Every time I write a piece in English that has to do with Kerala, my place of origin, I feel compelled to incorporate words from Malayalam, my native language, because it grounds my work in its setting and personalizes it. For instance, I often replace the word “rose” with its Malayalam equivalent “rosapoo” because I used the latter to conceptualize a rose as a child, often hearing my grandmother say the word.

According to MLA guidelines, I would have to italicize rosapoo because it has not been naturalized into English. Doing so indicates that the word is foreign, preventing a reader from tripping on or misinterpreting it. The practice, however, carries implications that encompass a deep-rooted power dynamic and the exoticization of culture. There is no question that italicizing words has an othering effect, since the entire point of doing so is to signal that one of these things is unlike the others. But an italicized word in a sea of English indicates that English is the standard. It also appears to suggest to readers that anything that is not in English is not important enough for us to consider as having any meaning or relevance in its own right.

The practice of italicization is often motivated by a desire to aestheticize one’s writing, but this artificial attractiveness works differently for different languages. For instance, French words and phrases, when italicized in works written primarily in English, often indicate class difference. In the American play “A Streetcar Named Desire”, a character switches from English to French when she wants to present herself as sophisticated and a member of the elite. Arabic, on the other hand, is often used to flavor English writing, allowing it to appear exotic to the average native English speaker — an effect amplified by italicization. The Arabic word Maktub is treated in this manner in the English translation of The Alchemist. The word is italicized each time it appears making it stands out from the rest of the text at first glance. This exacerbates how it is described as mysterious in the book simply by virtue of being Arabic. Here, the act of italicization feeds into the stereotypical, romantic representation of the Arab world embodied by the book’s colonialist attitude.

Though different languages are othered differently, all examples of italicization in English texts reduce cultures, people and history to mere decoration.

If you choose to italicize non-English words when you write in English, consider what that will put across to your audience. Consider the sociopolitical relationships between English and other languages over centuries past and recognize you may be writing from a place of privilege. Ultimately, our work ought to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve, not seek to reinforce a hierarchy. Not italicizing words is a good first step in putting all words with their own unique and complex histories on equal footing.