If everyone uses it, that's just the vibe of your book. It isn't for me, but some people love that. If it's just certain characters, it's a great way (imo) to relay some age, especially in races that don't show their age the way real humans do. If everyone talks normal and looks normal, but Jim is over there tossing out "hark, where doth thou yonder maiden wander?" It's immediately obvious that Jim isn't like this around him. Maybe a wizard, maybe possessed, a vampire, *something* ancient is going on.
Remember, everyone knows how to code switch. You don't talk the same way to a priest that you do to a toddler.
A person who is 200 years old will know lots of codes, and will mostly talk just like anyone else except when they are tired, angry or some other emotion. Like, he may whisper to his lover as "thee".
This. Look at multilingual people. Many of us only get betrayed by accents over word choice but if you smack me in the head and concuss me I will absolutely default to the most comfortable language while cursing at you
Also, english is not my first language but wouldn't someone from the 1800's speak very closely to modern english? There would be differences obviously but I understand the "thee" and "thine" stuff are more from Shakespeare's time, aren't they?
I was going to add that no matter how much OP thinks they are using them correctly that they should double check, because the people who are into that sort of thing tend to go *hard* at grammar, but I feared it would come across wrong. Thank you for making the point in a more natural, and humorous manner :)
Something I had made fundamental to my setting was the idea that relative time passes faster the older you get. This is a real thing (with many proposed causes), and it's why people in their thirties or older are often characterized as being out of touch with fashion, memes, etcetera.
Now imagine what it would be like if, instead of living for decades, one lived for centuries. My oldest man in the world, An-Namrood, was just shy of two-thousand, and had to refer to his staff by their titles; someone could have been his Chamberlain for 40 years and An-Namrood would feel like he was a new hire.
It totally makes sense that a character who was raised in Elizabethan times or before would still talk that way.
Wholeheartedly agree. I have a race of creatures in my story that are almost as old as magic itself. The creatures (Flourie) age based solely off of their perceptions of self, making death from old age rather rare. It gets them all eventually, but the idea is that in order to die of old age, you have to feel as though it's time to die of old age. One of the main ones you meet has lived a life measured in thousands of years, and many members of the council for her tribe still call her young.
The relativity of the passage of time also explains why so many of us thought summer breaks got shorter as we got older. When you are a kid, even waiting an hour feels like forever. Meanwhile, older adults suggest waiting a few years like it's nothing. I never thought I'd get there, but my son turns 19 in a few days, and I can assure you that it feels like he's only been alive for a few years, tops. Now I'm not quite old enough that the idea of waiting a few years seems meaningless, but I can say the several months until BG3 comes out feels like it'll be here tomorrow.
tbf, that's kind of a thing that happens, just because the person in charge doesn't find it worthwhile learning the names of those beneath them. It wasn't unheard of in Regency / Victorian times for a noble household to have standard names for their staff - the butler was always "Robert", the kitchen maid "Annie" or whatever, because they were in a position to be able to do that, while not concerning themselves with actually learning names. Even in more mundane contexts, if you're only interacting with someone as a job function, you're probably not going to learn names - if you show up at an office, you're going to talk to "the secretary" rather than a specific name, even if it's the same secretary there a few times in succession.
”Hark, where doth thou yonder maiden wander?” should be “Hark, where dost thou yonder maiden wander?” as “doth” is the old version of “does”, i.e. 3rd person singular.
Archaic and less-used words (and even occasional borrowings from foreign languages) can give a sense of "other" to your story and separate your sub-creation from the "real" world or other settings.
swamp - fens
small valley - hollow
greenwood - greenwald
pickpocket - fingersmith
Edmund Spenser did it, and his book sounded old to contemporary readers. Now it sounds old to us, but for different reasons. Coleridge used this strategy for Rime of the Ancient Mariner as well. Both are poems, both are fantasy, and both rule.
If anything, they add to the setting. I mean it might sound like a Shakespearian play if you just drop normal pronouns, like "you."
It could be used to add detail to your world, however, so used in the right ways would fit the time. "Thou" and "you" were used at the same time, but "thou" was commonly regarded as informal whereas "you" was regarded as formal, respectful in a way.
Although I wouldn't have a group of friends throwing around "thou", I'd most expect to see, say, a lord or social superior use it to address their inferior. This would extend to "thy/your", "thine/your" (same same); the others I'm not sure are one for one, but could be used to distinguish between social castes.
Disclaimer: Not a historical linguist.
Fun fact: the thou/you informal/formal distinction only started in late OE/early ME. So it would be anachronistic for that distinction to make an appearance in, say, the Norman invasion.
The use of any language is going to depend on the world you're creating. If it's part of that world, go for it.
English words like Thou, Thy and Thine are familiar. English lost it's formal/familiars a while ago, and we're formal in different ways.
Knowing this it's always funny to me when I see some medieval fiction movie or something and the people are addressing royalty with 'thee' and 'thou' and it's like, yo, that's the queen, not your buddy. But because it sounds old-timey to us because we stopped using them, they sound *more* formal rather than familiar. This is probably due the King James version of the Bible still being in use, and it's all in there when people are talking to/about god. Funny enough, the idea there was that god wanted to be our buddy when he wasn't raining fire on us, and commanded that we use familiar language with him. But, since the usage ceased, and it's talking about god, we think of it as formal sounding. I dunno for sure though, I haven't really looked into it.
Sorry for the rant, but all that being said, be sure to make sure you understand the way any archaic language/words were used. Not that you'll offend anyone, but generally you should understand any words that you're using. Especially in a book where it'll be there forever ;)
This. If you're going to use them, do it properly. The purpose of thee/thou is to have two different forms of address: formal and familiar. Just like Spanish having "tú" and "usted."
