One of the most common ‘complaints’ one hears about fantasy and science-fiction is that everyone speaks in the same language. From aliens to orcs, they usually seem to know the human tongue. I’ve heard people say that this draws them out of the story because it makes no sense. Yet, I’ve also heard some of these people complain about having to read subtitles or not understanding what a character says because they speak in a different language. So, this makes me think that the complaint is more about needing something to gripe about.
Now, Tolkien set an amazing standard with fantasy books due to the detail of his languages. He was also a highly skilled linguist and loved philology (study of languages), so what he did could be considered a special case. Not every fantasy/sci-fi author has this hobby or natural talent, so you won’t get a new form of Elvish with every series. In fact, it really isn’t necessary to create new, detailed languages. Tolkien did it because of his interests, but that was his choice and not a mandatory action.
I’ve read a few books with fictional languages and I’ve seen them done in two ways. One is the use of a translator figure and the reader is in the same ‘what did he say?’ boat as the main characters. I find this to be a smoother transition because it doesn’t put the burden of translation on me. The other is the use of a translation guide in the front or back of the book. This can help a reader learn the language for extra submersion into the world, but it has a really high risk. You need the reader to be willing to go that extra mile and the language shouldn’t be harder to learn than real world languages. I read a book in college where I had to go back to the translation pages every few paragraphs because I couldn’t read a word. Kind of like: rphg at the end of a word = a ‘ph’ sound & rphg at the start of a word = a ‘hard R’ sound. That’s how you knock a casual reader out of a story.
So, what do people think of the use of fictional languages? Has it been done too much or is it simply something that needs a more delicate touch than people realize?
(Add-on: Thinking about it, this is much easier to do in verbal media like movies and television. Hearing a fantasy language can be more accepted than trying to read one.)
Legends of Windemere 
I just want to read. I don’t want to mess around with new languages. I’ll just assume it was translated from Klingon or something and be perfectly happy.
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I agree. Figuring out a new language to get through a story takes some of the fun out for me.
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I read a book call The twenty One Lessons of Merlin written in welsh. It was pretty cool, but I tried to read a sci fi that had a different language and it never did make any sense to me. Way too foreign.
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Fictional languages can be a pain when they’re very complicated. Tolkien’s Elvish is the easiest one that I can remember.
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Depends how far you want to go with it 🙂 I believe it can be percieved as the easiest one simply because Tolkiien did a theral job and created the elvish languages in its entirety, there is lots of words, synonyms and a complete grammar.
As opposed to Drow where there is not as big of a vocabulary as with, lets say, Quenya.
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Tolkien studied a lot of languages too, so he had the background to do it. Can’t decipher ‘theral’ in your comment there. Sorry.
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I cannot find the word anywhere now, so I probubly misspelled it. It is supposed to be a synonym for thorough
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Just checked a thesaurus and I’ve got nothing.
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Apparently, by Urban Dictionary, it is a Phily slang for cool? Not at all how I was taught
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Well the Urban Dictionary is never wrong.
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I like fictional languages, I really do, in most cases after I read the book I learn the language as well, and it does not matter to me is it a full language or just a myriad of phrases.
At the same time, I do not bother with asking Why do all speak the same language, cause I would rather have that than a fictional language poorly done.
Making a fictional language is extra work, its a huge workload actually, because there is way too many different reading personas and even you yourself can like one and not like the other. An example I could give for myself would be the demon names in Pratchet’s “Eric”. I loved them, but to be honest, I cannot say how I would react if I encountered them in a different book. I guess it depends on the interest the book in general provokes in me; if it provokes a great interest, I will msot probubly adore your fictional language as well. On the other hand if i find the book not to be so interesting, there is a higher chance I might find the language boring, because plot holes and similar are already burdening my brain.
I personaly love creating fitional languages, but I found people nowadays not to have an interest in them and it makes them put away the book, so for my sci-fi triology I went for the classic solution of how everyone speaks the same, and kept the minimum of the different culturs languages.
