Language Issues

This is a potentially dangerous and traumatic experience for your character. Is she/he time-traveling willingly?

If it's into something like medieval Europe, have them know Latin. They will at least be able to talk to priests, and can learn the local language faster.

I'd need to know more about your character -- language skills, talents, life experiences, education -- before making any suggestions.

If it's accidental, then s/he is probably in shock and can't wrap their head around the situation. Whatever prior knowledge s/he would have about the place and language, it would not amount to much, if the period is very remote from the 21st century. How about making the character pretend s/he is mute at first? Otherwise s/he is at risk of being imprisoned, killed, mistaken for a spy or a mentally ill person, or worse, for a demon or a witch.

Angry Guy said:

If it's into something like medieval Europe, have them know Latin. They will at least be able to talk to priests, and can learn the local language faster.

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I was just going to suggest that. Hebrew would be another option, if there is a Jewish community where they end up (yet another reason for your time-traveller to be persecuted, though).

Think back to any experiences you've had traveling to another country yourself (although if you've also been time traveling, CALL ME). I travel internationally a lot on business trips, and have found myself in a few different mental states that may be applicable:

• Figuring out from context - if you really focus, you'll be surprised at how much someone can figure out from the behavioral and contextual clues around them, even in a foreign environment.
• Bizarre hand gestures and facial expressions. Believe me, some of them are universal.
• Just letting it flow. At times you just have absolutely no freaking idea what's going on, and you go with it.

The other posters are absolutely right that there will be a shock element factoring into your character's ability to function. Fatigue is another huge one - I find my ability to both speak and understand foreign languages (as I'm not natively fluent in any other than English) definitely wanes the more tired I get. Off the top of my head I can envision a couple of good options for your character. Can you tell how much I love bullet points?

• Deus ex machina, AKA the Diana Gabaldon method. Have your character fall in with someone who can serve as a guide/translator. This becomes more believable in a time or place where multilingualism is common; or if not, if your character winds up in a place where a sophisticated traveler or polyglot is likely to be.
• Making the language barrier a driving force in the plot. What limited things can s/he do in the beginning and how does that drive the story? Can you stay inside your character's head for a while and show their (possibly incorrect) interpretation of what's going on around them? Can you show their comprehension improving over time - and how does THAT drive the story? A language barrier is a huge conflict and conflict is what makes our stories go. It could be just the plot device you're looking for: a misunderstanding, an inability to defend yourself or tell your story, a dangerous situation that can't be defused.

hand gestures, the universal language

chompers said:

hand gestures, the universal language

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yep. If someone cuts you off with their horse on the two-lane wagon-trail, you're golden.

chompers said:

hand gestures, the universal language

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Not really. For example, the thumbs-up gesture is seen as a sign of positive approval ("A-OK") in some cultures, and an obscene phallic gesture in others.

Hand gestures are in no wise universal even in this time. In some Hispanic lands, the lifted middle finger is not the obscene gesture; it's the slap of the closed fist against the opposite palm. The first time I saw this gesture, I asked a Hispanic person, otherwise I wouldn't have a clue what it meant. I'm told in some Arabic lands, the foulest gesture one can make is pointing the foot at another person. As an American, I wouldn't know about this, either.

Maybe it'd work for your story to have your time traveler violate one of these gesture-taboos?

Hand gestures with accepted but arbitrary cultural meaning, like flipping someone off, are certainly not universal. But miming to your mouth or stomach to indicate hunger, clutching a body part and making a distressed face to indicate pain or injury? I bet those would work.

What is your character like? Does she know any modern foreign languages that she could build on? Is she the kind of person who believes that speaking her own language slooowly and LOUDLY should be sufficient, and that any local who doesn't catch on is a) stupid or b) deliberately pretending to not understand?

One of the best (and least credible) moments in "The Thirteenth Warrior" comes when the Banderas character reveals that through an unspecified time travelling with the vikings, he has come to understand and speak their language. "How did you learn our language?" "I listened!" It would take a long time for your time-traveller to become fluent in the foreign language. The advice already given is spot-on: either have him/her use signs, gestures and instinct to make himself/herself understood and to understand what is being said to him, or have him speak a root-language common to both his tongue and that of the place he finds himself/herself in, like Latin ( enter Omar Shariff, stage left.)