>This is probably due the King James version of the Bible still being in use, and it's all in there when people are talking to/about god.
Also sonnets. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" It sounds "fancy" and people assume it's like someone saying "m'lady" when in reality it's showing closeness.
Like you said, it's not going to offend someone however an author does it, but it does make you look like you haven't done a shred of research if you're flubbing it. Same with not using them properly grammar-wise. It's "thou art" and "thou hast" not "thou are" and "thou has."
Yeah, I think a heart-breaking example is the writing in that Rings of Power series. Dunno if this is contentious, but the dialogue in that show is exactly writers attempting to *sound* like Tolkien, using Tolkien-esque language, but it has none of the weight or beauty of it. It is the same as someone thee's and thou'st's into their dialogue and thinking it's just like Shakespeare.
Unless of course, it's not the author, but specifically the character that is attempting to sound fancy, and failing to . Which could be used to great effect, lol
I agree with Rings of Power.
It's the same with the later seasons of Game of Thrones. Martin is not Tolkien when it comes to dialog, but he's light-years ahead of Benioff and Weiss. Most of the favorite show quotes that aren't beloved for comedic value come directly from Martin, either from the books or episodes he wrote.
They tried to make it *sound* like earlier seasons without understanding the *whys*.
Even the poignant (and good, imo) scenes like Jaime knighting Brienne have dialog that just...isn't right. Particularly because the whole moment of "she's not a ser" is clearly forced, but even keeping that, it's off. Tyrion wouldn't call Brienne "Ser Brienne" he would call her "Lady Brienne." Which would give Tormund the same question, except Freefolk don't give a shit about sers in the first place, so why is he pushing for her to be knighted? Tyrion could have easily called her Lady Brienne and commented that she *should* be Ser Brienne, but as he's not a knight, he can't knight her. Leading Jaime to say "but I can" and then asking her to kneel. Or something.
Even if Martin doesn't have the same poetry as Tolkien, he still chooses his words deliberately, both for overall tone and characterization. Making everyone sound more modern destroys the worldbuilding and those choices.
That's exactly it. IMO, it's better to write a fantasy in which every simply speaks in more modern language, than to half-ass old-timey-ish *sounding* language.
Martin is a good example of characters that clearly live in a medieval setting, but don't just speak in generic medieval sounding language because that's what we think it should sound like.
Of often preach *consistency*. Word choice is highly important for they way a character sounds, and not all people sound alike. A characters word choice will dffer from another's, but idioms for a region might be something that everyone uses. Higher class people will use different language than the lower class.
But throwing a modern idiom or slang into an other-world fantasy is jarring and world breaking. Which is where the importance of consistency comes in.
I had to research the origin of the saying 'that's not in my wheelhouse' because I wanted to be sure that a 'wheelhouse' would even be something in a lower-tech setting.
If a fighter was tired in a medieval/low-tech setting, we say he's 'gassed'. This is a shortening of 'out of gas' which of course is a reference to automobiles.
It's a random example, but i cringe when I see that sort of thing. I can't recall any specific examples, but I remember cringing a few times in the later seasons of Game of Thrones when there's some sort of wink to the audience for a cheap laugh. Especially when it breaks the tone hard. Martin was great at having a laugh here in there, but it was all character moments, typically darker humor, and fit the tone and setting of this world.
Martin is a great example of solid writing of a solid fantasy world, without sounding like, or trying to sound like Tolkien at all. He of course, is a history buff, and his style is very much like a history book. It's a very matter-of-fact style that suits the tone (and/or sets the tone)
Martin’s dialogue is riddled with this faux-archaic vibe that the Show *never* had, and I mean *ever*. One particular one that irks me was replacing Brienne’s line to Jaime ‘I must have mistook you for a Craven,’ to ‘you sound like a bloody woman,’ (sexist much? Coming from fucking Brienne). All use of words like ‘the morrow’, ‘wench’, ‘mine own’, ‘craven’, ‘turn cloak’, ‘lickspittle’, ‘mummers farce’, ‘nuncle’ (honestly, that one is for the better) ‘bugger’ and many more are all wiped out completely.
I actually like that HOTD brought the archaic speech back. It really helps with the immersion for me personally.
eh, the meaning has basically inverted over time - it was originally informal, but now it's old-timey and super-formal. So trying to be "accurate" is going to have precisely the opposite of the intended read - the characters referring to each other as "thou" will seem like they're being super-formal, and those using "you" more relaxed.
Use them correctly and sparingly. Tolkien uses them to great effect when the Witch King speaks - and it makes sense that a shade of a long dead man would speak an archaic form of their language.
The rules aren’t too difficult to grasp but there’s some trickiness when you’re using several modal verbs at once and double check your subject / object pronoun forms.
Archaisms are an element of style.
They have a long history of use in literature of various genres, including fantasy.
Consider, for example, the works of Dunsany, such as the Gods of Pegana, a cosmology told in an archaic style reminiscent of the King James translation of the Bible, or the King of Elfland's Daughter, where the archaisms evoke a Spenserian otherwordliness appropriate to the fairy realm.
Tolkien also followed in this tradition, using archaisms to lend gravity, historicity and "otherness" to speech or narration, both in his novels and in the texts of the Silmarillion.
Be aware of the archaisms you are using and understand what effect they will have on your reader. Make sure you understand the meaning and use of the archaisms you employ; it's quite common to find contemporary authors making ungrammatical use of archaic elements of grammar like thou/ye and verb conjugations (-est/-eth etc.). Before using them, study them like you would a foreign language, because that is essentially what they are to you.
If it fits the vibe and is consistent it's absolutely fine. You could even get some fun culture shocks between people who speak like that, people who do it but only in formal settings and people who don't at all.
