I’ve been thinking quite a lot recently about the language we choose when we write fantasy novels, particularly when it comes to the last middle grade I wrote and the current adult fantasy I’m working on. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I’m doing here, so I’m going to lay out my thinking, and you can all tell me if I’m completely wrong.

But first (and this is related), the brilliant translator Anthea Bell died recently. She translated some very important novels into English, but she will always be better known as the translator, along with Derek Hockridge, of the Asterix graphic novels from French into English.

One of their greatest challenges was ‘translating’ the French jokes into English. Before we go any further, you should read this blog entry about some of their translations of jokes (it’s worth it).

You’re back? Excellent.

Now, imagine you’re writing a secondary world fantasy (i.e., a fantasy novel set on another, alternative world). In your story you are, of course, writing about characters whose language is not English (I’ll keep saying English because it’s the language in which I write, but assume also any other real-world language). Now, you could write the whole thing in a made-up language (yes, we are looking at you, Tolkien). But that’s not going to get you very far.

Now, obviously the whole thing is made up. There is no fantasy world out there (*sniff*). But we’re pretending there is, and if we’re good enough at it, readers will buy into it. We will accept without having to have it spelled out that what we are reading is a ‘translation’ of whatever fantasy language your Point of View characters speak into English.

This immediately means that you have to make the same kind of choices that translator like Bell and Hockridge have to make when translating a book written in a French. How do you translate a joke or a colloquial phrase? Do you translate it word-for-word to give a feeling of the pattern of the language but risk it losing all meaning in English? Or do you choose an equivalent joke or phrase in English and lose the cultural hints and world-building that the language could otherwise give? Or do you mix it up on a case-by-case basis, dropping in a few fantasy-sounding phrases in between the standard English phrases?

And imagine you’re translating a work from a foreign language that was written in, say, 1400? Do you translate it into period English? Or do you translate it into modern English? How far do you go?

Let’s take the example of a fantasy novel that takes place in a period that is roughly equivalent to the Medieval period. (In other words, somewhere between the fifth and fifteenth centuries.) Do you choose to write it in English that would be appropriate for that period? I think the vast majority of fantasy writers would reject that choice. (Remember, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was published in 1387, towards the end of the Medieval period. The period was well over by the time of Shakespeare and the King James Bible.) Very few readers would be interested in fantasy novels written like that. Writing only using English words and phrases in use by the fifteenth century is out for most writers and readers.

But, at the other extreme, it would be peculiarly odd to pick up a pseudo-Medieval novel and read phrases like “hit the buffers” or “laser-like precision”. Including phrases that obviously refer to technology simply not in use in the period would be off-putting.

So let’s move on to more ambiguous examples. How about the word “okay”, which causes a degree of ear-steam from some readers. Although the origin of “okay” is contested, it was popularised in 1840. Clearly 1840 is far after the medieval period. But are you genuinely going to cut out every word or phrase popularised after 1840? That would leave you with a very dated-sounding language. Charles Dickens published The Pickwick Papers in 1836, so maybe you should use that as reference for style and language?

Again, I hope not. That just wouldn’t work for a novel written now.

Where do you draw your line?

For me, it comes down to the type of book you are writing. A funny book, like the Asterix graphic novels, lends itself to a much looser translation. Getting in jokes is far more important than reproducing the exact dialogue.

Also, if you’re writing a grittily realistic fantasy, ironically, you will probably end up using much more contemporary language, because it lends a harder edge to modern ears than more archaic language. If you’re writing a classic fantasy, like most of those published in the 1980s, you probably want to tone back your more modern phraseology, reduce contractions, avoid words that ‘feel’ modern (even if they aren’t). There are plenty of novels like that being written and published right this yea

I’m curious as to what choices others make on this, how you draw the line, what kind of language throws you out of the story, and so on.

(I’ll put a link in the comments to where I link this on Facebook if you find it easier to comment there.)