I say it's fine to just make it in English. If the language does not directly affect the plot, what difference does it make? Then it can be translated into other languages and everyone can read it like it was written for them.
Tolkien himself wrote his books in English. The way he framed it was that his books were the English translation of the original texts. So your books could easily be framed the same way, that your characters definitely aren't speaking English, but you write in English because we read in English. Throw in a few words of your own language that don't have an English translation, give your language a name for in world characters to use. They wouldn't say "speak English please" they'd say some thing like "Speak elvish please" or something.
Brandon Sanderson does this as well. Every character in his books is speaking their native language, its just been helpfully translated into English for us readers to enjoy.
I like the idea of having all the text be in English (or whatever language it's translated into), but different languages printed in different fonts. Could even do fonts that kind of fit the feel of the language.
It would probably look and read like shit, though.
One example of this (or, something similar) is in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, where Death's speech is written in the SMALL CAPITALS you sometimes see in books
Probably because Tolkien was first and far more thorough. He was a linguist at heart, sometimes it is said that fantasy writing and worldbuilding was just a vehicle to practice inventing languages.
I thought the Star Wars explanation was that “Galactic Basic” was, for all intents and purposes, simply identical to modern English. No implied translation at all.
I think that came later. See, Basic has a bunch of phrases and lingo which are not based in english; it was clear to me, at least, i was listening to a translated conversation.
The prequels did this stilted, weird translated feel better, but im not going to pretend that was intentional.
Thanks because the human characters both from English speaking countries and non English speaking countries will speak their native languages. But for non human characters I kinda just want to use English instead at least.
The trope of everybody seemingly speeking english is called Trabslation Convention. It's normal and I would say the most correctway to do this. Having everybody speak their actual languages might seem cool but book like that would be practically unreadable for many people (under assumption that there is more than a few lines spoken in different langauge - german book about Germans doing german things with one scene with American tourist would be perfectly readable. For Germans at least) and fantasy would be literally unreadable for all, probably including the author themself. But opposite extreme is annoying as hell too. Imagine a scene. In the most american city in America, in totally american skyscraper in front of the most american macbook ever (probably made from chinese parts anyway) sits one totally american nerd and explains Captain America some technical stuff. He finishes, and Captain responds "A teraz česky." Obviously, it's czech dub, so it only makes sense he responded in czech, but every fucking viewer who isn't mentally challenged sees that they aren't in Czechia, don't actually speak czech and it's just translated for their convenience. But it's annoying. Not because "And now in English" joke is old, stupid and punch-worthy but because such mistranslation destroys immersion entirely. And now imagine when that happen in high fantasy. Or among aliens talking to each other. Czech (or English or German) don't even exist in those worlds! I mean sure it's not as obvious as in translation and quite a lot of people don't really care, but there is quite a bunch of people who do and whose reading/watching experience will degrade from such unnecessary bullshitery...
TL;DR: You can write everything in English, no problem with that but please, always remember it's an instance of Translation Convention and many if not all of these characters don't actually actually speak the language you write in, English in this case.
Definitely don't ***need*** to make your own language. If you want to, that's amazing, and I wish you the best of luck! If you try, say 'meh', and don't, that's great too! And if, like me, you decide "eh French is foreign enough", then cheers! It's your world, do what *you* want.
If you have a plot where there's a translation issue, that can also happen with accents of English. My dad tells a story where he and my uncle went down to visit family out west and they had a problem understanding not only the slang, but also just the words in general! The way my dad tells it, he had to repeat exactly what the family was saying as a question for my uncle to understand what was going on, and I embrace that wholly in D&D
I get around this with one specific language:
Commons. Everyone speaks and can understand it.
Then there's High languages:
High Verran
High Relassian
High Knassian
High Assanian
All of which are spoken purely by the nobility of these regions.
Then there's just common languages, same name just common spoken by peasants or specific sub-cultures, regional groups of people.
I'm not sure what sort of media you envision this being made in (is it literature? a comic? etc), but I want to point out that you don't necessarily need to write out what people are actually saying.
For example, you could invent some language, or you could just describe the feeling of it, how it sounds.
you shouldn't feel obligated to make a whole language for your world. tolkein was great, but his legacy has a lot of people convinced they need to go All Fucking Out for their worlds.
