42 - A book that features two languages

[L Y N N]

I'm thinking Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley would work for this. Popsugar listed Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. (Yeah, Goodreads wouldn't pull the title...again!)

Listopia is here

[poshpenny]

I have these marked "bilingual" so I assume they will work

Russian
The Apollo Murders

Vietnamese
The Best We Could Do
A Pho Love Story

Spanish
Mañanaland
Never Look Back
Taína

[Brandon]

"Features" is a term that allows some flexibility. If you are not already on the Tolkien train, try The Lord of the Rings, which features some Elvish.

[Alyssa]

Brandon wrote: ""Features" is a term that allows some flexibility. If you are not already on the Tolkien train, try The Lord of the Rings, which features some Elvish."
That's a great idea as I was really racking my brain trying to figure out how I'm going to learn a new language by next year lol

[Alex]

If made up languages are fine, A Memory Called Empire would be great for this.

[Charlsa]

Brandon wrote: ""Features" is a term that allows some flexibility. If you are not already on the Tolkien train, try The Lord of the Rings, which features some Elvish."

Ugh, I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy this year. It would have been perfect for this prompt.

[Charlsa]

The Cork O'Connor series by William Kent Kruger has snippets of the Chippewa language in it as the main character is part Chippewa and the stories always weave in Chippewa characters, language, customers, traditions, etc. The first book in the series is Iron Lake.

One of my all-time favorite books, Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers takes place on a university campus in England. It has several sections of Latin. The conclusion to the Wimsey-Vane series, Busman's Honeymoon brings Harriet and Lord Peter's romance to fruition with their honeymoon. Therefore, this book has less Latin and more French.

It's been a while since I've read Gaudy Night, so I might re-read it for about the 20th time.

[Lilith]

Loving this prompt too!

I've been reading a lot of books featuring Mi'kmaw or Inuktitut lately. Two of my recent favorites have been:

What the Chickadee Knows. Half in English, half in Anihinaabemowin. If you like Mary Oliver, you will love Margaret Noodin. Noodin even explains how to pronounce Anishinaabemowin. Definitely a gifted writer - she brought the same subtle rhythms to the same poem, in Anishinaabemowin and English.

Hyperboreal is part in Inuktitut, part in English. Joan Naviyuk Kane is a multi-award-winning poet. I don't think she is quite as accessible to non-Indigenous readers as Margaret Noodin, but it's worth trying - her work is gorgeous.

The authors below tend to feature Mi'kmaw or Anishinaabemowin plus English in their books.
Rita Joe
Joseph Bruchac
Loretta Gould

[Theresa]

Villette by Charlotte Brontë has a lot of untranslated French. Make sure the edition read has it all translated in footnotes.

The Best We Could Do is a superb graphic novel but I don't remember any language but English. Will look at my copy.

[Sarah]

I believe, and it’s been awhile since I’ve read it, but a couple of Cormac McCarthy’s books have some Spanish in them. Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses I think.

Too Like the Lightning is a book that denotes people speaking in different languages all translated to English with different types of quotation marks. It also features Latin in some places.

[LeahS]

Thomas Hardy often uses Greek quotations in his books

[Sarah]

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala contains English and Tagalog. This was a past Book Of The Month selection from 2021 and is still available as an add on.

[Nadine in NY]

Theresa wrote: "Villette by Charlotte Brontë has a lot of untranslated French. Make sure the edition read has it all translated in footnotes.
..."


Ugh I forgot about ALL THAT FRENCH!! I did not have a copy with a translation, so ... I just zoned out during all that.

[Nadine in NY]

Listen, Slowly & Butterfly Yellow both have a lot of Vietnamese. In each case, there is a character who does not understand all of it, so the translations are naturally part of the dialogue. (Audiobook is good.) So I might look for another book by Thanhha Lai, since I really enjoyed those two.

A Pho Love Story also had some Vietnamese, but this time all of the characters understood it, which meant the reader had to figure it out from context, and I wasn't always successful. Cute book though!

[Shannon]

Knitting the Fog by Claudia D. Hernandez

[Conny]

The Expanse series and the Song of Ice and Fire series both feature fictitious languages.

I would also argue that Outlander, with its frequent occurrences of Gaelic, would work. I'll actually be using the latest installment for this prompt.

[Tanu]

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows would qualify.

[Debbie]

Children of Blood and Bone and its sequel Children of Virtue and Vengeance have a lot of Nigerian words woven into the language as if they are common words everyone knows. The audio books for both are amazing - since I don't speak Nigerian - and help make the hefty tomes go by very quickly!

[Ashley Marie]

The Green Bone Saga works for this, especially Jade War and I suspect Jade Legacy. The characters speak multiple languages.

[Jacqie]

Lobizona by Romina Garber has quite a bit of Spanish in it. I'm going to read He Mele No Lilo by Ryka Aoki, which has has a lot of Hawai'ian language in it.

[CrystalIsReading on StoryGraph]

The Book of Rosy: A Mother's Story of Separation at the Border opens with the narrator explaning how different her Spanish name sounds on the lips of a Guatemalan loved one vs an American ICE guard, so I'm hoping the book will work for this. if not, Arsenic and Adobo is on my TBR too.

[Dixie]

I just ran across this article: https://www.tor.com/2021/12/06/from-p...

[Angie]

I have Fiebre Tropical by Juliana Delgado Lopera on my TBR and it seems to blend Spanish and English throughout.

It would also work for:
5. A sapphic book
6. A book by a Latinx author

[Marguerite]

Recipes for love and murder by Sally Andrew is set in South Africa and has some Afrikaans in it. It is a wonderful book and even includes recipes of the dishes mentioned at the back of the book.

