Any tips for language in historical romance?

I don't write Scottish historicals, so this is not to be taken as authoritative.
My advice would be that the safest thing is to stick to things like, "He spoke with a strong lowlands accent" or "There was barely a trace of lowlands Scots in his accent." Readers do not often have much tolerance for page after page of unfamiliar dialect or vocabulary. (That's probably one reason few people read Sir Walter Scott's Scottish historicals any more.) Word choice and sentence structure are more effective—things like "Did you not see…?" instead of "Didn't you see…?"

Aside from that, probably the most important thing for language in any historical is that you avoid words and concepts that simply didn't exist at the time.

You might want to ask people in the Historical forum. They may know of sources and may have more specific advice.

Pick up Diana Gabaldson. She writes later, but she's a good general guide to Scots-that-doesn't-annoy

Now, see, everyone's tastes are different. Jo has no problem with Gabaldon. I can barely get through the dialect.

One hint for characters who are native speakers of the Celtic languages is that the word order often changes up when they speak English. For example, one English speaker might say, "It was a pity they didn't meet." A Welshwoman might say the same thing: "A pity it was they didn't meet."

Word order can give the flavor of a language without much effort on either the part of the writer or the reader. Of course, you can always toss in the greetings in your language of choice--when people meet, what they say first is obvious from context.

That said: "Dydh da!" (Good morning, Cornish)

I'm another fan of Gabaldon's handling of dialect but I've ready plenty of authors who use it in a very similar way and it annoys the heck out of me. I think the key is mastering the storytelling. That way, once the reader is in deep, the dialect (or unusual word order or whatever other tool you might use) feels so organic to the story and the character that it doesn't alert or stand out. It just flows.

Completely accurate language and dialect does not matter in historical romance unless it really, really matters to you--and your agent/editor doesn't find it distracting. In general, historical romance is focused on the romantic relationship between the protagonists, and the past is window dressing. If you were writing historical fiction, then it is very important to catch the full flavor of your setting and characters, since the average HF reader wants a complete immersion in the past.

Generally, less is more. I think less is more is a good guideline with accents in general, because having characters saying 'och' to preface every sentence...weel, it can get annoying.

I loved how Gabaldon handled her dialogue. Find an author whose accented dialogue you enjoy, study it, emulate it. And when in doubt, less is more.

I agree with the light touch and focus on the pattern of speech rather than the words.

I recently read a romance with a Scottish character and I was starting to get a hissy fit near the end because the writer had added in a bucketload of unexplained Scottish words. (I was reading off e-book at the time and not near a dictionary or computer.) If you must use a phrase, make sure to put it in context for the reader.

I had the same annoyance the other day with a book that insisted on throwing French phrases in. My French is way rusty. Making me reach for a translator pulls me out of your world.

However possibly the worst was a few books I happened to read one after the other, set in the American South (and all by different authors). Any time the slaves spoke the authors put in so many apostrophes and half words that I was close to throwing the books across the room. (And would have if it wouldn't have killed my e-reader.) Mark Twain may have gotten away with it, but for a modern writer to do so...*growl*

I'm pretty picky with my historicals. My biggest pet peeve is when it sounds too modern. That, combined with completely inaccurate history, leaves me wondering why they bothered to write a historical at all.

Too much "och" like a previous poster said is just grating. For something Scottish I'd expect more different speech patterns. And a "wee beastie" or two. And something needs to be "fooshty."

(My great-grandmother came from Scotland and I never met her, but apparently the vernacular was strong enough that my entire family has picked them up. A Scottish lady heard me saying "fooshty" and was surprised I knew the word.)

ECathers said:

I recently read a romance with a Scottish character and I was starting to get a hissy fit near the end because the writer had added in a bucketload of unexplained Scottish words.

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It's not just Scottish books that do this. *COUGHGeorgette HeyerCOUGH** And it can be truely annoying. At least Heyer gives some clues. Mostly. Somewhere in there.

ULTRA "likes Heyer, really!" GOTHA

What's a fooshty and should I get out a sledgehammer if I see one lurking around?