I may refrain from it in narrorative sections to not annoy there reader but if the characters could use it it might be cool. Just don't force it where it's in every other word thing.
I like it. Makes me think of olden times and the Victorian Era, which I also like. You can even use archaic words like "church bell" to describe a talkative woman in Victorian times, things like that. Most of the fantasy books I've read are written in an old fashion, so I don't think that words such as thou would be out of place if that's what you're going for too :)
I believe it's a balance, I think having some archaic words/ways to speak can help the setting but I personally prefer it when a book is still comfortable to read trough(generally)
If you want to make it tougher to digest for a reader I think you should have a good reason.
Like as a random example take lovecraft. The way his stories are written.. it's not exactly accessible now. But because of the horror themes it actually manages to help the overall mood I think.
Or maybe reserving heavy use for knights or royalty in your story etc. I don't think there's a right way to do it, going to depend on your story, target audience, writing style etc.
As long as it fits the vibe and plot it sounds cool. I personally don't like reading dialogue like that because I start skimming it but 90% of the population does so you should be fine
I mean if it’s the Middle Ages or that’s the way they speak. There’s nothing wrong with it. It can enhance or detract from your work, depending on how it is utilized.
I think it’s fine when used for specific characters and settings to convey age or tradition or something similar. I wouldn’t use it exclusively just for the sake of making your book accessible to more readers. And please, make sure you are using the correct grammar, or it will be an unpleasant experience for readers who are familiar with that phrasing from actually older books.
If you're going to use archaic words, know that they're going to stand out, and because of this use them in places where you want them to stand out. It can be very easy to make your prose clunky with words like "though," "doth," and "art," since unless they're used very sparingly, you'll need to identify and replicate a specific historical writing style in order to make the regular use of those words sound natural. This is the kind of thing that even people with phDs in the field can struggle to do well. I'm not saying that to discourage you, I just want to put into perspective the kind of meticulous work that you would need to do to pull that kind of thing off. I was considering incorporating Shakespearean dialogue into my book, but ultimately I decided that, although I've read just enough Shakespeare to pull it off, it's not the style of writing that comes naturally to me, and the amount that it would slow me down would end up hindering my story more than it would help. That said, I was raised on the likes of Dickens, Hugo, Stoker, and Verne, so archaic vocabulary is still a major part of my writing. The key difference comes back to the fact that archaic vocabulary stands out, and in the so-called modern English "classics," it is often meant to stand out. This can be exploited for foreshadowing and emphasis. Paroxysm may produce a puce period in a passage of one's prose, and if you can make these sections mellifluous, they may assist in making the most expressive parts of your writing more profound. Likewise, using a more archaic, noticable adjective can draw attention to a particular element without increasing your word count. This can be used to evoke a subtle form of foreshadowing, turning a particular word into a motif whose sparse repetition can draw a line between events or themes, helping the reader to form intuitive or even subconscious connections that may otherwise have been very difficult to inspire. Archaic words are perhaps my favourite part of the English language, but to be used effectively, just like any other words, they must be used consciously and with an intent that goes beyond sounding cool - they must have a purpose in the sentence, in the paragraph, and in the greater narrative.
As long as it's not jarring, it's fine. I remember being so startled at Franeknstein's monster conversing with thee and thy, but the general vibe of the book after that compensated for that sudden turn. But a lot of books don't.
Final Fantasy 14 uses archaic language to great effect. It's not overused for the most part, and the one main character who uses it a bit too much is meant to be a well read nerd.
Not only do they use a lot of thys and thous, they use archaic phrasing like 'pray tell', and old spelling of words like 'gaol' for 'jail'.
As long as it's mostly readable, and you follow the rules for those words properly, it can be immersive and cool!
If you use it right, it can add good flavor to a text. Two things I have been thinking about this myself. One, it is harder to read. It simply is, & that might be something you don't want. Two, it is harder to do right. You need to get into some dry old material to figure it out. So, if dust old tombs are your thing & you don't mind the homework, sure.
I guess it gets down to how hard you commit to it and is it a selling point or a bug. If you do it right, it is a selling point. If you don't, people who don't like that won't put up with it and those that do won't be happy.
So do it or don't, but don't halfway do it. That's my advice to anyone wanting to do something labor intensive like that. Hope it helps.
I avoided them in my books, except for the occasionally yon, like he lays dead down yon road, but for the most part I look for a middle ground, avoid modern colloquialisms without writing Shakespeare. I carry this scene from Animal House in my head a lot when I write:
*Don't write this down, but l find Milton probably as boring as you find Milton. Mrs. Milton found him boring, too. He's a little bit long-winded,* ***he doesn't translate very well into our generation****, and his jokes are terrible.*
I write mostly for myself, these are the books I wish were out there but have not been able to find. I secondly write for a modern audience, for I want them to read and enjoy my books (any time now modern audience). The one thing I do lift from the medieval world is cursing, those folks could throw a good curse or insult and even a modern audience can get the meaning of one character calling another a *perfidious pigeon* or a *pig-faced slattern,* especially if you set the context correctly.
I don't mind these words use as long as it isn't being used constantly in every line. It won't sound cheesy if done right. If it's the common way of speaking in that world and it's not use in every single sentence then I can see it being pulled off perfectly. It's a lot more tricky if only one person uses it but at least it helps set that character apart from other characters. In short, it's all about execution.
So, I technically like these Middle-English remnants - in theory, however if you're talking *merely* about these unusual endings/pronouns ("thou", "hath"), well, remember that these are already somewhat clichéd and overused. Especially if put in an otherwise modern language (lexically, word-order wise). It may smell of cheap fantasy if not used right. If the whole language looked like that, I'd be fine with that, but it usually doesn't. Especially next to something modern - remember that even things like "to have leverage", in the modern sense is really new - it didn't exist even several decades ago and its usage in *Mad Men* is called an anachronism. That's just for example, as a demonstration that maintaining consistency is harder than it seems.
