Language Use

The narration mentions in places that Kyoko draws conclusions about someone based on their presentation and particularly on their use of language. This has shown up a few times now, and with Cassie the narration also observes how the way she presents herself has shifted. So why do different characters use language the way they do? It’s not the same pattern for everyone, not at all, and the differences are significant, even when they’re subtle.

Start with word choice and vocabulary. Saying something is happening at nine P.M. is much different than saying it’s happening at twenty-one hundred hours, even though they’re describing the exact same thing. The latter is more rigorous, more associated with strict accuracy; in the U.S. the association with the military is so strong that the twenty-four hour format is usually called military time or army time. It might also imply that the person saying it is used to keeping or interacting with unusual schedules. A twenty-four/seven facility like a hospital, for example, often uses this form, because it’s not immediately obvious whether they mean A.M or P.M. for a given number and context. People don’t think about all the implications, but they notice that it’s different.

Similarly, what words and phrasing people use can say things about their background. Kyoko, for example, throws around a lot of biomedical jargon in casual speech, because it’s information she knows and has a history of using. It says things about her that she knows to call something necrotizing fasciitis rather than flesh-eating bacteria, and that she prefers to use the former. It implies her skillset and priorities, without needing to fully explain them. Whether and how people use profanity and obscene language, what expletives they use (not the same thing; linguistic expletives are elements of speech which do not directly contribute to meaning, and while that has overlap with profanity, something can be either without being the other), what kinds of description and analogy they use, all of these contribute to the perception someone has of the character. You might not notice consciously that Saori never cites god or religion in her swearing (though she does incorporate hell or damn quite a bit), but it still helps to build the impression of who she is.

These things are not explicit. But they show up constantly, and thinking about them consciously as an author helps me to distinguish characters. What foreign languages does someone dip into and why? What idioms do they use? Do they use contractions? Do they use antiquated or formal language and sentence structures? Do they use slang, and if so what kind, and how? How’s their grammar? Do they use terms drawn from modern culture? As an example of this, Kyoko says she scritches werewolves, rather than scratches. Scritch is a much more recent word associated more with online use than traditional writing, and the fact that she uses it hints at that association. It also suggests, accurately, that she thinks of these as different. In her mind, scratching is either to relieve an itch or to cause harm, and the affectionate gesture is distinct.

As another element, a person’s accent is a big deal. People often don’t really think about this. Accents, where they’re depicted at all, tend to either be described in the narration rather than actually shown in dialogue, or else feel a bit stereotypical, often just focused on pronunciation. Someone who speaks German as their native language might pronounce “w” how an English speaker would pronounce “v”, and “v” as “f”, because in German orthography this is what those letters mean.

This is reasonable and a real thing. But it overlooks other elements of the language. German follows some unusual rules for sentence order; it’s usually subject-verb-object, like English is, but some prepositions kick the verb to the end of the sentence, or a verb might be split into two components with one in the second position and one at the end. Even in standard sentences, while verb second is a strict rule, other elements can be shifted in some situations. There is no progressive tense, that is to say, you cannot be running; you can run, you can run now, but there is no specific tense to say that an action is ongoing or in progress. Someone who is more accustomed to German, then, might not use those verb forms as much in English. Because German has the dative case distinct from the accusative case, some sentence structures shift. In English, the sentence “make me a sandwich” is routinely used to show why specific prepositional phrases are necessary. “What kind of sandwich do you want to be made into?” as a comedic misunderstanding, to show that the sentence has to be constructed as “make a sandwich for me”. This is a potential misunderstanding which is present because in English the dative and accusative grammatical cases are combined into a single objective case which is used for both indirect and direct objects.

