like neither Na'vi nor Klingon, as the future global language. Especially when you have to dress up for it 🙂
We also need a future international language. One which is easy to learn, as well !
And that's not English! Esperanto? Let's move forward 🙂
At least Bill Shatner speaks Esperanto. Have a look at http://eurotalk.com/en/store/learn/esperanto
Bill Shatner speaks Esperanto? This day is just FULL of learning for me.
I haven't seen Avatar yet (bad me), so I will reserve judgement on Na'vi. But, yes, we need a future international language! My Korean friends tell me that language was supposed to be the "new international", but seems that never happened. Ditto Esperanto (at least so far).
As always, I think the conquerors set the language and customs.
I'm a google-maniac myself and have often asked myself the same question: is there anything google doesn't have? Well, it didn't exactly tell me what my kids were willing to eat for dinner tonight, but you can't have everything.
But it's good that you have real people who can help you with the language issues. I used a couple Spanish translations from Google, and the one of the Hispanic women I work with agreed to read the section and laughed at the excerpt. "Too formal" she stated, and helped me put it in context.
I'm trying to write a fantasy. Language is a big issue for me, but only because of the spells. I know at some point I will have to use the spells in dialogue, but I'm just not sure about coming up with the verbiage. Frustrating, as I have no affinity for languages.
I spent three years in Germany, and I recognize a couple basic words, but really, I wouldn't want to mangle them here and embarrass myself. And I'm of German descent.
I've been reading through your last few posts, and enjoyed them also. You are so witty, and knowledgeable. It's always a pleasure to stop by.
……….dhole
Thanks for your sweet words!
If you need help coming up with spell names, my kids would totally work for free on that job! I've been hexed so many times, it's a wonder I'm still human (sort of).
Thanks for stopping by!