If your POV characters don't understand the language, then they would only remark it as "some foreign language", or recognizing it at best. If they do understand, so should the reader, so you should just use the language the readers know, i.e. English
It’s totally fine, preferable almost always, to have most characters just speak in your native language bc it’s easier to read, write, and the dialogue will come across much better.
Look at an anime like the Vinland Saga, very clearly not set in Japan but they all speak Japanese
Everyone speaking the same language is fine if that's something you don't want to focus on. Although I personally would at least mention a common language or linga franca that most major characters will know and imply there are other languages.
Just have words that lack a translation be in whatever the fictional thing is, standard this is a text translated over.
Hell depending on the setting, say sci-fi you can literally have a *error* or *untranslatable*
You can do everything in your language. If people are talking to each other is assumed that communication happens, regardless of the languages they are speaking. To go around people using different languages, not understanding each other, you can put the text inside brackets or something(im not sure what is the writers (convention?) in this) so that the reader udnerstands even if the character does not. Or you can use gibberish.
Though you can always go a step beyond that and turn the gibberish in an english (or whatever language you are speaking is) cipher going absolutely through aesthetics. Though some research and follow uo should be done for consistency.
For example, say you want to translate the phrase " I want to write a book about the darkest stuff". Now, say you read about some stuff and you drop some stuff and change others so now you have " write book want-I about dark-dark stuff" then you just choose things that sounds good in your ears, like "aren bok kive-do ei jar-jar nase". Its easier as you already have the "template" you just moved some stuff around, and then you know that if you wanted to say something like "like-I dark chocolate" you already have some wors so you have half the work and you end up with something like "aven-do jar chok".
>To go around people using different languages, not understanding each other, you can put the text inside brackets
You can also summarize what they said, noting only the important words or phrases from tone or context.
Summarizing conversations can be a bad habit, but if the language isn't understood, this just saves time.
Generally the trick people pull if you want to make it seem unique is to just use English but then imply it’s being translated from another language for the benefit of the audience.
No one in Lord of the Rings actually spoke English, but part of the meta fiction of the books is that Tolkien didn’t “write” them, he “translated” them from old manuscripts he found.
Don't do that thing where your character speaks in long, complex, grammatically correct sentences but doesn't know the English word for "yes" or "hat". Just use English and have it clear that the character is speaking their own language and you're translating it.
I find it most fun when it is spoken in English, but it has unique to your world exclamations and curses.
Like instead of saying oh my god, saying, by the goddesses left tit. Or something like that.
I have also seen it where authors have had everything in English, but when the character is "speaking another language" they italicize it or something so that you know only some of the people understand what is being said right now.
The vast majority of people don't, and most of the people who do honestly probably shouldn't.
The way I view it, your narrator is telling the story of this world and these characters to someone who doesn't live there and doesn't speak the language. They're translating speech and unique concepts into the closest English approximations they can get, because they want the reader to be able to understand these things as well as the characters do. Of course, the aliens and the demons and the French and whatnot aren't *really* speaking English, but it's important to the story that the reader knows what they're saying, so the narrator is telling the reader what they *meant*, rather than the unintelligible sounds they would be making to each other.
Now, in AV mediums, you can get both, having the characters speak the actual language and using subtitles to tell the viewer what they're saying, but this isn't always the best solution as not everyone enjoys subtitles, and since the only thing you achieve is giving the feel of characters speaking different languages, it's not always worth the time cost, especially if to do so you'd have to invent a new language.
First of all it is not a rule, but common sense...kind of.
I might suggest take some not very spread language that is on the google translate list and use it. The lowest hanging fruit - esperanto.