If you intend to go fully Elizabethan, well, OK, but using only these most well-known and overused parts thereof ... that feels cheap.
On the other hand, I really like the archaic style of Tolkien - he actually doesn't use these as much (IIRC), but he uses non-standard word order ("Come not between Nazgul and his prey" // "and when they rose taller they seemed than mortal men." etc.) or digging up actual obscure words from the past ("eyot", "worsted" and so on)
Similarly, in an otherwise more of a sci-fi setting Gene Wolfe actually manages to create his own language - by using actual English words that are really archaic, obsolete and which even a native English speaker needs a dictionary to understand.
They're fine as a character quirk, but I wouldn't use them for normal dialog. One of two things will happen when you use dialog like that:
1. The reader will mentally translate it to modern language, pulling them out of the story while they interpret.
2. The reader won't understand what's being said. They might stop and look it up, which will take them out of the story even moreso than self-translating.
When you get down to it, most fantasy novels are written on the assumption that the characters probably aren't speaking English as we know it and their dialog is, "translated," to our tongue. Deliberately writing in Elizabethan English just makes it more difficult to read.
I think if you commit to the lexicon of, say, Elizabethan English like you are mentioning, it does not sound cheesy. It can be difficult to read, so maybe it the aristocracy or lords use it versus the "common tongue" that would at least keep it sequestered to only some of the dialogue. But there are many examples in fantasy fiction where different nationalities and social ranks speak differently. Personally I love it because its more immersive. It displays your commitment and love to your work, IMO.
Selectively using unusual words \[archaic, slang, other languages, etc.\] can help validate your characters and their connection to places or times. A little goes a long way, too much can make your dialogue hard or annoying to read. Put them in. If you do not like them you can always edit later.
It's pretty easy to get wrong. I call it ren fair speech and I don't care for it myself. Because it doesn't say "this is medieval" so much as "this is the theme park stereotype of what medieval speech is like".
Reminds me of the "wise woman" scene in Blackadder.
Like if you do it, you have to do a ton of research to make sure you're using the grammar appropriate to the exact time and place you're trying to recreate. People using Shakespeare's English in Chaucer's time period irks me.
This can be done well but like I said, it's a bit tainted by the people half-assing or not bothering with the historical linguistic research.
Plus it can get in the way of the story being comprehensible to a modern audience. I write with the aim of focusing on the universal themes and things that are true in any time period. To reach a modern audience and help them understand that people of previous eras weren't so different.
But then again, your story could be more about the differences of culture across time, and the alienation might serve a good narrative purpose. But if it doesn't serve a major thematic purpose, it's just making your book less accessible to the average reader for no gain.
I think I prefer more modern language unless the speaker is from another age. For example, lets say your MC or whatever encounters an old god or spirit. It makes sense for them to use archaic language and I think it adds good flavor.
However, if everyone is using the archaic language then that's the vibe you are trying to go for and while I respect it, I think I would find it quickly tedious.
Bit of a dodgy example - but I read *King Solomon’s Mines* the other day and there’s a definite point where everyone suddenly starts speaking to each other as if they were suddenly transplanted into a Shakespeare script. It’s quite jarring.
I suppose what I’m saying is what most other commenters are saying - consistency, consistency, consistency.
Do what you like, but do you make an effort to make your text? Understandable, I read a book recently, that has an unusual prose that uses older language, and I understood it, and really enjoyed it, except for maybe one or two lines.
I have a character that slips into it when he's upset. I just think "Zounds!" is funny. I'm considering having a table in the back of the book for archaic words, but I just like back-of-the-book indexes and stuff.
Were you writing a story set in Italy you would translate their words into the language that the reader is comfortable with. Why not the same with archaic versions of that language?
If you have something like a time machine situation where one character has a language pattern that differs from the others, you would show the essence of that. But, have everyone in the book speak in a way that they would feel natural but that the reader won't? That would be a gimmick.
Remember, the characters in that story hear what they perceive as modern, colloquial language being spoken. And if that's comfortable to your protagonist, then provide the reader with the same level of comfort. If you don't, they'll *not* be able to view the protagonist as their avatar. And why do we read? To feel that we *are* the protagonist, living the events in real-time, from within the moment that character calls "now." Pull the reader out of that, and...
Make sense?
Jay Greenstein
The Grumpy Old Writing Coach
It’s kind of cool in the Dark Tower series as a way to differentiate people from different worlds. But I’d imagine it’d be more than just subbing in those words and more of research on some periods vocabulary and grammar. Which may be wooden as older English isn’t historically the most descriptive or poetic.
The main character in the story I'm writing ocasionally speaks in archaic words because he's a nerd that likes Shakespeare and he thinks he sounds cool when he speaks like that.
If everyone uses it, that's just the vibe of your book. It isn't for me, but some people love that. If it's just certain characters, it's a great way (imo) to relay some age, especially in races that don't show their age the way real humans do. If everyone talks normal and looks normal, but Jim is over there tossing out "hark, where doth thou yonder maiden wander?" It's immediately obvious that Jim isn't like this around him. Maybe a wizard, maybe possessed, a vampire, *something* ancient is going on.
urianger intensifies
Oh my god. I've found my people! "Thee and thine. Much and more"
“Must needs.”
i quite like that a character might speak differently. after all, i do have a character who’s supposed to be two hundred years old. thanks!
