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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/26870
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I am producing a comic in which a fictional language is frequently spoken.

This language (and which characters are able to speak it) is significant to the plot, so it's important that the reader knows when it (rather than English) is being spoken.

It's likely, though, that there will be scenes spoken entirely in this language, and since I obviously want these scenes to be understood by the reader, too, I'm not completely sure how I should handle this.

My question is, should I should fully translate the language in these cases (such that the "original" language is lost), as is the norm in written fiction?

My gut reaction is _no_, that the original form of language should be depicted alongside the translations in some way, so as to emphasise its significance and make clear which language is being used, but I'm finding it hard to justify this to myself.

I suppose one argument is that comics don't have "viewpoint characters" in the same way that written fiction does, but I don't know how well this holds up to scrutiny. It's certainly very common for comics to present events through a particular character's perception. For example, if the protagonist is hallucinating, a lot of comics will show the hallucination rather than the reality.

Presumably there must be a precedent for this sort of thing, but I don't remember ever reading a comic which featured a fictional (or even foreign) language in this way.

Original score: 12