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I’ve noticed that too. I think it takes a very patient reader to get through a fictional language. I don’t know many of those. Even so, if a language breaks the flow of a story then it can cause a problem. That’s where I get lost. Reading along and enjoying it, but then I have no idea what someone is talking about. Makes me feel like I’ve suddenly been locked out of the world.
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Fictional languages are fine, but having to refer to a dictionary at either the beginning or ending of a book, to me, would break the flow and would cause me to lose interest. I don’t think that people generally want to work that hard to read a book. This is just my opinion of course.
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Same here. Some people love it and will learn the language before reading. Sadly, I’m not one of those types.
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I think multiple languages can be done well, but it’s a delicate balance for me as a reader. If it’s something that slows the story down in a negative way then there’s hardly a point. But I’ve liked books that we know there are other cultures, but maybe the book itself only goes into a few words that have significance on the story at hand. Or the main character understands the other language and is basically translating for us. (Think Harry with parseltongue). But I’m with you, I think too much and it’s too distracting and makes the story not worth digesting. Tough to balance though.
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The translator role is very helpful with this. The ‘few words’ thing reminds me of how they talked in Firefly. Just throw a few foreign words in to get an emotion across. Though I heard once that it was to get cursing around the censors.
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I’m sure you’re right, but I think it added a uniqueness to the world, so I’m glad it happened with Firefly.
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It truly paved the way for other FOX sci-fi shows. :p
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Actually, all the language bits were hardest parts of Tolkien to swallow for me. It depends on the situation but I prefer fantasy worlds that are like say, India, where there are 150 dialects but all the communal stuff is conducted in the same language. Italy is the same, loads of regional dialects but all the main stuff is conducted in Italian.
Cheers
MTM
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That is a cleaner and less confusing system. Never figured out how to do dialects in writing.
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I like to read and not have to work too hard doing it. I would prefer English.
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Me too. 🙂
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Frank Herbert’s “Dune” has a huge glossary in the back, as well as several appendixes. I remember being both frustrated and intrigued by the vocabulary, reading the first time as a teenager.
Recently I got the Kindle version, and it occurred to me that it should have been possible to include a custom dictionary with the book. After all, you can highlight words in the text and have them defined; I have two dictionaries pre-loaded on my Kindle. Since Herbert provided definitions of the words he invented, creating a custom dictionary would have been time consuming, but I can’t see any technical reason that it couldn’t be done.
I can see providing a custom lexicon for an e-book. I think that if I could just highlight an invented word and have the definition pop up would be a lot less intrusive than having to page to the dictionary.
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That’s a great idea. It wouldn’t break the flow as much as jumping to the front or back of the book. I think it would help people memorize the commonly used words too.
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This is an important point in fantasy and sci-fi. Those are very helpful ideas for dealing with it. 🙂
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Thanks. Drew the topic out for the week, so I hope I keep helping.
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I think every author finds his or her own balance on this. You can mention characters having accents or foreign runes that are beautiful but make no sense, or sprinkle foreign words through the text without giving your readers full immersion. I recall one of Tanith Lee’s early novels, where her characters spoke in so much slang the dialogue was hard to follow.
But as in many things, we won’t please all the readers all the time.
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Very true. It seems to come down to the author’s comfort zone and the reader’s patience. I know some people who love strange words in literature while others complain.
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Personally, I enjoy it movies. It’s great to hear the diversity. In books, not so much, because I haven’t a clue what they are saying. It can really slow down the pace of a book to have someone constantly translating!
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Movies and TV have it a lot easier than books. Subtitles can make all the difference.
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You’ve got that right 🙂
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What an interesting post. The other way I’ve seen it done is the translation follows the dialog. Grisham did this with The Broker. For instance, “Che bella macchina.” What a beautiful car. “Buon Giorno.” Good morning. etc. You get the point. In some ways it’s great because it’s like watching a movie and the subtitles display over the dialog. Some folks don’t like it because it causes the reader to work harder at understanding the story. I’m not so sure about that since if you don’t know the language, the translation is right there. Anyway, that’s my “due euro.” Two cents. 😉
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That is a good idea. I’ve never seen it done in fantasy, but that would make a lot of sense. Simply put the translation in parenthesis.
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