If you are familiar with languages other than English, you may want or need to include words, phrases, or whole passages in another language. When you do so, consider whether your readers will understand that language and whether you need to provide a translation, as in this example from John (Fire) Lame Deer’s “Talking to the Owls and Butterflies”:

Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it.

Woniya waken—the holy air—which renews all by its breath.

Woniya, woniya waken—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that.

In this instance, translation is necessary because the phrase that Lame Deer is discussing has multiple meanings in English. (Also see Using other languages.)