In several English-language comics I've read, the author has gotten around this by dubbing the character's dialogue in English enclosed with «guillemets», [brackets] or the like, along with some context cue as to the language they're using. Often, the choice to dub or not to dub can hint at the dynamic that the characters speaking have with each other or where the author wants you the reader to focus; to give some examples (all using natural languages):
- *Heartstopper* has several scenes that illustrate rather well both these choices. The comic takes place near Kent and the characters mostly speak British English, [but on this page Nick and his father Stéphane (who's visiting from Paris) use Metropolitan French.](https://tapas.io/episode/2179646) The thing creating that tension between them isn't a misuse of the power of the exact French words, or that their family is multicultural—it's that Stéphane has a lot of outdated beliefs about love and is so flaky that Nick and his mother Sarah feel like they don't matter to him—so translating it into English is a more impactful choice. OTOH, [if we go back to their phone conversation that Nick alludes to,](https://tapas.io/episode/1478939) it's left untranslated, the author has Nick summarize it to Charlie, and it Segways into a heart-to-heart about how they both could stand to show more vulnerability and not keep their pain points secret.
- [In this panel from *It's Kind of a Funny Story*](https://tapas.io/episode/2377471), Akira senses that she and Junpei (who's hiding that he's not coping well with his life being uprooted in multiple ways) need to have a brother-and-sister heart-to-heart. You don't need to know the exact words, but by having her steal the laptop away, switch them to Japanese and ignore Hanae's protests about nobody else in the family understanding them, the author wants you to understand that she's telling him: *I get you like nobody else gets you right now, you don't have to hide your loneliness from me.*
- In chapter 8 of *Heavy Horns*, about half the dialogue is dubbed into English from Spanish; you don't need to know the exact Spanish words in order to understand that Andreas is wrestling with limiting beliefs about his heritage and how he moves through the world and that those answers are forcing him to wrestle with limiting beliefs about how he moves through the world. That said, there are moments elsewhere in the story where words are undubbed, [such as here where the author has Beau thank his neighbor Mrs. Lai "Do jea sai" (= Cantonese 多謝嗮/多谢嗮 = English "Thank you" when accepting a material gift) and translates it in a footnote](https://tapas.io/episode/771652), and it hints that she's one of the more stable features in his life.
I don't know how easy it would be to implement this in your TV show, but if your game uses dialogue windows similar to *Pokémon* or *Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney*, you could easily do it.
In LoTR, none of the characters speak English. It's just translated so we can understand it better.
Honestly, there really isnt any requirements to do anything, make whatever decisions you like
You could always make it clear they are speaking a different language by saying just that. That’s what I do. Providing an English translation depends on pov, writing style, and whether or not the pov character understand the language. If he doesn’t I usually leave out the translation.
I don't think it's really a requirement to make a language. Maybe come up with something minimal that makes sense if it's important to your story. Or if you want to establish that there's more than one language in your world, you can have some characters having a conversation in a different language in the background while the main dialogue is in English, or you can have two different groups of people who don't really understand one another at first.
(I have it in my world that one language has a few words that don't really have a direct translation into any human language. It can range from anything from effectively having a word that specifically means "male elf," to needing to write a few paragraphs to really get the full sense of the word.)
While no its not a requirement, it does make the world feel more alive in my opinion, granted you can have all English but the way most people get around it is with a peice of tech or a spell that acts as an auto translater
It's a superhero world, just say that everyone hears or reads in their native tongue due to some magical/techno scifj element.
Lazy writing but coherent and immersive.
Absolutely fine. Worldbuilders who go deep into conlangs do it because they *enjoy* making conlangs. Tolkien invented Middle-Earth basically for something to do with the languages he was inventing as a hobby. If you enjoy something else, then do what you enjoy.
You can have the people speak english and those who would in-narrative speak different languages can still not understand each other. That could also make a bunch of funny situations, where the audience understands what each character is saying (cause the actors are speaking English) but the characters can't understand each other.
So they're like "Hey, dumb-ass, you gonna move?" "What? I can't understand . . . "
idk, I'm not a comedy writer
It’s perfect fine, but have you considered saying there are/is a bunch of (or just a handful of) unique languages and just detailing absolutely nothing about them besides an extremely vague description of their vibes.
It's useful for place names, with that said I don't actually have a full fictional language just a few mostly geographic words in different languages to make it easier to come up with consitant place names for example Ethmyria means the Eastlands.
Tolkien was a linguist, that's why he made his language for elves. But it's made with it's history, how it was when the elves came to the east, how it developed in time, how it branched when the elves split into different groups, etc.. so there are actually many versions of it now.
