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Friday, 28 August 2015
"Word Hoard" - the struggle for dialogue authenticity
Today my piece on dialogue authenticity, where I talk about words derived from Old English (with the help of Jim Sinclair, an OE expert) is on the EHFA blog and can be found here: English Historical Fiction Authors
Please pop over and have a read!
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Readers please do! It's a fantastic piece, both informative and amusing. Thanks for sharing it, Annie.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Linda! - so glad you enjoyed it
DeleteI strive for a slighty archaic tone in my Saxon novels as well. I have the advantage that English is not my native language, and some of the first books I read were old-fashioned ones like Sir Walter Scott, so that tone comes easily to me. Sometimes I read a bit Tolkien to get back into the Saxon mood (then I use 'ere' a lot for which I got scolded in the crit circle that I left for there's no arguing with people who haven't read anything older than Hemmingway).
ReplyDeleteI use a more modern language for my Roman novels, since those would be translations from Latin anyway. Though I make sure to avoid modern concepts like 'adrenaline'. Some of the Roman stuff out there is a bit too modern when it comes to word choices.
Wonderful, as always, Gabriele, to have your thoughts. It is difficult to achieve the correct balance, but as you say, modern concepts must always be avoided!
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