Tips for Using Other Languages in Fiction
Language and culture are inextricably linked. Using other languages in your fiction can help to create a three-dimensional, fully-realized world for the reader, but it can also pull them out of your story and leave them bored, confused, or frustrated if you overdo it.
Like many aspects of fiction (and life), it comes down to finding the right balance. This tends to be especially difficult for those who write their own languages—and understandably so. It takes a lot of work to write a language and you want to show it off. The best way to do that, though, is to integrate it smoothly into your overall storytelling.
So how do you do that? Here are some tips for when and how to use languages other than English in your stories.
Best Uses of Other Languages
1: Words or concepts that have no direct translation.
Writers do this all the time without thinking about it. Words like schadenfreude or ennui have been borrowed into English because they succinctly express concepts that are difficult or clunky to convey otherwise.
Building these words into constructed languages can highlight distinctive aspects of their culture or world. This could convey aspects of their physical world, like in Stark Trek: Deep Space Nine when Quark shares that the Ferengi have 178 words for rain but no word for “crisp”. It could also be cutural, like the Aiel ji’e’toh from the Wheel of Time books. The term roughly translates to “honor and obligation” but with nuanced shades of meaning that these English words don’t quite capture. These kinds of unique, untranslateable terms help to establish what makes this culture different from the English-speaking one readers are accustomed to, letting them do a lot of heavy lifting to build the story world.
2: Flora, fauna, and food.
Languages often have their own words for indigenous flora and fauna. I’m linking this to food since those plants and animals are main ingredients in local cuisine and often give their name to dishes, like coq au vin or pigs in a blanket.
Cultures often also have unique words for common preparation methods. A filled, fried dough could be a samosa, pierogi, empanada, or wonton depending on what area of the world its made in. All could be described as “dumplings,” but using the culturally-specific words implies certain fillings and flavor profiles, giving the reader a fuller sensory experience.
3: Song lyrics and poetry.
Metered poetry and song lyrics have to follow a certain rhythm as well as conveying meaning, and that can be lost in translation. If the meaning is important, too, you can then give the translation, but keeping the line of poetry or song in its original language maintains its rhyme and rhythmic structure, giving the reader the sensory experience of hearing it.
4: Rituals and ceremonies.
Similar to poetry and music, the phrases spoken during religious services, folk rituals, and other ceremonial events often use very specific phrasing and rhythm. Writing it verbatim in the original language keeps the reader in the moment. It also makes sense for the context; in ceremonial contexts, the words themselves are often less important than the feeling and mood they contribute to the overall ritual. Like with song lyrics, you can write the translation after the line if the meaning is important, though leaving it untranslated can create a feeling of mystery and secrecy that could be useful in many contexts.
5: Greetings, curses, and exclamations.
These words may have an equivalent in English, but their meaning and function is clear from context and they don’t need to be translated to be understood. This makes them an excellent way to add a few words of another language and reinforce that characters are speaking something other than English without causing any confusion in the reader.
6: Titles and nicknames.
Readers are more used to seeing unfamiliar words when they’re names of people or places, and the nicknames or titles given to characters fall under this category, too. Examples of this would be calling a martial arts instructor sensei instead of teacher, or Paul Atreides’ nickname Mua’dib in Dune (from the Fremen name for a species of desert mouse).
Tips for Using Multiple Languages
1: Treat it like a work in translation.
If your characters were born and live in a small French town, odds are they think in French, and speak it as their default. The same thing is true of invented worlds—realistically, if your story is set on another planet or in a fantasy realm, these characters aren’t speaking any languages known on Earth.
This is something you should think about as you’re utilizing other languages in your text. The characters are always using their native tongue; you the writer are translating these thoughts and words into English. When you choose to leave something in the original language, you need to ask yourself why. Does that word convey a meaning or implication that’s lost in translation? Is it important to maintain the sound or flow of the speech? Or do you just want to show off that conlang you spent the last year writing? Asking yourself how a professional translator would treat a word or sentence can help you identify when other languages enhance the storytelling and when you’re just using them for their own sake.
2: Use context over direct translations whenever possible.
There are times that writing a foreign phrase followed by a translation makes sense, but in many cases that’s unnecessarily clunky. Especially with single words, the better option is to use them in such a way the reader can infer their meaning. For extant languages, remember that readers can always look up what the word means if they’re curious. For conlangs, remember that your book is not a language primer. You want readers to understand the story, not learn the vocabulary of your invented tongue.
Keep your audience in mind, too. Regular readers of high fantasy and hard sci-fi are accustomed to seeing made-up words. They’re likely to be into (or at least tolerate) heavier conlang use than fans of slipstream, magical realism, or other borderline genres, and are practiced in using context clues to derive the meaning of words they don’t recognize. The same goes with realistic fiction. If you’re writing about the Hispanic American experience and your intended audience is members of that community, you can expect a higher percentage of them to be bilingual, and can use more Spanish without holding the reader’s hand with an in-text translation.
3: Keep the density low, especially in the first 25%.
Particularly if you’re using a constructed language, it’s best to ease the reader in by slowly introducing words over the course of the work. Start off with a few key important words or commonly-used phrases. Once you’ve cemented these in the reader’s mind, you can sprinkle in more, gradually increasing the reader’s vocabulary as they read.
Think of how Tolkien eases his reader into his vast world in Lord of the Rings. He doesn’t overwhelm us by naming all the kingdoms and peoples of Middle Earth at the start; he grounds the reader with a birthday party in the isolated Shire, where the hobbits live an idyllic but relatable life and have names like Samwise Gamgee and Peregrin Took—a bit weird, sure, but not too far from names you might find in the real world. It’s not until after the plot’s inciting incident, once Frodo and company have set out on their journey, that he ramps up the worldbuilding, and along with it how much of his conlangs he uses.
4: Use syntax and word choice to convey the spirit of other tongues.
This is a common tactic of fantasy writers like George R.R. Martin. He doesn’t use Dothraki or High Valyrian in the books (most of those languages was written for the shows). Instead, he alters the word choice and order during dialogue passages in these other tongues to convey their tone and feel without bogging the reader down with translations.
Combining a distinctive syntax with selective use of non-English words conveys the feel of someone speaking in another tongue better than full sentences of the foreign language followed by translations, in part because many readers will simply skip right to the translation once they realize your pattern.
Infusing other languages into stories can be a very effective way to pull a reader fully into the story’s world, but it’s a tool that needs to be wielded with care—especially if that language doesn’t exist anywhere but in your own head.
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