Researching Language For Historical Fiction

[Carol Rose]

I came across this today in my RWA (Romance Writers of America) newsfeed. You need to be an RWA member to access the link to the article, but in it she talks about using computational linguistics when researching historical fiction.

Here are the sites she references in the article:

https://books.google.com/ngrams

The Google Ngram Viewer can help you track a word or phrase’s frequency over time. Knowing when particular slang was popular can help your dialogue and prose sound authentic. Slang often appeared in print years after people used it in speech.

https://books.google.com

Google Ngram Viewer uses text from Google Books. If you want to check out a phrase in context, you can search for it in Google Books. Click the Search Tools button on the right. There’s a drop-down menu under “Any time,” which lets you limit the results to a custom time range. This feature will give you options to use for slang from the time period in which you're writing.

http://www.etymonline.com

If you want to dig deeper and research the origins of a word or phrase, this site will help.

 

[Jason Byrne]

HOLY CRAP YES. This feeds my desire for ridiculous levels of historical accuracy.

Did you know "shazam" came into use about 1940?

Except for one thing — a delightful work that didn't come into use until the 1670's which I refuse to part with despite being set in the 1100's.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

HOLY CRAP YES. This feeds my desire for ridiculous levels of historical accuracy.

Did you know "shazam" came into use about 1940?

Except for one thing — a delightful work that didn't come into use until the 1670's which I refuse to part with despite being set in the 1100's.

You know, I heard somewhere that Pokemon was used in like the 1800s... excuse me, I have to go look that up.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

You know, I heard somewhere that Pokemon was used in like the 1800s... excuse me, I have to go look that up.

Just kidding. 1940s BUT that's still super cool.
.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Just kidding. 1940s BUT that's still super cool.
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[Jennifer Stone]

You know, I heard somewhere that Pokemon was used in like the 1800s... excuse me, I have to go look that up.

I've heard Nintendo was around in the 19th century, as a card game of some sort. Though don't quote me on this

 

[Jason Byrne]

I've heard Nintendo was around in the 19th century, as a card game of some sort. Though don't quote me on this

Yup!