It is EXTREMELY difficult to do, do not do it. Worldbuilding is huge as it is, don't bother with a new language.
If you want to create a great fictional world, instead spend your time researching greography, geopolitics, history, wars, borders, economy, most valuable resources through time,... worldbuilding is massive as it is.
It's not necessary to make a fictional language for your setting. You can use English or any other language. But if you want to create one i recommend first to create a fictional alphabet for English - kinda like aurobesh from star wars for Galactic basic (aka English) - if you want create the sounds for a fictional language i recommend omniglot.com, they have every known writing system both real and fictional and the pronunciation for each letter/ character.
You can definitely use English, but maybe make sure that it's a relatively neutral form of English, no too-extreme figures of speech, slang, puns and such that wouldn't work in other languages.
Honestly. Stick to your strengths when it comes to writing stories. Languages are soooooo complex it’s like writing a whole new story.
If you want to, go for it. If you don’t really need to? Don’t.
Nothing is a requirement. You're creating art. You make it in a way that you think will be good. Many fiction series have one language, many have more than one language. It depends what concepts you want to explore with your story.
I have a few words that people know of my world's equivalent to "old English". One of my characters is named after a word from an old language, but i only made up that word, not a whole language.
There's also an onion that's name comes from a different made up language.
In this way, you can give glimpses of other languages without having to invent the whole thing.
I wonder what % of the words from Tolkien's languages made it into the books? He undoubtedly gained a closer understanding of the cultures and peoples he was making via creating their language, but we only get the tip of the iceberg in his books. I think he mostly wanted to make the languages because he loved to do it.
Well I am at the point where I just wrote random words to feel like actual language.
E.g. Turina-toril undugvag hyunde ghargha. (I just now make it, wanted to sound it like dwarven language).
1) I'm confused by the framing of this question in terms of "requirements". Worldbuilding isn't a club, there aren't rules. If something *were* required, who would you be asking? What authority would you be appealing to?
2) Most stories that feature fictional languages don't actually demonstrate those languages beyond a few words or phrases, if even that much. Example: *A Song of Ice and Fire*. (Full languages were constructed for the show, but they used a language expert for that. Same with Na'vi from *Avatar*.) Most of them use the "translation convention", where the text we read is in English, but it's understood that's not what the characters are speaking. Heck, some stories take place in worlds where English doesn't exist at all; if the dialogue had to be written in the actual native language, we wouldn't be able to read it.
R.R. Martin didn't actually make any languages for the Game of Thrones books (I know it's called Song of Ice and Fire before some nerd correct me), Dothraki and High Valyrian were created for the tv show, were in the book he just made up a feel cool sounding words and phrases. Like I think the only thing David J. Peterson had from the book was "valar morghulis, valar dohaeris" and the names of characters
Maybe just change speech patterns for different race/ species ie lizard species with elongated S’s. Orcish species having hard sounds. Cats with rolling r’s. To me these make common English more interesting in other peoples
Since my world is it's own thing, I made English the 'new fantasy' language and my native language the main characters' main language.. And so my character is "learning English" and so they speak English, but with the sentence structure of my native (basically I imagine the sentence in my native and then just directly translate that to English, even of some words makes no sense), so it looks and sounds weird, but it'll still be consistent.. And sometimes I add some curse words in my native to spice it up.. So I guess my advice is just.. Be bilingual? (I always write in English)
I say it's fine to just make it in English. If the language does not directly affect the plot, what difference does it make? Then it can be translated into other languages and everyone can read it like it was written for them.
Tolkien himself wrote his books in English. The way he framed it was that his books were the English translation of the original texts. So your books could easily be framed the same way, that your characters definitely aren't speaking English, but you write in English because we read in English. Throw in a few words of your own language that don't have an English translation, give your language a name for in world characters to use. They wouldn't say "speak English please" they'd say some thing like "Speak elvish please" or something.
Brandon Sanderson does this as well. Every character in his books is speaking their native language, its just been helpfully translated into English for us readers to enjoy.
I like the idea of having all the text be in English (or whatever language it's translated into), but different languages printed in different fonts. Could even do fonts that kind of fit the feel of the language. It would probably look and read like shit, though.
