I’m the daughter of a storyteller and I’ve been listening to stories in English and Portuguese all my life. I was taught to never mix Portuguese with English. Then I discovered writers who mixed non-English words in their English fiction. Words I knew and loved and these words subtly crept into their amazing stories. Words like ‘Saudade’ - the Portuguese word for the nostalgic longing that stays deep inside your soul for someone/something that is distant, or that has been loved and then lost. This English concept of longing can be conveyed by one single Portuguese word, saudade. The Russians have a similar word Taska.
Have you used foreign words in your writing?
Even if you haven’t used foreign words, you have probably read them.
Romance writers know of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: Adèle’s French laces the text.
Crime writers may use modus operandi (aka MO) or insert a femme fatale in their plot.
Sci-Fi - lost without Klingon and foreign words to help World building.
To use or not use non-English words?
Laurence MacNaughton - Using Foreign Languages in Fiction:
#1 Write in English
e.g. “I’ll never leave you,” he whispered in French
#2 Use English with a sprinkle of Foreign words
eg “Give me the gun, mi sobrino,” his uncle said.
#3 Use narrative summary
eg She fired off an angry retort in German.
Why use foreign words? You may want to set your story in a foreign country, or an alien world. Or your character speaks a foreign language. These foreign words will provide a sense of place. But before you go down this path peppered with foreign words, lets see what authors think about using foreign words:
Authors on using foreign words:
Jeff Talarigo (The Pearl Diver, 2005) warns - tossing foreign words/phrases into the story to make them more authentic, distracts the reader.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his Collected Stories does not use the foreign language, instead he writes: “The Dutchman asked in his language: ‘What the devil can they be selling there?’”
Daniel Kalder in an article in The Guardian says ‘non’ to phrasebook language in fiction.
You may be thinking if these writers avoid using foreign words , why should I?
Ru Freeman (A Disobedient Girl, 2009) italicises Sinhala words to draw attention to them and because there is no word to translate the concept into English.
Chris Castellani (A Kiss from Maddalena, 2003) uses Italian words for curse words that sound better in Italian and their meaning can be gleaned in context.
Using Non-English words in your fiction can enhance your text. Some authors, especially in Sci-Fi, go to the extent of creating their own foreign words.
Suzette Haden Elgin (Sci Fi writer) created a language - Láadan for her series Native Tongue - it’s a feminist language as a response to the masculine Star Trek Klingon language.
I hope you are starting to see the benefits of why and how to use foreign words in your fiction so my next question is:
To translate or not translate?
Translate
Brian Sousa translates the foreign text: I reach down. “Disculpa,” I say. “Sorry.”
Katherine Vaz explains the foreign word: "...the orange-flavored strips of fried dough called coscarões..."
Not to translate (and alternatives)
Anna Campbell (Australian Romance Writer) in her Ghost Story doesn’t translate:
‘Skáse, Afstraléza skýla!’
As a reader I skimmed over the unpronounceable words. As an editor, I felt the obligation to check their meaning so I went to Dr Google. I discovered this was a potent Greek insult and it’s meaning needed to be translated. I recommended Anna add, “She didn’t understand he’d called her an Australian bitch, but she knew enough to muffle her distress from now on.”
Further down Anna’s Ghost story, she alludes to the meaning of the following Greek word:
‘Trécha.’
And she adds: “His fat fingers made a gesture imitating two legs running.”
So the reader knows what ‘trécha’ means.
Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose - his character Salvatore (the hunchback monk) is said to speak, “… all languages, and no language.” Eco creates a montage of languages (English, Provençal, Latin) for Salvatore, but does not translate or italicise, as the other characters in the novel understand Salvatore’s melange of languages.
e.g. “Penitenziagite! Watch out for the draco who cometh in futurum to gnaw your anima! Death is super nos!”
Below is the scene of Salvatore saying this sentence. And as with most adaptations of books, the script doesn’t adhere to all of Eco’s words, but follows in the same vain, mixing Italian, French, and English:
“Il contemplato el apocalipso no? La bas nous avons il diabolo. Ugly como Salvatore.”
Ron Perlman, as Salvatore, utters the complex mixture of languages brilliantly.
