Let's Talk Languages - Create Your Own or Use an Existing One?
Happy Tuesday, everyone! Here’s a little bonus blog post from you based on an old video. Enjoy!
Using Languages in Your Story
For those of you writing sci fi and fantasy, one of the key questions you had to ask yourself when creating your world was—what should you do about any alien or foreign language? And this is a huge—and sometimes tricky—topic in the writing community.
For any of you Fourth Wing fans out there, you might have heard that Rebecca Yarros got in a bit of hot water for her misuse and mispronunciation of the Gaelic language (here’s a link to the MarySue article if you want to learn more). And to be clear, I’m a fan of the Fourth Wing books. I think they’re a ton of fun and I plan on finishing Iron Flame. I haven’t started it yet, so no spoilers!
This issue is not unique to this series—this has been a problem in sci fi and fantasy for a long time.
So the big question is: if you’re writing a science fiction or fantasy story and you need a language for some aspect of the worldbuilding, do you use an existing language? Or create a new one? After reading the above, you might feel like the obvious answer is to just create a new one. I mean, it worked for Tolkien, right? Creating a language can be a beautiful, fun part of the creative process!
But depending on the depth and use of the language in your story, this can also get tricky. Language, communication in general, is a beautifully, complicated thing. As you are very well aware after putting in all the hard work to become a writer! Unless your language is just a few words here and there that you could randomize letters for, creating a realistic language is going to be an important factor in the believability of your world. There will be patterns, rules, and structure to the language, just as there is in every other language out there. It needs to feel real.
And because of this, creating your own language can be something authors shy away from for a few reasons:
First, it is a TON of work. You’ve already pushed to create your world, your characters, your plot, and now you have to take it one step further. Not everyone wants to dive that deeply into the creative process, and I don’t blame them.
And second, readers are awesome but they are smart. They like to pick things apart, find the beauty in a story, yes, but also the flaws. And that includes the language, how it is used and when.
So if you aren’t wanting to create your own, should you use an existing language? It is totally doable! And sometimes what makes the most sense for the characters and the world. But you want to make sure you are using it correctly and that you have a good reason why.
As you saw from the Fourth Wing article, the biggest complaint against the use of the Gaelic language in her book was twofold—first, it wasn’t always spelled or used correctly, which was underlined by the fact that the author, herself, mispronounced the words in an interview. Which, while not great, probably would have blown over except it was a question specifically on the “right” way to pronounce them, which is what got her in hot water. And second, there didn’t seem to be a good reason why to use that language. Now, the author may have her reasons. I haven’t seen that she’s responded yet to the backlash on her use of the Gaelic language to explain more.
But the general complaint, and the issue that a lot of fantasy books run into, is they use a language that looks “cool” or “foreign” or fits the aesthetic they’re looking for. Which can be incredibly disrespectful to the culture that language is from.
But, with all that being said, there are a lot of fantasy books that do right by their use of the language. It is researched carefully and worked into the worldbuilding so that it makes sense with the legend and lore of why that language is included. They also probably had someone, or several someones, who are native speakers of that language look over the story, essentially a sensitivity read.
So which way is the right way for your book? As you can tell there are pros and cons to each, but the biggest thing is to move forward with what you think is best for your story, your characters, and with respect for the language—real or imagined—that you use.
Hopefully this has been helpful! And until next time, keep writing!