Modern Language In a Medieval/Middle Ages Setting

[buyjupiter]

But using language of the time period would be extreme. Anyone try reading Shakespeare? While a classic, not many people enjoy it for a light read.

While I do enjoy Shakespeare as a bit of light reading, anything I read now had better be in modern English. I get footnotes and scene notes in Shakespeare and I expect it to take a bit longer to read than normal. (Though I've read and reread the plays so often I don't really need the footnotes anymore). If an author does provide that kind of thing then it had better be amusing a la Terry Pratchett's asides within asides or Susanna Clarke's world building notes/snark. These are just personal preferences, mind you.

I guess my main point is you expect to read a story that's written in the style of language that is currently spoken. When you make it sound authentic to that time period it reads as gimmicky.

Another thing to think about is "is this the clearest way of saying something or will I lose the reader?" If the goal is a very educated student of languages, go right ahead with the antiquated language. If it's not, pick up a non-modernized/translated version of the Canterbury tales or Beowulf. The sentence structure, the passivity, the unclear pronoun usage all combine to make it more difficult to understand. Both of these stories have beautiful language, but it is very dense. I only made it through the Canterbury Tales by reading a text that had the original text juxtaposed against a modern translation.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

One movie that I think rather brilliantly handled the issue of communicating modern language in a Medieval setting was A Knight's Tale. The movie makers could just as easily have made it purely a period piece, but they wanted to make the cultural translation of life and sport from then into our modern context, to showcase how it was really viewed during the period. Case in point, the dance scene. Pay close attention to the shift from period music and dance to modern...

This is basically what we are doing as fantasy writers when we incorporate relatively modern English phrases into our fantasy. It's understood that our characters are probably not speaking English, but to communicate our stories we have to set them within a certain modern narrative context for the reader to understand and connect.

 

[GeekDavid]

About the only time I didn't find a lot of thees and thous distracting in writing was in David Eddings' Belgariad, where there was a culture who always spoke very formally. One of the main characters was from this culture, but there were also a few bit characters with that speech style.

It was, however, handled adroitly enough and explained well enough that it didn't distract from the story -- rather, it added color to it, I think.

 

[SeverinR]

I use thee's and thou's for noble proclamations and announcements and such. Not for every day speak.
Heralds have to show off the eliquence at which they can turn a phrase.

I was (hope to be again) a member of the SCA. I was listening to a Bard/herald telling of the origin of the song. I was like dang this guy can rattle on and on. Then I relaized, that is his job as a herald.

example: Lifeblood, performed by Jean de Montagne - YouTube