Kristine Ong Muslim in her sci-fi short story ‘Day of the Builders’ doesn’t create an alien language like her predecessors (Le Guin & Elgin). She uses her protagonist as a translator. And like any translator she listens to the foreigners speak and relays their message in English. Furthermore, she uses italics in a fascinating manner. She italicises English phrases to indicate to her readers that her protagonist is translating the Builders’ foreign language.
eg I did not understand until much later the significance of his discovery. You won’t believe what I found in the gates alone, another whispered. He was close, so I heard him perfectly. Dickinsonia costata, intact and perfectly preserved. They must have thought to shelter it from the elements because they believe the markings have either divine or magical origins. To prevent damage, I think we should superglue it in situ and foam-wrap the rest.
Another Builder conferred with his companion, What do you think of this, Greg? Does it look like a fossilized fern of some sort?
I don’t think so. It looks like good old dendrite to me. See those fissures across the rock? But take some samples just to be sure.
Nancy Holder (Sci-Fi) Firefly
Italicises the Chinese words “Tā mā dè!” (a swear word), and Dǒng ma?” (Understand?), but doesn’t translate. (Click the words to see how the actors mix the English and Chinese words)
Ursula K Le Guin - uses contextual clues to explain the concept of shifgrethor in Karhidish in The Left Hand of Darkness.
This brings me to my next point:
To italicise or not to italicise, that is the question.
italics can be a great tool for a writer. The following writers use it to their advantage to make the reader notice their foreign word.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Americanah (2014). Her Nigerian narrator uses Igbo with her family. “What kind of man bleaches his skin, biko?” (biko = please)
Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow italicised Spanish terms.
Viet Thanh Nguyen The Refugees (2017)
Characters (refugees) living in the US, recall customs from Vietnam. ”Mrs. Hoa was dressed formally, in an ao dai of midnight velvet embroidered with a golden lotus over the breast.” The italics draw the reader’s attention to Mrs Hoa's Vietnamese national garment.
Melina Marchetta Looking for Alibrandi (1992) “Oh, Jozzie, when I was your age I ran around my paese like a gypsy. A gypsy, Jozzie. People would say, look at that zingara, Katia Torello.” p71.
Angie Chau - Quiet As They Come, (2010) - claims she likes the use of italics for foreign words, because it helps to ground the story further in place and gives the story more colour.
Not every writer likes italics. e.g. Junot Díaz and Daniel José Older
Junot Díaz - Pulitzer Prize novel - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) - his protagonist , Oscar, a sci-fi aficionado toggles between English and Spanish in the same sentence and yet Díaz does not italicise the foreign words.
Another writer, Daniel José Older - YA fiction and Fantasy writer - Shadowshaper (2015) takes this further and demonstrates below the effects of italics. To him italicising is changing, mid-sentence, into a Havana outfit, smoking a Cuban cigar, and speaking Spanish. Older doesn’t want the reader to pause for effect. He states italics are for emphasis only.
According to Andrew Boynton, head of The New Yorker’s copy dept, editors are obliging authors in not italicising, but readers express confusion or assume lack of formatting is a mistake. He adds, The New Yorker’s style guide italicises non-English words unless they have entered common use in English, and yet The New Yorker obliges Junot Díaz and doesn’t italicise the Spanish words in his stories.
Nouveau riche - to italicise or not? According to Australian Government - No, but according to Oxford Dictionary - Yes. Why? Could it be because Australia embraces multiculturalism and these terms have become part of our lexicon?
My next and final question is a technical one.
To accent or not accent?
café vs cafe
SMH article with accent by Helen Pitt
The Guardian without accent by Naaman Zhou
déjà vu vs deja vu
(Scientific America article uses both)
Movie: Déjà Vu
façade vs facade
SMH article with accent by Kerrie O’Brien
SMH article without accent by Linda Morris
The Guardian’s Style Guide omits accents in ‘cafe’ and ‘facade’
For a complete list of Foreign words and phrases now used in English see:
To use or not use foreign words in your fiction
To insert the occasional foreign word in your fiction, you just need a little savoir-faire.
It’s a minefield out there. Tread carefully when inserting Non-English words into English fiction.
