My biggest problem in my book is character speech and sounds. It is primarily a travel book that focuses on several areas in the world such as India, Nepal, Malaysia etc etc. What I'm struggling to do is recreate the way people from these cultures spoke to the main character in their own pronunciation of English. I have no problem finding the required words when they speak in their own language but when they speak to the character in broken English I want it to be convincing. I am having particular problems with the area of Kashmir. I have actually emailed Kashmiri linguistic websites to gain some insight but thus far no response. I have in large parts done a Hemmingway and limited the conversation but this is not enough. Any suggestions....?
From Wayne Shaw. A number of years ago I spent time travelling through most of the countries from England through to Nepal taking in some of Europe, Pakistan,Turkey,Iran and India and Kashmir I. have also made a couple of trips to Israel as well as travelling widely in Britain,Scotland and Eire. Sometimes one needs an ear for those various accents.Recording these in your travels would have been handy with the purpose of your writing in mind. Depending on where you are livng at present -Britain?( France? Belgium?) basing this from your name ? However this might not apply. there are some aspects of India/English that seems to be prevalent e.g. The tendency to speak in the present i.e. in asking a question - 'Tell me. what is that you are wanting?'
'I am wanting the name of your brother.'
'Why are you wanting the name of my brother. Is their being some trouble?'
I would not like to be telling you,but is important. You see, it is that I am being told that he is having the possibility of winning a very grand prize in the DNL.
'My goodness! and what Is a DNL?
'It is being called the Delhi National Lottery.'
'Well then, you should have been telling me this from the beginning. So I am telling you now, his name is Geeta Patel. 'Geeta!
'But that is being a girls name is it not?
'My mother was wanting to have a girl and my younger brother was being named before he arrived but because he was being a boy my mother was keeping the name she was deciding on'.
'Ah cha! That is being a funny story. Tell me, Mister Patel, at what address would I be finding yor brother?'
'You would be finding him at 246 Imperial Road, New Delhi, and he is having a Hardware Store and it is being on the corner of Imperial Road and Colony Drive, You will not be finding his store with Geeta Patel, but with Ghandi Patel, He having to be changing his name when he was becoming near to being a man.'
'I am liking to be thanking you for the information about your brother, and I would be liking to be giving him the news about the DNL. I would be likng to say good bye to you.' 'Goodbye,and I would be hoping you are not having any trouble to finding my brother.'
Although these words are spoken from the back of the mouth not as a gutteral sound but a much softer sound from back of the throat. In Kasmir they would have a similar presencebut a little harder due to the influence of Muslim Arabic in the region and,of course, other language influences on Kashmirian culture.
As I have said I do not know where you are living at present. But if you might find it useful I could try and help in any way with your problem. This could be on a personal level with a visit but without taking away your right to be telling the story as you have in mind. If you think this might be helpful, or not, as you think. [email protected] Living in Herfordshire presently.
I think the answers here regarding the grammatical errors are pretty much on the mark. I live in Holland and it is quite common to hear English spoken with this jumbled syntax.
I was trying to think of some books I have read where the authors write English with accents.
James Kelman is excellent in getting the Glaswegian accent on to paper - you can really hear it on the page.
William Faulkner was also a genius with American dialect.
Perhaps worth a read?
I liked Kelman's "You have to be careful in the land off the free" and Faulkner's "The Reivers" or "As I Lay Dying"
Good idea Anthony, thank you. I didn't even think about that - I'm so short sighted. The trouble is that the main guy I'm writing about was this heroin dealer I accidentally found myself living with and he was nasty piece of work. I'm not kidding but he actually locked me up for several weeks because he thought I was a spy and that was just part of what he did. That is why it is so important to get his language right, the way he pronunciates his words, the drawl of the man.
Writing dialect for Scottish characters is great. You know when Trainspotting came out one quality everyone spoke about was the way Welsh wrote down the dialect. It is like marmite though. You either love it or hate it. It takes me a couple of pages to get into the sounds but my brother on the other hand finds it irritating.
Thanks for the comments. I will look up the book - Cloud Atlas. i must admit I'm not a fan of writing a book full of characters talking whether they do it in a foreign tongue or not. I like Hemmingway short stories for that exact reason although there was this play I studied at university by Carol Churchill called...Damn it was that good I can't remember the name!! But anyway it involved a dinner scene with about twenty characters interacting with each other and the way she wrote it was incredible. So damn good I can't remember the title. Oh well it was ten years ago.