[Norrie]

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides has some Greek quotes in it, if that counts.

[Sarah]

I kind of want to make sure that whatever I choose features both languages very prominently (not just in incidental dialogue), but it's hard when you're only fully fluent in one language. I did get pretty far in high school Spanish, though, so I think I might find a bilingual poetry book for this!

[Dani]

I noticed Outlander was on the list. Has anyone read the second book in the series recently enough to let me know if there are two languages in it? Thanks 😊

[Jackie]

Dani wrote: "I noticed Outlander was on the list. Has anyone read the second book in the series recently enough to let me know if there are two languages in it? Thanks 😊"

I would say so. There's a lot of Scottish Gaelic in all the books, mostly the early ones.

[Milena]

If anyone is up for the challenge, War and Peace has tons of French, like entire multi-page letters.

[Denise]

If you want a Canadian book with some french, there's Lullabies for Little Criminals.

I'm going to read Villette

[Darci]

Sarah wrote: "I kind of want to make sure that whatever I choose features both languages very prominently (not just in incidental dialogue), but it's hard when you're only fully fluent in one language. I did get..."

Burnt Sugar Cana Quemada: Contemporary Cuban Poetry in English and Spanish is on my TBR.

[Rebecca]

Many Agatha Christie Poirot books feature some French since Poirot is Belgian. It is conversational and minimal though, but could arguably work for this prompt.

[Dana]

Possibilities:

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

[Joshua]

Due to it being a translated work, with a glossary on what certain Chinese words mean and for some reason, my copy of Outlander is absolutely destroyed, I'm going to be using Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi (Novel) Vol. 1. This category was the first one to come up on my wheel so I'm picking something for it.

[Saraf]

I think I will go with A Paris Library as it is already in my tbr.

[Alison]

I just finished In Every Mirror She's Black by Lola Akinmade Akerstrom yesterday. It has a lot of Swedish in it if anyone's looking for a literary fiction type read.

[Nadine in NY]

Alison wrote: "I just finished In Every Mirror She's Black by Lola Akinmade Akerstrom yesterday. It has a lot of Swedish in it if anyone's looking for a literary fiction type read."


Oh good to know!! I had wanted to read that book, now I have a reason!

[Bouchra]

For this prompt, I was going to go with a Hercule Poirot, because I've been meaning to finish reading that series, but I was pleasantly surprised when my first read of the year - which I was reading for another challenge - also had other languages in it.

The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write is a collection of short works - stories, plays, essays, and poetry - in which other languages feature. Arabic features a lot mainly, but there's a peppering of Urdu and French too in a couple of the works. I'm going to count it as fulfilling this prompt as well.

[Rachel]

I'm leaning toward Isn't It Bromantic? since it was mentioned on the Listopia, and I've been meaning to continue this series. I didn't really notice any other language used in the preview I've seen, but I'd imagine there's some Russian scattered through it.

As a bit of a sidenote, does anyone know of any books other than LOTR or Harry Potter which contains a fictional language? I need that for another challenge and I'm struggling!

[Pooja]

Rachel wrote: "I'm leaning toward Isn't It Bromantic? since it was mentioned on the Listopia, and I've been meaning to continue this series. I didn't really notice any other language used in the p..."

The Eragon books have a lot of fictional language used.

[Kaia]

Dixie wrote: "I just ran across this article: https://www.tor.com/2021/12/06/from-p......"

Thank you for that link. Native Tongue is on my TBR, so I'm going to use it for this prompt.

[Nadine in NY]

Rachel wrote: "As a bit of a sidenote, does anyone know of any books other than LOTR or Harry Potter which contains a fictional language? I need that for another challenge and I'm struggling!..."


That tor article that Dixie posted lists several!

https://www.tor.com/2021/12/06/from-p...


There is also an alien language in Mieville's Embassytown - I listened to the audiobook, so I'm not sure how this language is written, because it's spoken by two individuals at once.

Moon's Remnant Population involves aliens who speak another language, but I can't remember if their language is written in the book or just implied.

And from a non-sci-fi perspective, Hong's Dance Dance Revolution features a made-up language in poems. She's combined English, Korean, and Spanish with a few other languages to make a patois. It's not an easy read. This was the book I read for the 2020 category "book with a made-up language."

Check that Listopia we made in 2020 for more ideas:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

[Theresa]

Tanvi wrote: "Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows would qualify."

Excellent choice!

[Pat]

does the book I am Malala have more then one language in it?

[Jessica]

I really wanted to use an Indigenous Australian book for this, so I’m about to start Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss. Another great option would be The Yield by Tara June Winch, which I read last year and really enjoyed.

[El]

The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera

[Heather]

I'm reading I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter right now and there's a lot of Spanglish.

[Corrie]

Nadine in NY wrote: "Rachel wrote: "As a bit of a sidenote, does anyone know of any books other than LOTR or Harry Potter which contains a fictional language? I need that for another challenge and I'm struggling!..."

..."

I feel like a lot of fantasy books create at least a little of languages - thinking of Martin's Game of Thrones series, the Endling series by Applegate, Tamora Pierce's many worlds, etc

[Ron]

A friend recently gave me a copy of the Rio Grande Review which is a bilingual journal of contemporary literature and art. It's got a lot of Spanish-translated stories in it so I'll be going with this one.

[poshpenny]

The Fortune Men is a novelization of a true story and liberally uses several languages other than English. mostly Somali and Arabic I assume. I think there is also some Welsh, Yiddish, German and Hindi?

Big kudos to the narrator for doing all the languages and accents!