It
is a trivial question, and most readers probably don’t care one way or
the other, but if presented to a group of publishers, it could spark a
debate that could rage for weeks and still not conclude.The trivial question being considered now: is italicising non-English words (in an English text) like apologising?
Apologising for what? ‘Sorry, you don’t understand this word, it’s not in English. Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh …’
Or, ‘we’re so sorry for italicising this word, please accept our humble apologies, we really tried to find an English equivalent, we did, really, but we couldn’t find one, so please forgive us’
Or, ‘if you're Malaysian, or if you’ve been in the country long enough you should know this word. So we’re not going to italicise it for you, you moron!’
(The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) will be used as a yardstick for the following.)
In reality, the publisher (and the editor) is always in dilemma. Decades ago, books from England would have French and Latin phrases which were usually italicised – meaning, it you don’t understand this, it’s all right. Nowadays, one finds them more commonly in the non-italicised form. There was a book I read recently that did just that, and I thought, “You arrogant pompous, elitist jerk, I’m paying good money for this book, and you dare do this to me?”
More recently, many common Hindi words have started appearing without italics, especially in speech. “What yaar?” most readers will understand quite easily. Also, it’s in the OED. So also, would be words like “Wassalamualaikum” and “Insya’Allah”, etc, because they are quite common. (The second is in the OED, but not the first.) But what do you say when you see something like this: “Apna naseeb kabhi kisi ko mat becho?” Is the author saying, “If you can’t understand this, don’t read my book?” Well, give us more of that and we won’t! We won't buy it either.
So, the publisher treads a delicate path between arrogance and condescension.
Rambutan and durian wouldn’t need italics; these are words found in the OED. They are fruits and as long as it’s clear in the text, most readers will accept it. One writer translated ‘bachang’ as horse mango. Would anyone in Malaysia understand what horse mango is? Would anyone in the world? We’d leave it as bachang, but explain that it’s a fruit somehow. Would we italicise it? We’d probably not, although it’s not in the OED.
But, we will italicise terms like nasi lemak, and assam laksa; they are not in the OED. Also, it would be nice to tell our non-Malaysian readers not to sweat over it. Kampong is the normal spelling in English, and kampung in Malay, but both forms are found in the OED. So, no italics.
If our readers are all Malaysian, we think there is no need for italics at all. But if we are publishing to reach out to an international audience, then italics should not do too much harm. On the contrary, it might be helpful for the reader to know that he or she is looking at a foreign word, and that he or she may get past them with only a vague idea of what they mean, by putting squiggles on them.
To reiterate, most readers don’t care, as long they understand what the author is trying to say. One feels publishers and editors tend to over think this too much. They should pay attention to what’s important: the story and the flow.
I was at a mamak shop last week, and I asked him, “Tamil magazine iruka?” Although two out of three words in the sentence are English, the shopkeeper immediately knew from my speech pattern that I was speaking Tamil, and he replied likewise. Should that be written in prose as, “Tamil magazine iruka?” or, “Tamil magazine iruka?” Would a non-Tamil speaker understand?
Silverfish will continue to italicise some non-English words that are not found in the OED. And we’d do that without apology.