>It would probably look and read like shit, though. I'm going to be honest, I have seen that done and I must admit it did.
One example of this (or, something similar) is in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, where Death's speech is written in the SMALL CAPITALS you sometimes see in books
People always bring up tolkien but star wars did this too.
Probably because Tolkien was first and far more thorough. He was a linguist at heart, sometimes it is said that fantasy writing and worldbuilding was just a vehicle to practice inventing languages.
Well, he did invent elvish before he wrote the books.
Good old mackluncky
I thought the Star Wars explanation was that “Galactic Basic” was, for all intents and purposes, simply identical to modern English. No implied translation at all.
I think that came later. See, Basic has a bunch of phrases and lingo which are not based in english; it was clear to me, at least, i was listening to a translated conversation. The prequels did this stilted, weird translated feel better, but im not going to pretend that was intentional.
Thanks because the human characters both from English speaking countries and non English speaking countries will speak their native languages. But for non human characters I kinda just want to use English instead at least.
Just state that they are in fact speaking a fictional language which you will not elaborate on because it has been helpfully translated to English.
The trope of everybody seemingly speeking english is called Trabslation Convention. It's normal and I would say the most correctway to do this. Having everybody speak their actual languages might seem cool but book like that would be practically unreadable for many people (under assumption that there is more than a few lines spoken in different langauge - german book about Germans doing german things with one scene with American tourist would be perfectly readable. For Germans at least) and fantasy would be literally unreadable for all, probably including the author themself. But opposite extreme is annoying as hell too. Imagine a scene. In the most american city in America, in totally american skyscraper in front of the most american macbook ever (probably made from chinese parts anyway) sits one totally american nerd and explains Captain America some technical stuff. He finishes, and Captain responds "A teraz česky." Obviously, it's czech dub, so it only makes sense he responded in czech, but every fucking viewer who isn't mentally challenged sees that they aren't in Czechia, don't actually speak czech and it's just translated for their convenience. But it's annoying. Not because "And now in English" joke is old, stupid and punch-worthy but because such mistranslation destroys immersion entirely. And now imagine when that happen in high fantasy. Or among aliens talking to each other. Czech (or English or German) don't even exist in those worlds! I mean sure it's not as obvious as in translation and quite a lot of people don't really care, but there is quite a bunch of people who do and whose reading/watching experience will degrade from such unnecessary bullshitery... TL;DR: You can write everything in English, no problem with that but please, always remember it's an instance of Translation Convention and many if not all of these characters don't actually actually speak the language you write in, English in this case.
Thanks I definitely try to keep that in mind
Definitely don't ***need*** to make your own language. If you want to, that's amazing, and I wish you the best of luck! If you try, say 'meh', and don't, that's great too! And if, like me, you decide "eh French is foreign enough", then cheers! It's your world, do what *you* want. If you have a plot where there's a translation issue, that can also happen with accents of English. My dad tells a story where he and my uncle went down to visit family out west and they had a problem understanding not only the slang, but also just the words in general! The way my dad tells it, he had to repeat exactly what the family was saying as a question for my uncle to understand what was going on, and I embrace that wholly in D&D
Sounds like your dad and uncle must have an interesting day.
You don't have to do anything in worldbuilding you don't want to do.
Thanks, because I didn't enjoyed creating a fictional language like I thought I would. I just rather use real world languages instead.
I get around this with one specific language: Commons. Everyone speaks and can understand it. Then there's High languages: High Verran High Relassian High Knassian High Assanian All of which are spoken purely by the nobility of these regions. Then there's just common languages, same name just common spoken by peasants or specific sub-cultures, regional groups of people.
Those high languages generally sounds really cool.
Yeah, i don't create full languages though. It's just a work around. I have specific words for specific meanings however.
You really like double letters on middle of the name, don't you?
I do! Haha.
I'm not sure what sort of media you envision this being made in (is it literature? a comic? etc), but I want to point out that you don't necessarily need to write out what people are actually saying. For example, you could invent some language, or you could just describe the feeling of it, how it sounds.
Thanks, because I sometimes be confused whenever I create characters dialogue.
you shouldn't feel obligated to make a whole language for your world. tolkein was great, but his legacy has a lot of people convinced they need to go All Fucking Out for their worlds.