But in German that’s not a thing at all. Those rules were added to English mostly to conform to more Latin forms. In German, the indirect object is in the dative case, while the direct object is in the accusative case. In this example, what this means is that the sentence “Mach mir ein Sandwich” does not require that preposition. The pronoun “mir” is only used when you mean that the action is done “to or for me”, while if it’s being done using or acting on me, the pronoun would be “mich”. Because those prepositional phrases are not necessary and not as commonly used in German, a native speaker might be prone to leave them out in English. Germanic sentence structure also places the indirect object before the direct object, hence why in English the indirect object is marked just by coming first in casual or routine use (make [for] me a sandwich) even though the official formal structure doesn’t conform to this.

Any given language is going to have these elements. In Japanese, there are no plural nouns as such; the singular and plural form of a noun are the same. Using plurals in English might cause someone to stumble. Articles work very differently. Japanese also follows a different sentence structure; where in English the sequence is subject-verb-object, in Japanese there is a strict verb-last structure, such that it would go subject-object-verb. It also often omits subjects and does not use pronouns very much at all. So if you were to use the same example sentence in that structure it would be more like “A sandwich make, please”, and this form might show up more often in English sentences as a result.

In Japanese, it’s common to essentially end sentences with “no?”, as a courtesy. This is a slight oversimplification, but the use of ね (ne) as a sentence-ending particle is very readily mapped into “no?” in English. It implies that you don’t actually feel uncertain, but you’re refraining from confident statements in case the person you’re talking to wants to contradict you. In German, “yes?” is what would be used in that confirmation-seeking role more often. Because these habits are built up already, someone who is used to using them is likely to do so in English.

I mention this, because these trends have shown up in a pair of characters, and they’re significant in what they imply about each. Jack speaks fluent Japanese. He ends sentences with “no?” a lot. He occasionally uses language like “twenty-one hundred hours” or seems to be dropping into a formal, terse situation report. And all of these things are not accidents or randomly-selected quirks on my part. Jack Tar’s pseudonym was not something he chose idly. He served in the U.S. Navy at a military base in Japan, for quite a while. He hasn’t said as much, but the meaning is there.

Cassie, on the other hand, is a werewolf, and those are European in origin in-setting for reasons that might be discussed later. There are plenty who have been born in the Americas now, but if Cassie’s centuries old, she probably was not. But Pittsburgh is a city with a strong tradition of immigrants, who moved to the city in large numbers during the steelworking industrial boom. There are numerous neighborhoods which had and to a degree still have a strong ethnic character. There were a handful of particular regions-of-origin that showed up often among those immigrants, too.

Cassie uses that modern nickname exclusively, tries to be modern in her presentation in other ways. But when she stops trying she lapses into other language patterns, which do show up elsewhere to a degree. Her native language was actually a dialect of German, and she moved to the city as part of the systemic migration of immigrant laborers. This is, among other things, why she ends sentences in “yes?” throughout the story. It is another trait that was not chosen idly on my part, no more than her name was. Cassie sounds modern, but it’s a clear derivation of the much older name Cassandra, which showed up across Europe thanks to its prominence in Greek myths.

People usually don’t notice these things. Not really. But using them makes the characters feel more different, and it helps me to keep them distinct in my head, to keep the character’s voice more clear. Even if you don’t know or intend to use the language, looking into its grammar a bit can help a lot with this. It also allows subtle elements to be worked in when other characters try to use language elements drawn from a language they don’t speak. As an example from another culture, in Scandinavian names traditionally only the first name is a personal name. The second is either an inherited patronym (i.e., the person’s father’s name) or a byname which is granted in recognition of a trait or action.

Calling someone just by the byname is improper. It makes no sense. Calling someone Jarl Bloodaxe might seem like it’s formal, using the name someone is granted as a title. But in reality, you would never do this in the source language, and if someone knows how the language works, they don’t. They would say Jarl Erik or Jarl Erik Bloodaxe (n.b., not translating or using a nominative suffix; with Erikr dropping it to Erik is simpler). If someone knows even more and is using even more, they would further shift this, because the title is traditionally appended as a suffix. So the source language would use the phrase Erik jarl, rather than the English order. Which of these three versions of the title someone uses indicates their familiarity and understanding. This kind of thing is very subtle, but it’s something I try to think about.