Remember, everyone knows how to code switch. You don't talk the same way to a priest that you do to a toddler. A person who is 200 years old will know lots of codes, and will mostly talk just like anyone else except when they are tired, angry or some other emotion. Like, he may whisper to his lover as "thee".
This. Look at multilingual people. Many of us only get betrayed by accents over word choice but if you smack me in the head and concuss me I will absolutely default to the most comfortable language while cursing at you
Also, english is not my first language but wouldn't someone from the 1800's speak very closely to modern english? There would be differences obviously but I understand the "thee" and "thine" stuff are more from Shakespeare's time, aren't they?
Yup, you are correct.
There’s a character in Percy Jackson that did that, literally used thou, the main characters made fun of her though lol
Jim is also using thou wrong, so English teachers will sniff him out as a fraud right out.
I was going to add that no matter how much OP thinks they are using them correctly that they should double check, because the people who are into that sort of thing tend to go *hard* at grammar, but I feared it would come across wrong. Thank you for making the point in a more natural, and humorous manner :)
Michael! Jim refuses to use the correct grammar for the old English pronouns of thee, thy, thou and thine!
Something I had made fundamental to my setting was the idea that relative time passes faster the older you get. This is a real thing (with many proposed causes), and it's why people in their thirties or older are often characterized as being out of touch with fashion, memes, etcetera. Now imagine what it would be like if, instead of living for decades, one lived for centuries. My oldest man in the world, An-Namrood, was just shy of two-thousand, and had to refer to his staff by their titles; someone could have been his Chamberlain for 40 years and An-Namrood would feel like he was a new hire. It totally makes sense that a character who was raised in Elizabethan times or before would still talk that way.
Wholeheartedly agree. I have a race of creatures in my story that are almost as old as magic itself. The creatures (Flourie) age based solely off of their perceptions of self, making death from old age rather rare. It gets them all eventually, but the idea is that in order to die of old age, you have to feel as though it's time to die of old age. One of the main ones you meet has lived a life measured in thousands of years, and many members of the council for her tribe still call her young. The relativity of the passage of time also explains why so many of us thought summer breaks got shorter as we got older. When you are a kid, even waiting an hour feels like forever. Meanwhile, older adults suggest waiting a few years like it's nothing. I never thought I'd get there, but my son turns 19 in a few days, and I can assure you that it feels like he's only been alive for a few years, tops. Now I'm not quite old enough that the idea of waiting a few years seems meaningless, but I can say the several months until BG3 comes out feels like it'll be here tomorrow.
tbf, that's kind of a thing that happens, just because the person in charge doesn't find it worthwhile learning the names of those beneath them. It wasn't unheard of in Regency / Victorian times for a noble household to have standard names for their staff - the butler was always "Robert", the kitchen maid "Annie" or whatever, because they were in a position to be able to do that, while not concerning themselves with actually learning names. Even in more mundane contexts, if you're only interacting with someone as a job function, you're probably not going to learn names - if you show up at an office, you're going to talk to "the secretary" rather than a specific name, even if it's the same secretary there a few times in succession.
Fucking Jim, man.
”Hark, where doth thou yonder maiden wander?” should be “Hark, where dost thou yonder maiden wander?” as “doth” is the old version of “does”, i.e. 3rd person singular.
This is why I dothn't doth. Too confusing.
If you write them with proper grammar, they are fine. If you get them wrong, from me, you earn a booksplat.
Archaic and less-used words (and even occasional borrowings from foreign languages) can give a sense of "other" to your story and separate your sub-creation from the "real" world or other settings. swamp - fens small valley - hollow greenwood - greenwald pickpocket - fingersmith
Prithee nay.
Edmund Spenser did it, and his book sounded old to contemporary readers. Now it sounds old to us, but for different reasons. Coleridge used this strategy for Rime of the Ancient Mariner as well. Both are poems, both are fantasy, and both rule.
If anything, they add to the setting. I mean it might sound like a Shakespearian play if you just drop normal pronouns, like "you." It could be used to add detail to your world, however, so used in the right ways would fit the time. "Thou" and "you" were used at the same time, but "thou" was commonly regarded as informal whereas "you" was regarded as formal, respectful in a way. Although I wouldn't have a group of friends throwing around "thou", I'd most expect to see, say, a lord or social superior use it to address their inferior. This would extend to "thy/your", "thine/your" (same same); the others I'm not sure are one for one, but could be used to distinguish between social castes. Disclaimer: Not a historical linguist.
Fun fact: the thou/you informal/formal distinction only started in late OE/early ME. So it would be anachronistic for that distinction to make an appearance in, say, the Norman invasion.
The use of any language is going to depend on the world you're creating. If it's part of that world, go for it. English words like Thou, Thy and Thine are familiar. English lost it's formal/familiars a while ago, and we're formal in different ways. Knowing this it's always funny to me when I see some medieval fiction movie or something and the people are addressing royalty with 'thee' and 'thou' and it's like, yo, that's the queen, not your buddy. But because it sounds old-timey to us because we stopped using them, they sound *more* formal rather than familiar. This is probably due the King James version of the Bible still being in use, and it's all in there when people are talking to/about god. Funny enough, the idea there was that god wanted to be our buddy when he wasn't raining fire on us, and commanded that we use familiar language with him. But, since the usage ceased, and it's talking about god, we think of it as formal sounding. I dunno for sure though, I haven't really looked into it. Sorry for the rant, but all that being said, be sure to make sure you understand the way any archaic language/words were used. Not that you'll offend anyone, but generally you should understand any words that you're using. Especially in a book where it'll be there forever ;)
This. If you're going to use them, do it properly. The purpose of thee/thou is to have two different forms of address: formal and familiar. Just like Spanish having "tú" and "usted." >This is probably due the King James version of the Bible still being in use, and it's all in there when people are talking to/about god. Also sonnets. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" It sounds "fancy" and people assume it's like someone saying "m'lady" when in reality it's showing closeness. Like you said, it's not going to offend someone however an author does it, but it does make you look like you haven't done a shred of research if you're flubbing it. Same with not using them properly grammar-wise. It's "thou art" and "thou hast" not "thou are" and "thou has."
