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this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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Everyone is speaking english. Even when the story says they is more than one language, the story is full of puns that dependion english, wsear words from english (swearing is realistict in real life but in books exceccs that shold be cut with no harm to the story)
Isn't this just a necessity of the storytelling medium? If the audience is English-speaking then they will appreciate a pun in English a lot more than a sign saying "this is an excellent pun in my made-up language, you wouldn't get it though". Even Tolkien basically says "this whole story has been translated into English"!
It breaks immersion when you realize it. of course it depends on the story, if the story is in a small vilage it is fine but world travelers either need more than one language, or some in story reason everyone speaks a common language.
Making languages is way harder than just writing a story, and fantasy isn't trying to be an accurate reflection of real world geo-social stratification. Everyone speaks the same language because it often would be a worse narrative if the characters couldn't communicate. (Not always, but plot-by-misunderstanding is at least as lazy as writing in one tongue)
There needs to be (imo) a reason beyond realism to make that part of the story. Tolkien was exceptional, but he was using different races and languages to make up a creation mythology for the UK. The history and culture and differences were arguably more important than a ring and some hobbits.
Tad Williams also made up a few languages for his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. There they serve to make the world feel bigger, with far-off exotic lands and ancient mysteries.
Oh and you brought up swearing in your first post. De-modernizing language is way harder than it seems. Taking out "god damn" is easy, but that also links to gosh, darn, dang, "goodbye" is from God be with ye, "gossip" from god-sibling, the days of the week all reference Earth myths and have to go, "knight" doesn't make sense unless they had a French equivalent language to take words from...
specifc references to pun is the problem. I can accapt that mc speaks two languages. I can accept that they find a good translator as neede, and ths don't have languare issues. However I find it hard to accept that they are speaking modern english. as soom as you make a pun it breaks the story as now I assume the modern world.