Though the bulk of my novel takes place in the modern day, maybe a quarter of it is flashbacks taking place at various moments in history over the last two thousand years. In a lot of those instances the characters aren't speaking English, though of course Latin, Greek, and the like are all translated into English for purposes of the story.
My question is this - obviously there's no real way to truly replicate how people would speak back then and even if I could I'm sure it would be uncomprehensible. So I give the dialogue during that time a modern feel. Of course I'm careful about making sure that inventions or historical events or cities that they mention didn't come into existence like a hundred years later and everything, but in terms of figures of speech or phrasing, how hardcore should I be about this? Do I have a bit of liberty in that people get that it's a book written in 2012 and these characters wouldn't actually be speaking a language we understand anyway so if they, say, "Shut up!" rather than "Be silent!" it's not a big deal? Obviously, I don't go too far and include stuff like "Yo" or "Dude" and whatnot.
My question is this - obviously there's no real way to truly replicate how people would speak back then and even if I could I'm sure it would be uncomprehensible. So I give the dialogue during that time a modern feel. Of course I'm careful about making sure that inventions or historical events or cities that they mention didn't come into existence like a hundred years later and everything, but in terms of figures of speech or phrasing, how hardcore should I be about this? Do I have a bit of liberty in that people get that it's a book written in 2012 and these characters wouldn't actually be speaking a language we understand anyway so if they, say, "Shut up!" rather than "Be silent!" it's not a big deal? Obviously, I don't go too far and include stuff like "Yo" or "Dude" and whatnot.