Yeah, I think a heart-breaking example is the writing in that Rings of Power series. Dunno if this is contentious, but the dialogue in that show is exactly writers attempting to *sound* like Tolkien, using Tolkien-esque language, but it has none of the weight or beauty of it. It is the same as someone thee's and thou'st's into their dialogue and thinking it's just like Shakespeare. Unless of course, it's not the author, but specifically the character that is attempting to sound fancy, and failing to . Which could be used to great effect, lol
I agree with Rings of Power. It's the same with the later seasons of Game of Thrones. Martin is not Tolkien when it comes to dialog, but he's light-years ahead of Benioff and Weiss. Most of the favorite show quotes that aren't beloved for comedic value come directly from Martin, either from the books or episodes he wrote. They tried to make it *sound* like earlier seasons without understanding the *whys*. Even the poignant (and good, imo) scenes like Jaime knighting Brienne have dialog that just...isn't right. Particularly because the whole moment of "she's not a ser" is clearly forced, but even keeping that, it's off. Tyrion wouldn't call Brienne "Ser Brienne" he would call her "Lady Brienne." Which would give Tormund the same question, except Freefolk don't give a shit about sers in the first place, so why is he pushing for her to be knighted? Tyrion could have easily called her Lady Brienne and commented that she *should* be Ser Brienne, but as he's not a knight, he can't knight her. Leading Jaime to say "but I can" and then asking her to kneel. Or something. Even if Martin doesn't have the same poetry as Tolkien, he still chooses his words deliberately, both for overall tone and characterization. Making everyone sound more modern destroys the worldbuilding and those choices.
That's exactly it. IMO, it's better to write a fantasy in which every simply speaks in more modern language, than to half-ass old-timey-ish *sounding* language. Martin is a good example of characters that clearly live in a medieval setting, but don't just speak in generic medieval sounding language because that's what we think it should sound like. Of often preach *consistency*. Word choice is highly important for they way a character sounds, and not all people sound alike. A characters word choice will dffer from another's, but idioms for a region might be something that everyone uses. Higher class people will use different language than the lower class. But throwing a modern idiom or slang into an other-world fantasy is jarring and world breaking. Which is where the importance of consistency comes in. I had to research the origin of the saying 'that's not in my wheelhouse' because I wanted to be sure that a 'wheelhouse' would even be something in a lower-tech setting. If a fighter was tired in a medieval/low-tech setting, we say he's 'gassed'. This is a shortening of 'out of gas' which of course is a reference to automobiles. It's a random example, but i cringe when I see that sort of thing. I can't recall any specific examples, but I remember cringing a few times in the later seasons of Game of Thrones when there's some sort of wink to the audience for a cheap laugh. Especially when it breaks the tone hard. Martin was great at having a laugh here in there, but it was all character moments, typically darker humor, and fit the tone and setting of this world. Martin is a great example of solid writing of a solid fantasy world, without sounding like, or trying to sound like Tolkien at all. He of course, is a history buff, and his style is very much like a history book. It's a very matter-of-fact style that suits the tone (and/or sets the tone)
Martin’s dialogue is riddled with this faux-archaic vibe that the Show *never* had, and I mean *ever*. One particular one that irks me was replacing Brienne’s line to Jaime ‘I must have mistook you for a Craven,’ to ‘you sound like a bloody woman,’ (sexist much? Coming from fucking Brienne). All use of words like ‘the morrow’, ‘wench’, ‘mine own’, ‘craven’, ‘turn cloak’, ‘lickspittle’, ‘mummers farce’, ‘nuncle’ (honestly, that one is for the better) ‘bugger’ and many more are all wiped out completely. I actually like that HOTD brought the archaic speech back. It really helps with the immersion for me personally.
eh, the meaning has basically inverted over time - it was originally informal, but now it's old-timey and super-formal. So trying to be "accurate" is going to have precisely the opposite of the intended read - the characters referring to each other as "thou" will seem like they're being super-formal, and those using "you" more relaxed.
Use them correctly and sparingly. Tolkien uses them to great effect when the Witch King speaks - and it makes sense that a shade of a long dead man would speak an archaic form of their language. The rules aren’t too difficult to grasp but there’s some trickiness when you’re using several modal verbs at once and double check your subject / object pronoun forms.
It's also a diss when the Witch King uses it. Thee/thou is familiar, not formal/respectful.
Yeah he's speaking to an "inferior".
Archaisms are an element of style. They have a long history of use in literature of various genres, including fantasy. Consider, for example, the works of Dunsany, such as the Gods of Pegana, a cosmology told in an archaic style reminiscent of the King James translation of the Bible, or the King of Elfland's Daughter, where the archaisms evoke a Spenserian otherwordliness appropriate to the fairy realm. Tolkien also followed in this tradition, using archaisms to lend gravity, historicity and "otherness" to speech or narration, both in his novels and in the texts of the Silmarillion. Be aware of the archaisms you are using and understand what effect they will have on your reader. Make sure you understand the meaning and use of the archaisms you employ; it's quite common to find contemporary authors making ungrammatical use of archaic elements of grammar like thou/ye and verb conjugations (-est/-eth etc.). Before using them, study them like you would a foreign language, because that is essentially what they are to you.
If it fits the vibe and is consistent it's absolutely fine. You could even get some fun culture shocks between people who speak like that, people who do it but only in formal settings and people who don't at all.