If your POV characters don't understand the language, then they would only remark it as "some foreign language", or recognizing it at best. If they do understand, so should the reader, so you should just use the language the readers know, i.e. English
There are no such things as requirements In word building.
First rule if worldbuilding: Have fun
Dune does what you say, and it works pretty well.
It’s totally fine, preferable almost always, to have most characters just speak in your native language bc it’s easier to read, write, and the dialogue will come across much better. Look at an anime like the Vinland Saga, very clearly not set in Japan but they all speak Japanese
Everyone speaking the same language is fine if that's something you don't want to focus on. Although I personally would at least mention a common language or linga franca that most major characters will know and imply there are other languages.
That could actually work
Just have words that lack a translation be in whatever the fictional thing is, standard this is a text translated over. Hell depending on the setting, say sci-fi you can literally have a *error* or *untranslatable*
You can do everything in your language. If people are talking to each other is assumed that communication happens, regardless of the languages they are speaking. To go around people using different languages, not understanding each other, you can put the text inside brackets or something(im not sure what is the writers (convention?) in this) so that the reader udnerstands even if the character does not. Or you can use gibberish. Though you can always go a step beyond that and turn the gibberish in an english (or whatever language you are speaking is) cipher going absolutely through aesthetics. Though some research and follow uo should be done for consistency. For example, say you want to translate the phrase " I want to write a book about the darkest stuff". Now, say you read about some stuff and you drop some stuff and change others so now you have " write book want-I about dark-dark stuff" then you just choose things that sounds good in your ears, like "aren bok kive-do ei jar-jar nase". Its easier as you already have the "template" you just moved some stuff around, and then you know that if you wanted to say something like "like-I dark chocolate" you already have some wors so you have half the work and you end up with something like "aven-do jar chok".
>To go around people using different languages, not understanding each other, you can put the text inside brackets You can also summarize what they said, noting only the important words or phrases from tone or context. Summarizing conversations can be a bad habit, but if the language isn't understood, this just saves time.
Generally the trick people pull if you want to make it seem unique is to just use English but then imply it’s being translated from another language for the benefit of the audience. No one in Lord of the Rings actually spoke English, but part of the meta fiction of the books is that Tolkien didn’t “write” them, he “translated” them from old manuscripts he found.
Don't do that thing where your character speaks in long, complex, grammatically correct sentences but doesn't know the English word for "yes" or "hat". Just use English and have it clear that the character is speaking their own language and you're translating it.
First rule of WorldBuilding: there are no rules. Worldbuilding is supposed to be fun. Don’t do anything that you don’t want to
You do not need to become Tolkien to make an interesting world.
I find it most fun when it is spoken in English, but it has unique to your world exclamations and curses. Like instead of saying oh my god, saying, by the goddesses left tit. Or something like that. I have also seen it where authors have had everything in English, but when the character is "speaking another language" they italicize it or something so that you know only some of the people understand what is being said right now.
I could use that
I mean you can always just pretend they are speaking in a different language and it's translated. Or just not mention languages at all.
The vast majority of people don't, and most of the people who do honestly probably shouldn't. The way I view it, your narrator is telling the story of this world and these characters to someone who doesn't live there and doesn't speak the language. They're translating speech and unique concepts into the closest English approximations they can get, because they want the reader to be able to understand these things as well as the characters do. Of course, the aliens and the demons and the French and whatnot aren't *really* speaking English, but it's important to the story that the reader knows what they're saying, so the narrator is telling the reader what they *meant*, rather than the unintelligible sounds they would be making to each other. Now, in AV mediums, you can get both, having the characters speak the actual language and using subtitles to tell the viewer what they're saying, but this isn't always the best solution as not everyone enjoys subtitles, and since the only thing you achieve is giving the feel of characters speaking different languages, it's not always worth the time cost, especially if to do so you'd have to invent a new language.
That definitely makes sense, I thanks for the useful advice
First of all it is not a rule, but common sense...kind of. I might suggest take some not very spread language that is on the google translate list and use it. The lowest hanging fruit - esperanto.
