Books or Guide About How To Write an Era's Language

JK_17 · Jan 24, 2017

I was reading the Iliad when I realized something - each era and society have their own way of speaking, for example "stay your blade" rather than a 21st century person would say "stop" or "don't do it".
Does anyone know of any kind of writing guide book or maybe even a history book or an online guide that gives you a list of how each different era and society spoke.
I'm thinking of working on a history/mythology piece that takes place during either Rome or Greece.

I wonder if there is an English to ancient greek dictionary or ancient roman, egyptian... how do people who write mythology or historical fiction get the dialogue for the era?

M Louise · Jan 24, 2017

What I find so interesting are the various translations of ancient texts like the Iliad or the Odyssey and how they have a double focus of staying close to the original while drawing on contemporary speech and idiom that appeals to us now. For daily life in Rome and exile on the Black Sea circa 30 BCE to about 15CE, I'd look at Ovid who wrote in his poetry about love, marriage, gambling, horses, farming, food, the landscape, as well as all kinds of myths and cosmologies of the time. I like David Raeburn's translation because he gets the flavour of spoken language rather than literary poetry.

benbenberi · Jan 25, 2017

Primary texts. For sources in a language you don't know, a good modern translation of the primary texts. (And for the Greek/Roman classics, there are published cribs/literal translations)

MAS · Jan 25, 2017

For Roman, you might for instance pick up a translation of Caesar's Gallic Wars. It will give you an idea of the cadence and complexity of the language, and it's widely available. However, I've noticed in my own research that speeches and reports only tell half the story. I've read a number of the Duke of Wellington's official letters, for instance, and they're nothing like his personal correspondence with his younger brother, which was lively and immediate rather than formal and dispassionate.

Here is a place where you can read a variety of letters from Cicero: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/cicero-letters.asp

It all depends on the quality of the translation, of course.

JK_17 · Jan 27, 2017

Thanks.

Lil · Jan 27, 2017

Two things to remember:
1. Translations always reflect the time in which they were written. Pope's translation of Homer doesn't sound like Lattimore's.
2. Classical writers were deliberately literary and rhetorical, even when they were writing letters. That doesn't tell you how people actually talked.
Probably the best guide to actual conversation would be comedy, where the characters are not supposed to sound uplifting and important. But even there you have the translation problem.

Flicka · Jan 28, 2017

benbenberi said:
Primary texts. For sources in a language you don't know, a good modern translation of the primary texts. (And for the Greek/Roman classics, there are published cribs/literal translations)

This. You might also get a Latin/Greek grammar. Lots of common phrases and turns of speech are explained and broken down in those and may help you. And, just saying, Latin is really great fun to study and there are courses... :evil

gothicangel · Feb 18, 2017

Personally (I write Roman), I more inspired by how Rosemary Sutcliff and Mary Renault constructed a sentence, than by any Classical sources, and I think they evoke the periods brilliantly (not a fan of the modern pared down representations). Sutcliff herself was inspired by Rudyard Kipling. I read a novel recently about the Gunpowder Plot, which had Shakespeare speaking in how his plays where written. It was atrocious to read. The main thing is to avoid 'gadzookery' (as Sutcliff herself explains):

Victorian writers, and even those of a somewhat later date…saw nothing ludicrous in ‘Alas! fair youth, it grieves me to see thee in this plight. Would that I had the power to strike these fetters from thy tender limbs.’ Josephine Tey, whose death I shall never cease to lament, called this ‘Writing forsoothly.’ A slightly different variant is known in the trade as ‘gadzookery.’ Nowadays this is out of fashion; and some writers go to the other extreme and make the people of Classical Greece or Mediaeval England speak modern colloquial English. This is perhaps nearer to the truth of the spirit, since the people in question would have spoken the modern colloquial tongue of their place and time.
But, personally, I find it destroys the atmosphere when a young Norman Knight says to his Squire, ‘Shut up, Dickie, you’re getting too big for your boots.’ Myself, I try for a middle course, avoiding both gadzookery and modern colloquialism; a frankly ‘made-up’ form that has the right sound to it, as Kipling did also. I try to catch the rhythm of a tongue, the tune that it plays on the ear, Welsh or Gaelic as opposed to Anglo-Saxon, the sensible workmanlike language which one feels the Latin of the ordinary Roman citizen would have translated into. It is extraordinary what can be done by the changing or transposing of a single word, or using perfectly usual one in a slightly unusual way: ‘I beg your pardon’ changed into ‘I ask your pardon.’

greendragon · Jun 12, 2017

Lil said:
Two things to remember:
1. Translations always reflect the time in which they were written. Pope's translation of Homer doesn't sound like Lattimore's.
2. Classical writers were deliberately literary and rhetorical, even when they were writing letters. That doesn't tell you how people actually talked.
Probably the best guide to actual conversation would be comedy, where the characters are not supposed to sound uplifting and important. But even there you have the translation problem.

Exactly this. We won't know how they really spoke in every day life, as even today, written communication is different from spoken communication. In some cases, such as a letter to a distant friend, may be more formal, and others, such as texting, may be much less formal.

In order to find patterns and slang, though, you'd have to read several translations of the same work by different people. If you come across similar patterns in independent translations, chances are better that they are close to the original.

As an example, translations of ancient Irish legends often contain the phrase 'That is not hard to say' or something similar. It's part of the storytelling tradition in the ancient legends. Therefore, when I brought the Morrigan to life in my novel, I had her use this phrase several times. Most readers won't catch on to the significance, but I hope some of my readers will

Books or Guide About How To Write an Era's Language

JK_17

M Louise

benbenberi

practical experience, FTW

MAS

JK_17

Lil

Flicka

Dull Old Person

gothicangel

Toughen up.

greendragon