Dearest Squad,
Back when I started this book, I didn’t know any Korean, Portuguese, German, Croatian, or Arabic, and I knew way less Mandarin. I hadn’t yet been to Asia or Africa.
My primary language is English. Technically, it’s still the only language I’m fluent in. I studied Spanish in high school until they ran out of classes, and then I took French. I did so well that I tested out of both of them in college. I started learning Greek when I was a kid in Vermont right around the same time my mom did…but we moved to South Carolina right after I turned 6 and there wasn’t a Greek community to be part of anymore.
All of that gets rusty if you don’t use it. Kind of like all the Calculus I’ve forgotten (sorry, Mr. Oberly).
But my family has always loved languages—my father especially. He tries to learn a little something in as many languages as he can. We drop a lot of different languages in the course of our everyday conversation.
The first time Chris said “Grazi” to me while we were storm chasing, I answered “Prego,” and she immediately felt like family. Every so often, on some dirt road in the middle of Kansas, the Canadians will bust out the French. It’s all wonderful.
There’s a lot of gatekeeping right now in the publishing community about what kind of person is allowed to tell what kind of story, and in what language, and how. Even the formatting within stories has changed since I started writing—we don’t italicize non-English words anymore (which I’m totally here for).
But I still hate—HATE—any sort of “standard” romanization of foreign languages with a non-standard alphabet.
For instance, “thank you” in Greek is…a four syllable word most people can’t pronounce. It’s got one of those hacking Hs in it, and trying to explain the different between tō and “tow” is nigh impossible (especially if you are in the southern US).
I LOVE when anyone tries to attempt a new language. They should! I encourage everyone! But the first time a girl said “eff-ha-REE-stow” to me after a Dark-Hunter panel, I looked at her like she had three heads because I had no idea what she was trying to say. It took me a second to figure out that efharisto is how the word is normally spelled in American books. She was just saying what she read.
In the books I have with a smaller publishing house that defers to my personal preference, I spell the word efkadisto, because it looks more like how it sounds to me. “Eff-HA-dee-STŌ”, with one of those hacking Hs.
The day some copyeditor changed my spelling of adelfos to adelphos made me want to punch something.
I mean, MY NAME IS LIKE THIS. You want to know who gets “Alethea” wrong 95% of the time? White people from the US. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to spell my name phonetically. Um…look, it’s not my fault that the Es in my name are pronounced like Es. Greeks have FIVE Es. If it was spelled Alithia people would be closer to getting it right. (When the US Greeks spell it Alethia, I’m not mad about it.) But hell, it takes me forever just to convince people that my name has four syllables.
SO THIS IS WHY, if you see my name on social media, it’s now also spelled in Korean. Because Koreans understand syllables. And really, I’m tired.
But I still love languages. I loved going to Egypt and South Korea and speaking ANYTHING. And I had so much fun doing it, even with what little I knew! As Thursday travels the world, I realized it would be kind of dumb for everyone to speak “common Arilland.” I mean, sure…most of the world does speak English at this point, but I wanted to have at least one scene in this book where another language got to play a part. So I’m really glad I had the opportunity to do that with Sam.
Plus, you know, he’s family.
xox
Princess Alethea
✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨
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