So, I realized something the other day. I have an average of about five different races in my books/book. Almost all of the races speak another language, but the main race speaks English. Than I thought about how strange it is that all these other races speak other languages, but this one race speaks only English...even more, English that is entirely unaffected by the other languages swirling around it. It brought a pretty good question to my mind. What are the odds? Does your main race speak English? If so how to make if so that it isn't unrealistic?

Anyways, discuss, comment, and add opinions.

Bethany Faith

I actually don't address the issue. I have my races speaking different languages. But I don't go into "English", per say. I just let my audience's mind wash over it, accepting that this other culture has multiple languages, like their own. I don't draw attention to it, thus making a potential problem seem seamlessly aligned with my world.

For me, none of the races speak English. I do have a language drafted for the main race/region, but the grammar is all explained in 1/4 of a page...how complex can it be? I use it mainly for naming, and the characters in the book speak English. That's why all the place names sound foreign, but they speak English.

Well, look at it this way. The story has been translated into English, so the 'main' language or whatever is written as English, but the reader isn't supposed to be able to understand the others, so they aren't translated into English.

Well, I do have a few other languages in my stories, but all of my main characters speak English. Though of course I don't call it English. And while it is a tad unrealistic, maybe, there comes a time when you must sacrifice realism for practicality.

I do what Airianna summed up in her post.

My main characters speak Amhal, but since the reader has to understand what they say, translate it, naturally. Each of my countries has a different language, (except for Mainoshet [my-EEN-oh-shet], which is sister countries with Thamaltis, and therefore speaks Amhal as well, only with slight changes) and there is a Common Tongue which is used when foreigners enter a country. Nearly everyone understands the Common Tongue.

My book is in English, but only the people who speak the language I'm pretending the book is in are in English.
Narnia is pretty much the only fantasy world where everyone speaks English. (though they should all be cockney. )

Tolkien ran into this same problem, and his method around it is the one most often used today. He just said that he translated an old book. One of the languages in that book he switched to English, conveniently that of the hobbits, the Common Speech (that nearly everybody uses). The Elvish I think he'd say he preserved entirely. He translated the old Rohirric language into archaic English. Thus, as you can find in the appendices of LOTR, Sam's name wasn't really Sam, he just translated some foreign name to one we would find more normal, and so on for everyone.

Of course, some people complain and just ask, "Why can't the hobbits just speak English?" Only the intellectuals and super-high-fantasy writers bother with such claims of translation as complex as his.

If you wanted to be perfectly realistic, you would write the entire thing in a completely different language. No English at all. I've even thought of doing that myself, just for fun. And then have a textbook on how to translate it...

But honestly, that doesn't work for... 99.9999% of all fantasy novels out there. Or more. It needs to be in English, at least enough of it for it to be readable.

So the most logical way to go about it is to simply take the languages that are known to the POV character and use English in their place. You can make it clear that you are doing this (like in LotR), or not: it is up to you.

Emeth, you just gave me an epic idea for how to end my novel.

* laughs * Glad to hear it. I would be interested in hearing what your idea is. You can pm it to me if it isn't on-topic here.

You can go off topic in my thread... Since I'm a little curious myself.

Ok, it's not totally off topic. Right when you said 'you can make it clear that you are doing this' is when I got the idea. But the last paragraph or so will be from the perspective of a scribe (I'll need to do some research to find a name) who is translating an ancient tale (discovered in the library) that no-one knows where it came from. Then, at the very end he presents the translation to the king.

That sounds neat, Caleb!

* nods * Brilliant idea!

Thanks!

Yes, neat idea!

And that should fix some of your problems of perspective.