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May. 7th, 2010 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesOkay, I'll level with ya. I was shaped a lot by Star Trek. You can kind of tell from my aliens, though part of that is that in a visual medium, not having to think about facial expressions too hard helps.
So, anyway, I was writing my comic and came up with the issue of languages. Trek assumes a universal translator*, while, say, Star Wars takes place in a universe where everyone knows everyone else's species and one tends to learn to understand (and speak, vocal organs willing) the common language(s) or buy a protocol/translation droid.
Here's where I'm at now.
Languages in the PD-Verse
So, I've been toying with two backstories for the PD verse. The first is the standard, 'look aliens!' and don't bother to explain why at least three species of them could be played by humans in latex. The second is that humans sent out machines to deliberately look for places that had life in between 'multicellular' and 'technological' and engineer something remotely human, which could then get a technological civilization quickly via the same machines. (In between, Earth gets a Dark Age, Mars goes through a 'Oh, shit, the motherland' moment and tries to not die, and eventually both get their butts back into space and discover FTL... and their alien kids, who, by that time, have their own cultures and languages, etc.)
But mostly the main point is there are still a lot of languages spoken around 'Known Space'**, many of which are mutually pronounceable and some of which are not. Also, explorers will run into aliens who speak languages that no one knows. (Plus, if I go with Door #2, it explains why so many aliens are monocultures, or close to it, and probably only have a single language.)
Anyway, translation software that can actually handle nuances does exist (though it tends to be specialized to avoid too much complexity -- a business model and a tourist model will translate things slightly differently), and is used for short trips, paperwork/media and emergencies. Basically any circumstance that doesn't justify actually learning the language. On the other hand, many places see it as rude and impersonal, so learning languages is still common for things like business and politics.
Written language isn't a problem -- there's no known species that yet has something like a scent-language for data storage without a written component -- but spoken*** language can be. Even limiting to sound-based languages is a pain, since some aren't really things that can be comfortably learned. Sign languages, often interpreted by sensor-laden gloves, make a comeback, mostly because they convey the 'I put in the effort to learn your language' when the user has no ability to speak the sounds. That and hands are a lot more standardized than voices (though there's probably going to be an exception some day).
Phillee's birth planet is a good example of this. Nemea (named as the parent stars were in Leo) is a joint Starsailor and Human colony. As a result, most of the people born there speak both languages† and know both sets of sign. Immigrants usually learn the other language, but are stuck using sign, which is why kids learn it.
What About Unknown Aliens
Okay, so translation is easy enough when someone knows how to speak a language. What if you run into someone new? Here things take advantage of the fact there are trained telepaths.
Basically, a crewman like Melody is trained to be able to use her mind to read and translate subvolcaizations when someone is speaking. An implant in her head then stores the sounds associated with the concepts, so learning is accelerated. The downside is that only one language can be stored at a time, and it can be damn hard to deal with abstract concepts. Also, you need to have a thing put in your head, learn how to use it, and be a telepath of some skill. And this only gives understanding, not speaking.
The speaking part is gotten by having someone learn an auxlang called... well, I haven't named it yet. Probably something dumb like LangMark. Anyway, LangMark isn't as much a language as a language toolbox -- it has affixes for everything, with the idea that the ones a real language doesn't use can be dropped. And half of learning it is learning enough linguistics to make sense of what it means. As a result, it's a pretty simple language -- mostly it exists so you can get talking enough to open communications. Here's an example of how my intro paragraph would break down:
And I don't even know if I did that right... I don't know all the names for English grammar tenses.
Anyway, a second implant in the speech center of the brain can switch the phonomes in a language for their LangMark equivalents, so you think you are speaking LangMark when you are speaking the set language. This also lets a non-telepath use this tech -- the telepath can send them her translation. (And get the reverse via earpiece.)
Now, you can tell it's a pain in the neck and only worth it when you literally are going where no one has gone before. It also is not something as easily done by machines -- no one has yet to get a machine to replicate psi in the PD-verse, though they can learn from the electrical and chemical signals in the psi's brain. Machines generally brute-force it -- take a lot of people speaking and look for patterns. People also are naturally better at interacting than a machine, which helps error-correcting.
