Why I use italics in the Iamos Trilogy
There’s been some discourse on social media about the use of italics for non-English words when writing fiction. If you’ve read the Iamos Trilogy, you’ll know that I use italics for non-English words and phrases, primarily words in the Iamoi language. So I wanted to address the subject in a bit longer form than what social media allows for.
The primary argument against italicizing non-English words is that italicizing centers English as the “default” language and white western culture as the “default” culture. Obviously I’m not about that, and if you’ve read the series you’ll know that. However, I would like to explain an alternative reason for the use of italics, which is the reason I chose to use italics and why I intend to continue to use them in my writing.
One of my good friends and early readers of my books is non-white and learned English as a second language. When I was still in the drafting process, I asked her if she thought I should italicize the non-English words, particularly the Iamoi words, or if that would be italics-overload. She provided a perspective I hadn’t considered before. She said that when she was learning to read English, and even now, as a fluent English speaker, she found italics helpful because they’re a visual cue to a reader who may not be perfectly fluent in English that this is a word in another language, not just an English word that they don’t know. This provides helpful context for her as she’s reading and makes it easier for her to understand and parse what she’s reading more quickly.
On her advice, I opted to use italics. In the years since then, I have also received feedback from readers who have difficulty reading in print because of disabilities, as well as younger readers who are still acquiring their reading skills, that this visual cue is helpful to them for the same reason. It instantly flags in their brains that they need to be expecting a non-English word here, be it one in a real Earth language or one that’s a made-up language like Iamoi. It’s not a centering of English as “default” in any way other than that the book is written in English. It’s also not a reflection of the real-world way that multilingual people speak or use language, and it’s not supposed to be. It’s meant as a visual cue, as a crutch to the reader, and one that’s a critical crutch for a lot of peopleβparticularly multilingual people who areΒ learning to read English and trying to build their own literacy skills by reading fun fiction.
As an author of books for young readers and an author who wants my books to be accessible not only to English learners, but to any kid who may have trouble reading, or who doesn’t like reading but is trying to find a way to like it, or for any other reason may need that little extra assist when it comes to the written word, their ease of reading is my top priority. Because I have received feedback from multiple sources that italics is effective for that, I’m sticking with it.