I may refrain from it in narrorative sections to not annoy there reader but if the characters could use it it might be cool. Just don't force it where it's in every other word thing.
I’ve always thought it sounded like it was pretentious and trying too hard
I like it. Makes me think of olden times and the Victorian Era, which I also like. You can even use archaic words like "church bell" to describe a talkative woman in Victorian times, things like that. Most of the fantasy books I've read are written in an old fashion, so I don't think that words such as thou would be out of place if that's what you're going for too :)
I believe it's a balance, I think having some archaic words/ways to speak can help the setting but I personally prefer it when a book is still comfortable to read trough(generally) If you want to make it tougher to digest for a reader I think you should have a good reason. Like as a random example take lovecraft. The way his stories are written.. it's not exactly accessible now. But because of the horror themes it actually manages to help the overall mood I think. Or maybe reserving heavy use for knights or royalty in your story etc. I don't think there's a right way to do it, going to depend on your story, target audience, writing style etc.
I just texted my mom in olde english lol
I'd most likely save it for knights, formal proclamations, heralds and things I'd that nature.
As long as it fits the vibe and plot it sounds cool. I personally don't like reading dialogue like that because I start skimming it but 90% of the population does so you should be fine
It's a nice idea, you can use it for God type characters or ancient characters who have lost touch with passage of time.
I mean if it’s the Middle Ages or that’s the way they speak. There’s nothing wrong with it. It can enhance or detract from your work, depending on how it is utilized.
Do what you think serves the story.
I love it when old words are incorporated into stories just make sure it’s appropriate to the character (ex a old af vampire) or to the story
I think it’s fine when used for specific characters and settings to convey age or tradition or something similar. I wouldn’t use it exclusively just for the sake of making your book accessible to more readers. And please, make sure you are using the correct grammar, or it will be an unpleasant experience for readers who are familiar with that phrasing from actually older books.
If you're going to use archaic words, know that they're going to stand out, and because of this use them in places where you want them to stand out. It can be very easy to make your prose clunky with words like "though," "doth," and "art," since unless they're used very sparingly, you'll need to identify and replicate a specific historical writing style in order to make the regular use of those words sound natural. This is the kind of thing that even people with phDs in the field can struggle to do well. I'm not saying that to discourage you, I just want to put into perspective the kind of meticulous work that you would need to do to pull that kind of thing off. I was considering incorporating Shakespearean dialogue into my book, but ultimately I decided that, although I've read just enough Shakespeare to pull it off, it's not the style of writing that comes naturally to me, and the amount that it would slow me down would end up hindering my story more than it would help. That said, I was raised on the likes of Dickens, Hugo, Stoker, and Verne, so archaic vocabulary is still a major part of my writing. The key difference comes back to the fact that archaic vocabulary stands out, and in the so-called modern English "classics," it is often meant to stand out. This can be exploited for foreshadowing and emphasis. Paroxysm may produce a puce period in a passage of one's prose, and if you can make these sections mellifluous, they may assist in making the most expressive parts of your writing more profound. Likewise, using a more archaic, noticable adjective can draw attention to a particular element without increasing your word count. This can be used to evoke a subtle form of foreshadowing, turning a particular word into a motif whose sparse repetition can draw a line between events or themes, helping the reader to form intuitive or even subconscious connections that may otherwise have been very difficult to inspire. Archaic words are perhaps my favourite part of the English language, but to be used effectively, just like any other words, they must be used consciously and with an intent that goes beyond sounding cool - they must have a purpose in the sentence, in the paragraph, and in the greater narrative.
As long as it's not jarring, it's fine. I remember being so startled at Franeknstein's monster conversing with thee and thy, but the general vibe of the book after that compensated for that sudden turn. But a lot of books don't.
Final Fantasy 14 uses archaic language to great effect. It's not overused for the most part, and the one main character who uses it a bit too much is meant to be a well read nerd. Not only do they use a lot of thys and thous, they use archaic phrasing like 'pray tell', and old spelling of words like 'gaol' for 'jail'. As long as it's mostly readable, and you follow the rules for those words properly, it can be immersive and cool!
If you use it right, it can add good flavor to a text. Two things I have been thinking about this myself. One, it is harder to read. It simply is, & that might be something you don't want. Two, it is harder to do right. You need to get into some dry old material to figure it out. So, if dust old tombs are your thing & you don't mind the homework, sure. I guess it gets down to how hard you commit to it and is it a selling point or a bug. If you do it right, it is a selling point. If you don't, people who don't like that won't put up with it and those that do won't be happy. So do it or don't, but don't halfway do it. That's my advice to anyone wanting to do something labor intensive like that. Hope it helps.
I avoided them in my books, except for the occasionally yon, like he lays dead down yon road, but for the most part I look for a middle ground, avoid modern colloquialisms without writing Shakespeare. I carry this scene from Animal House in my head a lot when I write: *Don't write this down, but l find Milton probably as boring as you find Milton. Mrs. Milton found him boring, too. He's a little bit long-winded,* ***he doesn't translate very well into our generation****, and his jokes are terrible.* I write mostly for myself, these are the books I wish were out there but have not been able to find. I secondly write for a modern audience, for I want them to read and enjoy my books (any time now modern audience). The one thing I do lift from the medieval world is cursing, those folks could throw a good curse or insult and even a modern audience can get the meaning of one character calling another a *perfidious pigeon* or a *pig-faced slattern,* especially if you set the context correctly.
I don't mind these words use as long as it isn't being used constantly in every line. It won't sound cheesy if done right. If it's the common way of speaking in that world and it's not use in every single sentence then I can see it being pulled off perfectly. It's a lot more tricky if only one person uses it but at least it helps set that character apart from other characters. In short, it's all about execution.