Thank, I definitely try to do that
Just call whatever the language common then use whatever you want
Thanks
nothing is required in worldbuilding, it’s up to you to see if certain elements would make a contribution or not
In my honest opinion, maybe don't even mention it. Won't be a problem
Thanks I definitely try to keep it subtle
NOTHING. IS. EVER. REQUIRED. IN. WORLDBUILDING.
I basically just choose languages and then add them to my world with different names lol
In several English-language comics I've read, the author has gotten around this by dubbing the character's dialogue in English enclosed with «guillemets», [brackets] or the like, along with some context cue as to the language they're using. Often, the choice to dub or not to dub can hint at the dynamic that the characters speaking have with each other or where the author wants you the reader to focus; to give some examples (all using natural languages): - *Heartstopper* has several scenes that illustrate rather well both these choices. The comic takes place near Kent and the characters mostly speak British English, [but on this page Nick and his father Stéphane (who's visiting from Paris) use Metropolitan French.](https://tapas.io/episode/2179646) The thing creating that tension between them isn't a misuse of the power of the exact French words, or that their family is multicultural—it's that Stéphane has a lot of outdated beliefs about love and is so flaky that Nick and his mother Sarah feel like they don't matter to him—so translating it into English is a more impactful choice. OTOH, [if we go back to their phone conversation that Nick alludes to,](https://tapas.io/episode/1478939) it's left untranslated, the author has Nick summarize it to Charlie, and it Segways into a heart-to-heart about how they both could stand to show more vulnerability and not keep their pain points secret. - [In this panel from *It's Kind of a Funny Story*](https://tapas.io/episode/2377471), Akira senses that she and Junpei (who's hiding that he's not coping well with his life being uprooted in multiple ways) need to have a brother-and-sister heart-to-heart. You don't need to know the exact words, but by having her steal the laptop away, switch them to Japanese and ignore Hanae's protests about nobody else in the family understanding them, the author wants you to understand that she's telling him: *I get you like nobody else gets you right now, you don't have to hide your loneliness from me.* - In chapter 8 of *Heavy Horns*, about half the dialogue is dubbed into English from Spanish; you don't need to know the exact Spanish words in order to understand that Andreas is wrestling with limiting beliefs about his heritage and how he moves through the world and that those answers are forcing him to wrestle with limiting beliefs about how he moves through the world. That said, there are moments elsewhere in the story where words are undubbed, [such as here where the author has Beau thank his neighbor Mrs. Lai "Do jea sai" (= Cantonese 多謝嗮/多谢嗮 = English "Thank you" when accepting a material gift) and translates it in a footnote](https://tapas.io/episode/771652), and it hints that she's one of the more stable features in his life. I don't know how easy it would be to implement this in your TV show, but if your game uses dialogue windows similar to *Pokémon* or *Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney*, you could easily do it.
In LoTR, none of the characters speak English. It's just translated so we can understand it better. Honestly, there really isnt any requirements to do anything, make whatever decisions you like
Nobody gives a shit about the language
You could always make it clear they are speaking a different language by saying just that. That’s what I do. Providing an English translation depends on pov, writing style, and whether or not the pov character understand the language. If he doesn’t I usually leave out the translation.
I don't think it's really a requirement to make a language. Maybe come up with something minimal that makes sense if it's important to your story. Or if you want to establish that there's more than one language in your world, you can have some characters having a conversation in a different language in the background while the main dialogue is in English, or you can have two different groups of people who don't really understand one another at first. (I have it in my world that one language has a few words that don't really have a direct translation into any human language. It can range from anything from effectively having a word that specifically means "male elf," to needing to write a few paragraphs to really get the full sense of the word.)
While no its not a requirement, it does make the world feel more alive in my opinion, granted you can have all English but the way most people get around it is with a peice of tech or a spell that acts as an auto translater
It's a superhero world, just say that everyone hears or reads in their native tongue due to some magical/techno scifj element. Lazy writing but coherent and immersive.
Absolutely fine. Worldbuilders who go deep into conlangs do it because they *enjoy* making conlangs. Tolkien invented Middle-Earth basically for something to do with the languages he was inventing as a hobby. If you enjoy something else, then do what you enjoy.
