The Words We Use

I read an article heading the other day about cussing in your writing. I've always had a fairly low opinion of using cuss words in average dialogue, but I am a writer now, and I know that some people do talk like that. I do avoid the hugely colorful examples, I'd prefer to get on with the story rather than try to make my reader translate what this one guy is trying to say, or not say, as the case may be.

I will put in the occasional cuss word, but for the most part, I write in worlds and times and societies where such language is either nonexistent or not very classy, which it isn't in any world, if you ask me. Webster went to great lengths to write a dictionary; some of these people should take a look at it once in a while, they might actually be able to get their point across better. Okay so now you know how I feel about cussing, and it has nothing to do with religion; it's just stupid. Rant over. Please accept my apologies.

No, my writing is not all lilly white, but I strive for my words to be as invisible as possible so the story can come through, and whenever your reader has to stop and try to figure out what someone said or what is happening, that effort has failed.

There's another aspect of this. Accent. There's the southern accent, the New York accent, the northern accent, the Texas accent. Those are the ones I can think of in this country, and then there's the foreign accents of people coming to this country from wherever around the world. And of course, if you have an extra-global society, there's that accent too. Spelling these accents can be very distracting. My advice would be to keep it simple. Too many tweaks on the spelling, and once again your words are getting in the way of your story. In reality, most foreigners probably speak better than the average American.

Spelling isn't the only cue to a different language foundation. Sentence structure is a biggie.

“If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are … a different game you should play”

Yoda

 Yoda is probably the most famous of those who twisted sentence structure. If you've ever studied any other language, that is much closer to the norm; ours would seem twisted by comparison.

So, how do you show where your character comes from, or do you bother? For me, most of the time, it's one of those get-to-know bits of information that's introduced somewhere along the line. I seldom use accent spelling, though I might use dropped endings replaced by an apostrophe most of the time. Most of the poor or low class people in my books have little education and so talk like their parents did, and probably for generations before that, but they would never dare to be so rude as to cuss openly shy of what might come out if they smashed a thumb with a hammer. There's always those kinds of incidents to watch out for. I've nothing against a little spice now and then.

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The Languages Within

So what kinds of languages do you make use of in your stories? I read one a while back that had a lot of French phrases in it. It was logical, the character was French, and his command of English, while good, just wasn't what came to mind first.

An option is an accent. I frequently use varying degrees of slang in my stories; it's my way of indicating someone who might have had less education or comes from 'the other side of the tracks', so to speak.

But there's always the fictional option to languages. The elven language in Lord of the Rings has evolved into a full-fledged spoken language, as I understand it, as has the Klingon language from Star Trek.

You don't need to create an entire language in order to use it. Throw a bunch of sounds together and tag it with a meaning. Of course it's important that you remember how to spell that word and exactly what that meaning is. It's also important to give a thought to how languages are used. In some cultures the family name is said first followed by the given name. In some languages verbs are come first.

I'm no English major, and I was terrible at English in high school, but that's no reason not to listen. If you're going to create a language, make what you want to say roll off your tongue. If you can't say it, your reader won't be able to sound it out either, and if your reader can't sound it, he will skip over it. Skipped, it's meaning might be missed or confused with some other word you've created. That book with the French phrases; in my opinion there were too few translations and the usage wasn't clear enough. Most of us would probably recognize some of the more common phrases, so if you're going to use made-up words, translate them in some way. If you're going to use entire phrases, all the words can't be long, flowery, collections of letters. In many languages, a long word might just be an entire phrase after translation - look up some German words someday, they're interesting.

Another thing to consider is the sound you create. Say something out loud. Yell at the kids for a second. What does the sounds you just made sound like? Make believe you know have any idea what the words mean; what kind of feeling did you just generate? To make your words or phrases have a feeling, you need to feel them, even if they only last for a single phrase. Who knows, maybe your few words will someday become a new language.

So how do you use language? Do you make something up? Do you think you could? Try it.

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