An Italic Type

So I am considering using italics this time.

The choice seemed straight-forward in The Fox Knows Many Things. Penny's narrative "voice" is youthful and exuberant and I knew I'd be having italics for emphasis occurring frequently. In addition, I made the choice that her only companion through the solo part of her journey is communicating via text messages -- which for this book, I was representing in italics. (A Fox's Wedding has a friend on voice, and for Fox and Hounds the friend is there with her.)

There was also a deeper philosophical reason. And, it turns out, it is something that is being actively discussed in writing and publishing circles -- particularly with the rise of bilingual authors trying to communicate that "other voices" experience.

Here's a typical example of that discussion. The writer Daniel José Older put it amusingly in a short video where he begins a sentence in English; "So I realized I needed groceries so I stopped by the --" quick cut, now wearing a Havana hat and strumming on a Spanish guitar "-- super mercado --" another quick cut to restore, "-- for rice and beans."

As Daniel puts it, this is not how we experience language. Not, at least, when you are facile enough to be code-switching between them.

But I am straddling the boundary in these books; I am trying to put across not a true bilingual experience, but the tourist experience; starting from unfamiliarity to reaching a point where it seems absolutely natural to say please and thank you in a language other than your own -- to where, as a for-instance, "arigato" stops meaning "the Japanese word for thank you" and just becomes the reflex when you want to thank someone, just like (as happened to me) a short bow.

***

There were additional technical questions. In The Fox Knows Many Things there wasn't a single language I could identify and separate out. There were bits of Greek, German, French, Latin, Italian...and Fake Italian. But also, with the exception of opera lyrics (which are sort of a thing of themselves) there weren't a lot of full sentences appearing. Just a word or two, and almost always in a context that let you figure them out.

The experience of A Fox's Wedding is different. This is the book where language feels like a barrier to Penny. It is even more than the Germany sequence of "...Knows," Penny being thrown into the deep water of all the conversation around her being unintelligible. And unlike the bits of language she acquires in "...Knows," she is also picking up complete sentences that she can speak -- but not understand a word of.

This idea of unfamiliarity is the main argument. There are two views on what happens when a reader hits a foreign word in the middle of an English sentence, particularly a word they don't know. One is that they will try to read it as if it is English and be thrown. They might try to look it up in a dictionary. They might think the writer has mis-spelled it. Italics functions there to alert the reader; "New and special word; you aren't expected to know this one."

(I still think that reviewer bumped into British slang and idioms when he slapped me with a "lots of typos" comment.)

The other argument is that the italics themselves are the stumbling block. Especially if the reader already knows the word, it could throw them out of the text. It is also othering; the main objection bilingual authors have. Italics are like forceps used to carefully isolate this suspect, foreign word so it doesn't get all over the English sentence. And then there is the tradition of italics for emphasis; is the man saying he is going to the banhof, or is that supposed to be read he is going to the BANHOF?

And of course; Science Fiction has rarely felt the need to italicize unfamiliar terms. Fantasy, however, often does -- but usually when they are understood as arising in a language other than English. 

***

And I have technical issues with applying italics here. Penny is learning the language, and she is not always getting it right. Similarly, her friend Aki is an American weaboo, using the fanboy Japanese an English-speaker. Italicizing everything they say is putting an unearned stamp of authenticity on it; "It must be real Japanese, because it is in italics!"

For that mater, Penny pretends to speak Russian at one point. Should that be in italics? Is the rule "We aren't expected to understand it" or "this isn't English" or is it "this is a specific other language?"

And then there's honorifics! If I italicize through the book, we end up with things like, "Arigato, Samantha-san. I will tell Richard-san to wait for us by the itzakaya on Nakamura-dori."

Talk about the reader stumbling! Fortunately, as far as honorifics, I have some justification for simply having honorifics (and name order) follow the rules of the language most of the conversation is taking place in. So it is “Kochira wa Yamada Jiro-sensei,“ but "This is Professor Jiro Yamada."

And what about terms? Do I have to make a word by word choice if a word is considered naturalized in English and wouldn't normally be italicized? Should Penny say, "Enough samurai history lesson, let's get some sushi?" This seems awkward. But where is the cut-off? "That ninja attacked me with tekko-kagi and a ninja katana." Weird.

And then there’s wasai-eigo, but I have a character making the point that English words appearing in a Japanese context are to be thought of as Japanese. They aren’t there to be understood by English speakers, they are functional elements of modern Japanese. 

Still, that’s a rule that easier to apply to “apato” (originally, “apartment”) than to “Happy Science.” The latter is intended to be recognized as Japanese. Perhaps the guideline there should be — if it occurred in a sentence written in Japanese, such as in a manga, would it appear in kana or in romaji? Trouble is, I'm not writing in Japanese characters. So does someone shout out, "Sugoi, senpai, supa kawaii sungurasu?"

The MLA says that you can introduce an unfamiliar word in italics then revert to normal case after that. I can't do this slavishly -- it creates too many awkward sentences -- but I can use that as a general rule; keep words in italics when they are largely unfamiliar, and drop them to normal case when they are domesticated. 

Aki's weaboo can be a special case; since weaboo is annoying to most people as it is a self-conscious and superficial insertion of random Japanese words into otherwise functional English sentences, italicizing all the Japanese makes sense. But immediately I run into a snag; Aki calls Ichiro a "bishie boy." That's fanspeak; the actual Japanese is "biishonen." So it is an unfamiliar word, even a term of art, but it isn't Japanese.

And even "Arigatou" is borderline. Penny knows what it means, but she's never used it in conversation. In addition -- she is (subtly) getting it wrong. Aside from being a gaijin (an important qualifier!) she should be saying "Arigatou gozaimasu." Just as she insists on saying "ganbatte!" when that's the wrong verb form to be using on herself (it should be "ganbaru"; "you should do your best" versus "I will do my best.")

And when we are talking about the use of italics as alienation, as a sign of "this is something you aren't expected to understand," the first big language challenge for Penny is when some very official men start shouting, “Ashina Fokusu-san,” in her direction. Italics further obscures what she eventually realizes; this is her own name!

***

So I went and put the italics in several chapters to see what it looks like. In some places, it does seem to make the text clearer. In other places, though, it looks a little awkward on the page. The Akihabara sequence is one of the worst, where new words and slang terms are being introduced rapid-fire in the middle of an English conversation. 

A much earlier scene, those terms were being introduced with quotes around them and defined immediately:

"Deacon believes strongly in the old values of ’Shūshin Koyō,’ lifetime employment."

So I'm comfortable in letting the quotes do the work here. And in an earlier scene, the words are names of objects being described in the sentence in which they occur:

The weapons and tools exhibit was fun. Ninja-to, the straight ninja sword. Tekko-kagi, the nasty looking hand claws and Ashiko, iron climbing cleats.

So that, too, is fine; I don't need to drop italics into it to make it clear that these words are not intended to be read as mis-spelled English.

It is the Akiba sequence where things fall apart a bit. First there are tough choices, as in:

Ikebukuro sounded interesting, though, with the Otome-dori — maiden road? — where all the female otaku shopped for BL and ikemen goodies.

There, Ikebukuro is a place name but Otome-dori is not the actual name and is supposed to be interpreted as a meaningful phrase. Otaku has been defined long enough to be normalized in the English of the main text, BL is an otaku term but it stands for English words (Boys Love) and, of course, ikemen is unknown and furthermore is never defined or brought up again.

So, basically, it has to be done pretty much on a case-by-case basis.