: Re: Colloquial speech in pre-modern setting Following this question, I'm struggling with writing the speech of pre-modern (in my case - 5th century) noble-born children among themselves. Characters who

@Annie587

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Presumably you are writing your story in modern English -- or some modern language, let me assume English for this discussion. So your "5th century speech" is not going to be the actual language these people spoke. It's going to be an "English translation".

Readers routinely accept that you will use modern English grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation, and generally think nothing of it. But you can break the spell if you use language that is too localized in time or space. If I read a story set in 5th century France and a character says, "We had great fun at the festival", I don't say, "Hey, wait, shouldn't they be speaking 5th century French?!" I don't even notice. But if a character said, "Yo bro, that rave was the bomb", I'd be taken aback. The language is too specialized. One could argue that it's no more out of place than my first example, but it FEELS out of place.

So easy advice: Avoid slang words. Slang varies widely from place to place and over time, and thus often feels out of place.

Of course avoid references to anachronistic technology or history. Some of this is obvious: 5th century characters shouldn't be talking about cell phones or computers. But sometimes it's not obvious and you may need to do a little research about when something was invented or when some event happened. I recall a story that mentioned Christopher Columbus using a telescope to spy out the horizon. Except, umm, the telescope wasn't invented until over 100 years after Columbus.

It's not just about technology. The practice of a bride wearing white for her wedding really became an accepted practice when Queen Victoria wore white for her wedding in 1840. Before that a bride might wear any color. So a story set before 1840 that talks about white as the color of a wedding dress would be anachronistic.

One example that's really stuck in my head: Someone once pointed out that the phrase "try a different tack" is a reference to sailing. "Tacking" is steering your sailboat almost directly into the wind. So a person living in a society where sailing is unknown would never say that. I sometimes wonder what phrases I've read in historical novels that are totally out of context.

If you are willing to do the research, you could find figures of speech for the place and time of your setting and translate them. But frankly, this would be a lot of work for little benefit. The only people who'd notice would be historians and linguists specializing in the era. Easier would be to make up figures of speech consistent with the era. Just for example, a 5th century person describing why he changed his plans would be unlikely to say, "I had to slam on the breaks." But he might say something like, "I had to dig in my heels" or "I had to pull back on the reins."

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