After just finishing the macro edits for my next 15th century novel, I wonder at what point do we stop worrying about words that didn't exist in a time period and just write with the words we know today? Biblical fiction is a perfect example. Hardly ANY words used today were around then.
Most of my resources only go back to 900, which means most of the English language didn't exist as we know it today. It would be written in Olde English and spelled in several ways--phonetically. So in what time period do we worry more about reader expectation and what the average person of today would understand? I would love your thoughts and input.
5 comments:
Ooh, love this one! I have written an historical novel (currently formatting for self-publishing: no takers yet from agents) set in
16th Century Spain & S. America. I did a lot of original research & also knew a lot through my work as an anthropologist/ethnohistorian. This 'language' & 'concept' issue is so important. When writing I generally try & 'convey the mood' of the era, whilst using language that a reader would still understand. Curses are interesting. Then (ie 16th C) to call someone a 'dog' was the worst thing you could do. So in dialogue I do use this: "Curse you for an interfering dog!" that sort of thing. But modern readers used to, well, 'different' forms of abuse might be mystified. My heroine - an aristocratic lady from Seville turned escapee dressed in the guise of a boy speaks in a slightly formal old fashioned English way to convey a 'feeling' of the period without being too 'odd'. Yet language 'words' are critical in the construction of 'reality' of the context in wich people lived, moved in their time etc. So I try to achieve a balance between the 'actual' (which possibly no-one would understand' and the 'virtual'.
How uch is 'lost in translation'? The common denominator is that we are/were all modern human beings, as anthropology defines it, therefore our life experience is always going to be more similar than dissimilar! Good luck!
Yeah, I have the same conflict. I got criticized for using "like" in a manner not used back then. It wasn't a big word such as "techo-babble" or "jeans" or something like that which I understand, but a grammatical usage of a word that was used back then.
When do you stop? The further back like the 1500s, should I only use Middle English--that's still understandable though I think some usage would confuse readers if you chose to be historically accurate, but the 900s would be Old English, which I can read a few words being the literature/language major that I was, but it's basically a foriegn language.
So, I'm not too worried about using "like" incorrectly, only the hyper critical history scholars or buffs are going to catch me on that, and if that makes them hate my story, then I'm thinking they'll find something else to hate about my story too.
But then there are also those words that were used back "when" that my crit partners will flag as unhistorical, when I can prove from primary sources they are historically accurate.
So, I think it is less important for historically accurate word choice to what kills the fictive dream. Even if I can prove a word is accurate, if several people flag it, I'll pull it.
Elizabeth,
You bring up an interesting point about how words were used back then compared to now. Today being called a dog is still an insult, but we can think of a lot more words that would be worse. But back then it might have been in the category of "THE" worst.
Melissa, I included the original text of the first sentence in The Canterbury Tales for my next novel set in 1477 and my beta readers couldn't understand it. I thought it would be nice to include just one sentence to give readers a "feel" for what the language was like back then, but they couldn't cope.
You're right, history scholars are going to catch words that average citizens won't catch or care about. Which ones do we please? My guess is our target audience and what they expect and can handle would trump all the other.
Very interesting discussion! When you write back so far I guess you'd simply have to translate into modern English so readers can understand. But sprinkling with some era specific terminology would be good. But more important, I think, is not only what to include, but what to avoid and that would be words/phrases/idioms that did not exist during the era.
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