[shashekar]

(This is yet more of that dream scene I've been bandying about. I'm using it to play with ideas...)

What is the consensus on using real-world native languages in science fiction and fantasy? Besides a few exceptions, I've never really bought into the idea that non-English languages presented in most fantasy and science fiction should be imagined languages, and I've played around with using real languges in those kind of scenarios. In this specific instance, I've used Latin under the idea of sidestepping dialogue in the scene.

Does this work? Is the idea, on the whole, workable? Other author's have done it, but they've used obscure languages or played with wording and phrasing to get a pseudo-tongue.

I watch a seagull out beyond the breakers as it wheels and cries, hold my breath as it suddenly dives, a quickened dart, into the murky grey waters and out of my sight. Then a moment passes, an eternity, before the bird is back with a tiny silver morsel clutched proudly in its beak. I smile to myself as I silently thank the gull for the moment's diversion it brought, and turn my senses back to the wind. Not just this cold wind, nor any other wind in our world. It isn't the wind that's been trying to stir the limp wet hair plastered to my lined face, or the wind ruffling the strand of seaweed held clenched in frozen fingers that have been too long raised up to the sky in the hope of benediction, or the wind that's driven rain like the lash of a scourge against my naked back. I'm waiting to hear God's secret wind, to be filled with the ecstasy of His voice.

I waste another moment to shift my weight and ease the pain in knees that are raw from endless hours spent prostrated on the rocky beach, before I ask of Him my question: ''Quare?'' All I hear is the idiotic cry of dumb gulls. Suddenly angry, I seize up my spear and scream ''Vermis! Spurcamen!'' at the grey sky as I climb to my feet. I start to stalk off into the long grass, but rustling off to my left stays my stride.

''Meus abbatis!'' I cry. ''Qua an tu?''

The head of a boy appears above the grass. I smile.

''Adveho hic,'' I say kindly, as I beckon him.

The boy rises up out of the grass. A stone flies from a sling in his fist. I jerked awake.

[KatG]

Well, non-English languages are used in SF all the time and in non-alternate world fantasy frequently. In alternate world fantasy, non-English languages that are actual languages are sometimes used -- Latin is popular, imaginary languages based on real non-English languages are sometimes used and ones that are polygut inventions are sometimes used. In SF, depending on the setting, authors may develop languages that are hybrids of English and non-English, on the idea that language developed that way in the future. Or they may make up an alien language, etc. But you're more likely to find say Spanish phrases in an SF story than made up ones.

[shashekar]

Okay, its nice to know that I'm not alone in this regard!

[hippokrene]

That's an interesting idea. I like it.

It's not one I would adopt. When my speculative fiction people speak in English, it's because that's what they'd speak or as a compromise to the reader. When they speak an imaginary language, it’s because speaking a real world language wouldn’t make sense for them, and I have the time, energy, and interest to make up a few non-real language words and phrases.

It doesn’t make sense (to me) for aliens from Alpha Centuri to natively speak Chinese, though in a Mass Effect RPG I ran most educated Asari would attempt to speak Chinese around a human.

Why did you decide to use real world languages? And why Latin in this instance?

[Crusty One]

It really doesn't matter to me.

One way in which real world languages can be used as a short hand though is to provide an idea of relationships between cultures using our own history as a framework, e.g. characters come across a fragment of script which the author renders in latin, and from this we can infer that it's an artefact from a once mighty empire which has since collapsed but left a strong cultural and linguistic legacy.

[zachariah]

Arr, a tricky one. All I can offer is my own viewpoint, which is what I'm using in my WIP. I've found an old Persian to English dictionary (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tkuV1Rtn5lQC) and I look up a word or phrase that corresponds to the idea I'm trying to get across, then wing it.

It worked for Frank Herbert, so it's good enough for me. I think using Latin or any well-known language is risky - if I was reading that passage cold, I'd assume it was a historic thriller. For the same reason I would not choose to agree with Crusty One, as the choice of latin would have too many pre-existing connotations to be usable in anything that was not concerned with actual historic fiction.

Using a dead language that only a few scholars will have more than a passing familiarity with seems like a much safer bet, and it's not like you're losing any legibility. I'd agree that making up your own language would be a tedious and thankless task...unless you were, say, a Professor in the field...

[hippokrene]

I'd agree that making up your own language would be a tedious and thankless task...unless you were, say, a Professor in the field...

In speculative fiction, many authors make up their own worlds, multiverse, creatures, intelligent races, cultures, and kingdoms. How is making a language any more tedious and thankless than that?

It’s just like every other aspect of world-building: you can make everything up on the fly or spend months beforehand carefully fleshing out the details or anything in between.

I like making conlangs. At the same time, I've heard of authors who sit down and work out their main character's family tree, favorite color, whether they fold the toliet paper or scrunch it - utterly boring and unimportant stuff from my POV.

Vive la difference!, na'am?

[MElliott]

I have another question that semi-pertains to the topic at hand here. When reading (or writing) a fantasy that takes place in a medieval-y era, is it better to try to make the language fit the time to some extent? Most fantasy books I've read have characters speaking a bit differently than a modern person would, although not to the extent where it's difficult to understand them. For the most part, they sound sort of British. I only ask because my characters speak like normal Americans, although a bit more rigid and with very little modern slang. I do change the language slightly depending on region or race, but it's primarily just American english (if that's even the official term for it :confused:). Anyway, I guess I was just hoping to generate some opinions on the subject. Maybe this needs its own thread...

[hippokrene]

I have a tin-ear. My highest aspiration when it comes to dialogue is to not make the reader cringe. When I clear that hurtle, I’ll move on to British vs American sounding.

[Dawnstorm]

Well, here's what I - as a language geek - think about this:

If there's a continuity with our world, this method is fine. In your example, though, I'd wonder who, when, where, why and how they revived a dead language. There are no native speakers of Latin around (the closest thing would be Italian, I think), so this immediately strikes me as a society developed out of a strange sort of rennaisance community. Live languages work better (and I won't care that they probably won't have changed very much - as it is most "future speak" in SF is actually more old-fashioned than what people are speaking on the streets right now). What matters is not so much accuracy as the set of relations. Today, English is a live language; Latin is not. If you change that, it's going to stick as significant in my mind, and I'll be looking for some sort of explanation. This - in turn - will taint pretty much everything about how I interpret the Latin speaker's culture. If this never makes sense to me, I'd probably chalk it up as clumsy (and I'll probably forgive it, too, if the story merits such forgiveness).

If there is no continuity with the present, this isn't going to work for me, unless the alternate history is a very close analogy to our world. Generally, since we're writing for an English audience, the characters' speech will also be rendered as English. But this is a conceit: I'm willfully ignoring that the characters aren't really speaking English. Add another real language, and it gets harder to ignore that. You couldn't use Latin at all, for example. You can't have an alien say, "canis" for example, and then have a native say "canine". There are etymological relationships between languages, and there are cultural associations between them. Using obscure languages works as long as no-one notices; but as soon as people notice, you've pretty much publicly dismissed an entire speech community as irrelevant - not a wise move, socio-politically, I would think.

The problem, though, is that if you just make up languages, you're still likely to base them off of real-life samples. You end-up having much the same problems (though the arguments against you are - pragmatically - easier to deflect). So, basically, there are no good solutions for discontinuous worlds I can think of. Which basically means we're all just muddling through as best we can.