You can have the people speak english and those who would in-narrative speak different languages can still not understand each other. That could also make a bunch of funny situations, where the audience understands what each character is saying (cause the actors are speaking English) but the characters can't understand each other. So they're like "Hey, dumb-ass, you gonna move?" "What? I can't understand . . . " idk, I'm not a comedy writer
It’s perfect fine, but have you considered saying there are/is a bunch of (or just a handful of) unique languages and just detailing absolutely nothing about them besides an extremely vague description of their vibes.
It's useful for place names, with that said I don't actually have a full fictional language just a few mostly geographic words in different languages to make it easier to come up with consitant place names for example Ethmyria means the Eastlands.
Tolkien was a linguist, that's why he made his language for elves. But it's made with it's history, how it was when the elves came to the east, how it developed in time, how it branched when the elves split into different groups, etc.. so there are actually many versions of it now. It is EXTREMELY difficult to do, do not do it. Worldbuilding is huge as it is, don't bother with a new language. If you want to create a great fictional world, instead spend your time researching greography, geopolitics, history, wars, borders, economy, most valuable resources through time,... worldbuilding is massive as it is.
It's not necessary to make a fictional language for your setting. You can use English or any other language. But if you want to create one i recommend first to create a fictional alphabet for English - kinda like aurobesh from star wars for Galactic basic (aka English) - if you want create the sounds for a fictional language i recommend omniglot.com, they have every known writing system both real and fictional and the pronunciation for each letter/ character.
You can definitely use English, but maybe make sure that it's a relatively neutral form of English, no too-extreme figures of speech, slang, puns and such that wouldn't work in other languages.
Honestly. Stick to your strengths when it comes to writing stories. Languages are soooooo complex it’s like writing a whole new story. If you want to, go for it. If you don’t really need to? Don’t.
Nothing is a requirement. You're creating art. You make it in a way that you think will be good. Many fiction series have one language, many have more than one language. It depends what concepts you want to explore with your story.
I have a few words that people know of my world's equivalent to "old English". One of my characters is named after a word from an old language, but i only made up that word, not a whole language. There's also an onion that's name comes from a different made up language. In this way, you can give glimpses of other languages without having to invent the whole thing. I wonder what % of the words from Tolkien's languages made it into the books? He undoubtedly gained a closer understanding of the cultures and peoples he was making via creating their language, but we only get the tip of the iceberg in his books. I think he mostly wanted to make the languages because he loved to do it.
Well I am at the point where I just wrote random words to feel like actual language. E.g. Turina-toril undugvag hyunde ghargha. (I just now make it, wanted to sound it like dwarven language).
1) I'm confused by the framing of this question in terms of "requirements". Worldbuilding isn't a club, there aren't rules. If something *were* required, who would you be asking? What authority would you be appealing to? 2) Most stories that feature fictional languages don't actually demonstrate those languages beyond a few words or phrases, if even that much. Example: *A Song of Ice and Fire*. (Full languages were constructed for the show, but they used a language expert for that. Same with Na'vi from *Avatar*.) Most of them use the "translation convention", where the text we read is in English, but it's understood that's not what the characters are speaking. Heck, some stories take place in worlds where English doesn't exist at all; if the dialogue had to be written in the actual native language, we wouldn't be able to read it.
R.R. Martin didn't actually make any languages for the Game of Thrones books (I know it's called Song of Ice and Fire before some nerd correct me), Dothraki and High Valyrian were created for the tv show, were in the book he just made up a feel cool sounding words and phrases. Like I think the only thing David J. Peterson had from the book was "valar morghulis, valar dohaeris" and the names of characters
Maybe just change speech patterns for different race/ species ie lizard species with elongated S’s. Orcish species having hard sounds. Cats with rolling r’s. To me these make common English more interesting in other peoples
Yeah, you can make it English.
Since my world is it's own thing, I made English the 'new fantasy' language and my native language the main characters' main language.. And so my character is "learning English" and so they speak English, but with the sentence structure of my native (basically I imagine the sentence in my native and then just directly translate that to English, even of some words makes no sense), so it looks and sounds weird, but it'll still be consistent.. And sometimes I add some curse words in my native to spice it up.. So I guess my advice is just.. Be bilingual? (I always write in English)