Dialects

So I know this has been brought up before, but what is the deal with us Americans and making the Elegant Other into British people?  Just a few minutes ago we finished watching Thor.  That has figures from Norse mythology speaking with vaguely British accents.  Prince of Persia had white actors using those accents as Ancient Middle Easterners.

With Thor, you can't really blame the movie for this trend.  From what I've seen of the comics, they talk with archaic English language.  So the movie just kinda went with that.  Really toned down in comparison, actually.

Maybe this is part of a larger problem that writers have to address when they are telling stories involving other cultures.  In many stories, people who don't speak English are commonly "translated" into English when they're speaking.  Some high fantasy authors invent languages to increase the mystique of these other cultures.  And in many, many cases, people have differing dialects that often break the rules which are in place for the rest of the narrative.

Like in Huckleberry Finn.

So I guess there's probably a right and a wrong way to do this, but people tend not to agree on the subject.  For example, I find that you have to be really careful writing dialectic dialogue, because you can make characters unintelligible or waste valuable time creating a flavor that isn't necessary to the story.  But if one of your characters is from Jace and another is from Leyn, and the people from Jace live lives ordered around trade, the way the Jakind talks should probably reflect that way of life whereas the more agrarian Leynon would have entirely different turns of phrase to get his point across.  That was a more obscure reference (in that unless you're one of two or three people you'll have no idea what I'm talking about) so let's speak a language a few more people might follow along with:

Like bilgesnipe, a well-used analogy in Avengers (though not necessarily on the part of the character using the analogy).  They're beasts who don't exist on Earth so don't have a name, but they're a common, repulsive trouble on Asgard, so Thor naturally thinks to use them in an analogy, but the analogy itself almost falls apart until the God of Thunder is able to recover the substance of his intent:  that Asgardian behavior on Earth has been unpleasant in the past.

Also from the Avengers, there's Captain America's elation at understanding the reference to Flying Monkeys as opposed to every other reference the characters were making.  Part of the shades of the character dynamics in that movie is the kind of language the characters speak (and the personhood behind that language).  Because Bruce and Tony are able to speak Tech with each other, they can connect over that—but the love of simplicity and the way that comes out in your attitude (and the way you speak) forms camaraderie between Bruce and Captain Rogers.  Then you have Black Widow, who knows exactly what sorts of things to say (both with her mouth and with the rest of her face) to get the information she requires.  Her interrogation technique is all about lines of communication.  And when she talks about her personal interest in the events of the movie, she does so in economic terms, which is both an efficient way to remove herself from her emotional connections and a strong metaphor for the kind of debt she feels she owes.

There's a reason I liked the Avengers a lot.  As I've said before, it wasn't just the pretty effects.

I think I've gone on long enough for tonight.  Go get some sleep.  Unless you're reading this tomorrow, in which case you don't necessarily have to.

-shrugs-