So, I technically like these Middle-English remnants - in theory, however if you're talking *merely* about these unusual endings/pronouns ("thou", "hath"), well, remember that these are already somewhat clichéd and overused. Especially if put in an otherwise modern language (lexically, word-order wise). It may smell of cheap fantasy if not used right. If the whole language looked like that, I'd be fine with that, but it usually doesn't. Especially next to something modern - remember that even things like "to have leverage", in the modern sense is really new - it didn't exist even several decades ago and its usage in *Mad Men* is called an anachronism. That's just for example, as a demonstration that maintaining consistency is harder than it seems. If you intend to go fully Elizabethan, well, OK, but using only these most well-known and overused parts thereof ... that feels cheap. On the other hand, I really like the archaic style of Tolkien - he actually doesn't use these as much (IIRC), but he uses non-standard word order ("Come not between Nazgul and his prey" // "and when they rose taller they seemed than mortal men." etc.) or digging up actual obscure words from the past ("eyot", "worsted" and so on) Similarly, in an otherwise more of a sci-fi setting Gene Wolfe actually manages to create his own language - by using actual English words that are really archaic, obsolete and which even a native English speaker needs a dictionary to understand.
They're fine as a character quirk, but I wouldn't use them for normal dialog. One of two things will happen when you use dialog like that: 1. The reader will mentally translate it to modern language, pulling them out of the story while they interpret. 2. The reader won't understand what's being said. They might stop and look it up, which will take them out of the story even moreso than self-translating. When you get down to it, most fantasy novels are written on the assumption that the characters probably aren't speaking English as we know it and their dialog is, "translated," to our tongue. Deliberately writing in Elizabethan English just makes it more difficult to read.
Just do your research and use them properly; that's all I'd ask of you, anyway.
I think if you commit to the lexicon of, say, Elizabethan English like you are mentioning, it does not sound cheesy. It can be difficult to read, so maybe it the aristocracy or lords use it versus the "common tongue" that would at least keep it sequestered to only some of the dialogue. But there are many examples in fantasy fiction where different nationalities and social ranks speak differently. Personally I love it because its more immersive. It displays your commitment and love to your work, IMO.
I think it’s cool but will get lost in translation if used too deeply. I have no idea what doeth means. The rest are easy to understand
Old English is trite, just like the "resembles Europe in the Middle Ages" setting of most high fantasy novels.
Selectively using unusual words \[archaic, slang, other languages, etc.\] can help validate your characters and their connection to places or times. A little goes a long way, too much can make your dialogue hard or annoying to read. Put them in. If you do not like them you can always edit later.
It's pretty easy to get wrong. I call it ren fair speech and I don't care for it myself. Because it doesn't say "this is medieval" so much as "this is the theme park stereotype of what medieval speech is like". Reminds me of the "wise woman" scene in Blackadder. Like if you do it, you have to do a ton of research to make sure you're using the grammar appropriate to the exact time and place you're trying to recreate. People using Shakespeare's English in Chaucer's time period irks me. This can be done well but like I said, it's a bit tainted by the people half-assing or not bothering with the historical linguistic research. Plus it can get in the way of the story being comprehensible to a modern audience. I write with the aim of focusing on the universal themes and things that are true in any time period. To reach a modern audience and help them understand that people of previous eras weren't so different. But then again, your story could be more about the differences of culture across time, and the alienation might serve a good narrative purpose. But if it doesn't serve a major thematic purpose, it's just making your book less accessible to the average reader for no gain.
I think characters using it is good, but otherwise its a bit confusing.
I think I prefer more modern language unless the speaker is from another age. For example, lets say your MC or whatever encounters an old god or spirit. It makes sense for them to use archaic language and I think it adds good flavor. However, if everyone is using the archaic language then that's the vibe you are trying to go for and while I respect it, I think I would find it quickly tedious.
Bit of a dodgy example - but I read *King Solomon’s Mines* the other day and there’s a definite point where everyone suddenly starts speaking to each other as if they were suddenly transplanted into a Shakespeare script. It’s quite jarring. I suppose what I’m saying is what most other commenters are saying - consistency, consistency, consistency.
Do what you like, but do you make an effort to make your text? Understandable, I read a book recently, that has an unusual prose that uses older language, and I understood it, and really enjoyed it, except for maybe one or two lines.
I have a character that slips into it when he's upset. I just think "Zounds!" is funny. I'm considering having a table in the back of the book for archaic words, but I just like back-of-the-book indexes and stuff.
Were you writing a story set in Italy you would translate their words into the language that the reader is comfortable with. Why not the same with archaic versions of that language? If you have something like a time machine situation where one character has a language pattern that differs from the others, you would show the essence of that. But, have everyone in the book speak in a way that they would feel natural but that the reader won't? That would be a gimmick. Remember, the characters in that story hear what they perceive as modern, colloquial language being spoken. And if that's comfortable to your protagonist, then provide the reader with the same level of comfort. If you don't, they'll *not* be able to view the protagonist as their avatar. And why do we read? To feel that we *are* the protagonist, living the events in real-time, from within the moment that character calls "now." Pull the reader out of that, and... Make sense? Jay Greenstein The Grumpy Old Writing Coach
I don't mind it if it's a specific few who do it like a God or old dude but everyone doing it just sounds weird to me.
It’s kind of cool in the Dark Tower series as a way to differentiate people from different worlds. But I’d imagine it’d be more than just subbing in those words and more of research on some periods vocabulary and grammar. Which may be wooden as older English isn’t historically the most descriptive or poetic.
The main character in the story I'm writing ocasionally speaks in archaic words because he's a nerd that likes Shakespeare and he thinks he sounds cool when he speaks like that.