Bernard Davis Books
An Authoring Blog
  • Home
  • About
  • Short Stories

Admin

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Archive

Categories

Recent Posts

  • And Another One
  • Now Available
  • What Now? – The Answer
  • What Now?
  • Moving On

Recent Comments

  • Bernard Davis on Protected: Opportunity
  • Bernard Davis on Protected: Tranklements
  • Bernard Davis on Protected: The Worm
  • Tyrean Martinson on Still Working on it.
  • C. Lee McKenzie on NaNoWriMo
Historical , Supernatural

Language

by Bernard Davis April 3, 2020 No Comments

The current work, Dark Roads, is set in the medieval period, 1201 to be precise. How people spoke then was effectively a completely different language to what is spoken now, so much so that we would not understand someone from those times, nor they us.

Given that, how do we write dialogue that sounds sufficiently archaic but still understandable? At a pedantic level, I’m sure we can’t, the two needs are mutually exclusive. That doesn’t remove the need though, or at least I don’t think it does.

My solution for what it’s worth is to use a language that my wife describes as ‘Robin Hood’. It sounds archaic, but has little or no basis in reality. The trick, I think, is not to overdo it (or at least not by too much). So I don’t have any ‘Gadzooks’ or ‘Zounds’ in there, but the order of words is slightly diferent from modern usage and there are words used that are correct and understandable but now rather out of fashion.

Like a lot of things in this writing game, it’s a bit of a balancing act.

  • Previous Pacing11 months ago
  • Next Incidentals11 months ago

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Pages

  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Short Stories
  • Moving On
  • Privacy Policy
  • Writing Tips

Current WiP

Luck iin a Pickle
71% Complete
56,500 of 80,000 words

Available Books

Buy from UK store Buy from UK store Buy from UK store Buy from UK store Buy from UK store
2021 Bernard Davis Books. Donna Theme powered by WordPress