Shinwa-Tsuki

My thoughts about written accents and dialects are, as I write this, going to be jumbled. To me, there is a difference between dialects and accents when it comes to written dialogue. That difference is big at best, not noticeable at worst, sometimes interchangeable to some, but there.

Accents are used to distinguish where a person is from, someone can tell a difference between an American English accent, a British English accent, a French accent, or a German accent. Articles and advice forums discourage most people from trying to write out an accent - particularly if that accent is seen as derogatory.

Dialects, on the other hand, are different from accents but still part of the character's dialogue. From the articles, and advice, that I've read - people are told to be consistent, and I agree with that - however people are discouraged from using slang, likely for the "foreign language" readers' sake. As slang is a part of someone's dialect, you should not discount using slang - but provide an explanation the first time it's used especially if that slang is part of the worldbuilding and/or not-well-known: contractions could easily be seen as slang.

The problem I find is that when I write a character's dialogue, the accent and dialect that I use is part of it - it helps the reader understand the character, but you should not make the accent or dialect derogatory if you can - unless that character is prone to using derogatory terms.

Half of the problem is that someone wants to write a character who speaks with a country bumpkin dialect, some would outright believe that it's meant to be "heard" (when read) as an Southern American (USA) accent.

Below I will list some examples of dialect choices - using the same question for each:

» "Whatcha doin'?"

» "What ya doin'?"

» "What're ya doin'?"

» "What're you doing?"

» "What are ya doin'?"

» "What are you doing?"

Below I will list some examples of accent choices - as if the native is speaking an English word [from what I understand this is where the problem comes from]:

» grandmozzer - French accent (saying "grandmother")

» vell - German accent (saying "well")

» zey - German accent (saying "they")

» eet - French accent (saying "it")

Below I will talk about examples of dialects and accents in various anime, manga, and books.

The Harry Potter Septology (as I call it the series) by Rowling features both accents (mostly seen with Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum in the Goblet of Fire) and dialects (most seen with Dobby the House-Elf. And slang is used amongst the wizarding world with terms like muggle (among British wizard) or no-maj (in American wizards as in "no mag[ic]", according to Rowling) - both referring to someone without magic, mudblood (a derogatory version of muggleborn), muggleborn, pureblood, halfblood, squib, and other terms. Some of the terms are downright derogatory, others could be seen as derogatory or just insulting.

In the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, or FF7 for short, we get Barret's dialect that is similar to Mr T (whoever that is) and Cait Sith's Scottish accent, yet we also miss out on certain dialect choices that are found in the Japanese version - from my understanding, Aerith had a rougher dialect fitting her childhood in the Slums (which contrasts with her personality and appearance). In FF8, that is Final Fantasy VIII, we get Doctor Odine and Sorceress Ultimecia both have accents in the English version, while the Japanese version indicates that Fuujin was supposed to have an accent - in the Japanese version it would be Witch Ultimecia (not Sorceress).

The Hetalia comics also show accents for the various personifications of the countries around the world. I'm not going to even try listing the various types of accents.

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Added on 2020 June 25:

Furthermore.... Using accents in fantasy settings, such as Tamriel of The Elder Scroll universe, the Lord of the Rings universe, or the worlds of the Final Fantasy franchise, will help with worldbuilding - when these fantasy settings and worlds do not have the real world countries such as France, but a French-like location... After all, you can not say that, oh, someone like the item shop cashier at Costa Del Sol of FF7 has a Spanish accent - when there is no Spain or Mexico in the world of Final Fantasy VII, you could say that they have a Costan accent and write out the accent.

Using words of a particular language will help create the accent for a character, and their dialect as well. You could have, let's say Ling from the country of Xing in Fullmetal Alchemist, use words that could be Chinese or Japanese (or a conlang that is similar to those) in origin in his speech. Other characters that this could work for would be counted as bilingual or multilingual characters, some characters include: Yuffie of FF7 (Wutainese), Cait Sith of FF7 (has a RL Scottish accent), Odine of FF8, Jaree-Ra the Argonian of Skyrim (Black Marsh native?), and there are likely more I don't recall.

Bilingual dialogue examples (meaning of word), not using native script:

» "Xièxiè, we enjoy it greatly." (The word xièxiè is Chinese for "thank you".)

» "Molya, it was nothing." (The word molya is Bulgarian for "you're welcome".)

» "Hai, we leave soon." (The word hai is Japanese for "yes".)

» "Étudiant, we leave soon." (The word étudiant is French for "(male) student".)

» "Amyrti, our guests will arrive soon." (The word amyrti is Arabic for "my princess".)

» "Come now, rhosyn bach, our visitors will soon arrive." (The words rhosyn bach is Welsh for "little rose".)

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If you have any comments, please leave them below.

Edit: minor spelling errors corrected.

Edit - 2020 June 25: Added a reason for written out accents, and corrected some spelling errors.

I want to start writing fan-novelisations of the various games and anime/manga I enjoy... These novelisations will have my own spin on things, no doubt. But I will be listing them here, nonetheless. Be aware that any fanfiction you read is, for all intents, an alternate reality. (No, I don't mean an alternate universe - eventually, I'll get to writing a short essay/article on that....)

The Final Fantasy games, especially from FF1 to FF9.

The most important thing to know for my FF7 novelisation is that I will be changing the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII to have a more cohesive timeline (which means ignoring parts of the Before Crisis games). I plan to use the original game of FF7 for that novelisation, some aspects from the Remake might be worked in - but, who knows.

The Pokémon games, mix in aspects from the anime and the Adventures manga.... This novelisation is what I call "Pokémon Prism". I've created a calendar for my novelisation, that includes a better "zodiac" system, need to dig that out.

What I call the "Celestial Soldiers" universe, this includes both Beautiful Soldier Sailor Moon (or BSSM for short) and the Code Name is Sailor V prequel manga. My BSSM novelisation will be majorly based on the 1990s anime, with the manga as the second source - toss in aspects from the Live-Action TV show and maybe some from Crystal....

Dragon Ballz, as I call that anime series, is another that I hope to write a novel for. (Still need to research the anime and manga version)

Fullmetal Alchemist, particularly the FMA: Brotherhood and parts of the original anime, but this one has a twist. I will call this novelisation "Fullmetal Alchemist: Family".

The Legend of Zelda games is also a potential source for writing novels.

For all of the games, anime, and manga I enjoy - I will also be trying to create a more cohesive universe as well as correcting any spelling mistakes (especially those that are not deliberate on the creators part).

I do hope to get some help for constructing fictional languages (conlang) for some of these.... one of which I want to be a OSV language...

PS: Please inform me of any spelling or grammar errors.

Quick Edit: I will be using a different site for holding most of my research pages... If this site has the ability of changing text colors I might use this site for placing my stories. Also, from here on out I will not be stating what my edits are.