In The Flow of Time – January 13, 2025
This sojourn into the art of writing is courtesy of our long stay in Paris recently, where in some cases I began thinking in French, again. Ah, fluency.
I’m writing in English. Duh. 🙂 But in New Orleans circa 1816 people speak many languages.
French is dominant. It isn’t Parisian French, it has Canadian roots. Me too. The planters, most artisans, and business people are French. Spanish is still around, but fading. American English is on the rise. The ruling political class are Americans.
There is a local dialect, today called “Louisiana Creole,” properly Kouri-Vini. It derives from French, and some Spanish, English, and several African languages. The African slave trade is illegal, but slave trading is not. New Orleans is the heart of the slave business. The people sold come from the eastern and southern US (English, African languages); the Caribbean islands (French, Spanish, island creole, African languages). They bring their languages with them. Kouri-Vini is the “common tongue.”
My challenge as author is… how much broken English or other languages do I slip into the story? The answer is, not much, but some. I do want to give you the idea of communication challenges. But most of the Kikongo and Kouri-Vini words disappear. They are the author’s conceit, and don’t really add to the story. I give you the flavor, not the detail.
If, for some reason, a particular “foreign” word is used several times, or its presence really adds to the ambiance, then cool, it stays. Most don’t make the cut. I don’t need to hit you over the head with “dikabu” or “mono kima ve.” Besides, since I am not a speaker of that language, I could get it wrong. Trusting to online dictionaries and translation only goes so far.
HOWEVER!
The upper crust speak French, but must deal with English. As he has invented himself, my primary antagonist (a French plantation owner) is good in English, but not fluent. The scene I’m writing, he’s having a conversation in English with his lawyer. And here is the interesting (to me) thing that happened.
I’m writing this dialog, and I’m not happy. I know both languages, and I’m not getting it right. English is a second language for this man, but the dialog flops back and forth between too broken and too glib. Grrrr… Second try. Third try. Still unhappy. And then…
AH! I know too much! I bring up Google Translate. I put in the phrase in English, it gives me a correct French translation. For me this is a duh. But what I need to do with that is instantly obvious.
| English | He wants to buy my father’s plantation. | He is new to the city. | I delivered the judgment… |
| French | Il veut acheter la plantation de mon P | Il est nouveau dans la ville. | J’ai rendu le jugement… |
| A bit off | He wants to buy the plantation of my father. | He is new in the city. | I rendered a judgment… |
In my head, I just translate idiomatically between languages. Seeing the French in writing, DUH! It becomes EASY for me to screw it up just right, making it a bit too literal, a bit less fluent. It’s subtle things: the wrong preposition, the wrong article, a clumsy word order. I can mistranslate with the best of ‘em. 🙂
This character isn’t thinking in English, he’s translating in his head. I don’t want you struggling to figure out what he’s saying. I want you to have a bit of linguistic disorientation, a sense of what it is to stand next to René as he communicates in English.
I suppose I have to go write now.
