Dialogue problem: portraying other languages in English

My current story takes place in 16th century Malacca. As you might expect, I am writing in English, which presents a bit of a problem. The language of the Malaccan sultanate was Bahasa Malay, of which I am no scholar. It has also changed in five hundred years with modernity and colonialism by three cultures—Portuguese, Dutch and British.

How do I portray archaic Malay in my English dialogue? Do I use the syntax of modern English-speaking Malays? This is a little bit pidgin, and would do nothing to convey the prestige of the sultans' royal court. Do I construct the dialect of Tudor England? While chronologically correct, this is geographically and culturally wrong. Perhaps a creative combination of the above? Or do I abandon attempts to represent the language, and just avoid using contemporary English?

None of the above.

Let the reader know when and where the story takes place. Then write the story in English as though everyone spoke English, which is the same as if you were writing in Bahas Malay.

The only reason for recognizing an accent is if you have a person from somewhere else there who speaks Bahasa Malay with an accent, then you would write it the way you would a foriegn accent in English.

In other words forget the whole accent thing. Write it as though they all spoke English.

historical dialogue and in another language

We had quite a discussion on this in the Historical Novel Society last year (or maybe the year before!). Many of the readers who commented didn't like 'modern' English spoken by the characters, nor did they like gadzookery, that means lots of out of date words peppering the dialogue. Those of us who write historical fiction favoured simple plain English. Luminaries like Bernard Cornwall and Elizabeth Chadwick said they all took this approach.

I would also suggest that you work hard on knowing your main character. If you can get inside hir head you will find that the speech takes care of itself. Just make sure that you've done enough research to know what s/he'd eat, wear, do and not do and where s/he fits on the religious belief scale. Don't rush it, it will take a little time for your character to settle but when s/he does you'll have no problems with the words.

Write the dialog in modern conversational English, but with a slightly formal tone. Don't use slang or too many contractions.

But do not attempt to have the characters speak any pidgin language. That's the kiss of death.

The real challenge comes when you have different languages colliding.

I think James Clavell handled it well in Shogun. He had Dutch sailors with an English pilot land in Japan in 1601. There they found not only Japanese peasants and courtiers, but Spanish and Portuguese missionaries and sailors. All had different speech patterns.

He might begin a character's dialogue with a phrase or sentence in their own language, but it quickly switched over to English. His technique seemed very natural.

I agree with writing in formal "modern" English without the slangs or colloquialisms. You can reference a few archaic Malay words or something to add flavors to your time period. But remember, you're writing a novel for the modern English-speaking market. If you use dialogue that are archaic and hard to understand, no one will buy your book.

My second novel starts in Malaya in the 1940s. Some characters speak Malay and Chinese, and some speak English. I use certain tricks to convey that they're speaking in Malay, for example, but when I write out the dialogue, they're in English so that my readers understand what is being said. It doesn't feel awkward as long as I give the appropriate speech patterns and wording. Once you established the characters and what languages they speak and how they speak it, your readers will follow...

e.g.:

"You are rotten," one girl said in Malay. Four years in the country had taught Grace well. She listened.

"You like him," the other girl said.

"No, I do not."

"You want to have his babies."

"You are so rotten."