The eventual goal, of course, is to get the language down so that someone can learn it for real and start to get nuances and all that other stuff.
(This is pretty much what Melody did on the Ankaa. She was in charge of maintaining all the science sensors while Riki was busy making sure things worked, and she has a chip in her brain that lets her speak to aliens. Most of her skills were enough science that she could be trusted as a tech and enough linguistics that she could be trusted to take field notes, telepathy, and the willingness to have cybernetics put in her skull and the training to use it. Granted, the rest of the crew has something like that, but it's less intrusive and required less training.)
I always feel somewhat self-conscious when playing with worldbuilding and stuff.
--
* So did Animorphs, for that matter.
** No relation to Larry Niven's 'verse. Just like the term for 'the parts of space we trade with' that doesn't convey the idea that the rest of the galaxy is a backwater.
*** Using the term loosely, since at least one species (the Nini, who only get a cameo in the comic proper) communicates via radio created by bio-electricity.
† Never set which human language was common there.
So, anyway, I was writing my comic and came up with the issue of languages. Trek assumes a universal translator*, while, say, Star Wars takes place in a universe where everyone knows everyone else's species and one tends to learn to understand (and speak, vocal organs willing) the common language(s) or buy a protocol/translation droid.
Here's where I'm at now.
Languages in the PD-Verse
So, I've been toying with two backstories for the PD verse. The first is the standard, 'look aliens!' and don't bother to explain why at least three species of them could be played by humans in latex. The second is that humans sent out machines to deliberately look for places that had life in between 'multicellular' and 'technological' and engineer something remotely human, which could then get a technological civilization quickly via the same machines. (In between, Earth gets a Dark Age, Mars goes through a 'Oh, shit, the motherland' moment and tries to not die, and eventually both get their butts back into space and discover FTL... and their alien kids, who, by that time, have their own cultures and languages, etc.)
But mostly the main point is there are still a lot of languages spoken around 'Known Space'**, many of which are mutually pronounceable and some of which are not. Also, explorers will run into aliens who speak languages that no one knows. (Plus, if I go with Door #2, it explains why so many aliens are monocultures, or close to it, and probably only have a single language.)
Anyway, translation software that can actually handle nuances does exist (though it tends to be specialized to avoid too much complexity -- a business model and a tourist model will translate things slightly differently), and is used for short trips, paperwork/media and emergencies. Basically any circumstance that doesn't justify actually learning the language. On the other hand, many places see it as rude and impersonal, so learning languages is still common for things like business and politics.
Written language isn't a problem -- there's no known species that yet has something like a scent-language for data storage without a written component -- but spoken*** language can be. Even limiting to sound-based languages is a pain, since some aren't really things that can be comfortably learned. Sign languages, often interpreted by sensor-laden gloves, make a comeback, mostly because they convey the 'I put in the effort to learn your language' when the user has no ability to speak the sounds. That and hands are a lot more standardized than voices (though there's probably going to be an exception some day).
Phillee's birth planet is a good example of this. Nemea (named as the parent stars were in Leo) is a joint Starsailor and Human colony. As a result, most of the people born there speak both languages† and know both sets of sign. Immigrants usually learn the other language, but are stuck using sign, which is why kids learn it.
What About Unknown Aliens
Okay, so translation is easy enough when someone knows how to speak a language. What if you run into someone new? Here things take advantage of the fact there are trained telepaths.
Basically, a crewman like Melody is trained to be able to use her mind to read and translate subvolcaizations when someone is speaking. An implant in her head then stores the sounds associated with the concepts, so learning is accelerated. The downside is that only one language can be stored at a time, and it can be damn hard to deal with abstract concepts. Also, you need to have a thing put in your head, learn how to use it, and be a telepath of some skill. And this only gives understanding, not speaking.
The speaking part is gotten by having someone learn an auxlang called... well, I haven't named it yet. Probably something dumb like LangMark. Anyway, LangMark isn't as much a language as a language toolbox -- it has affixes for everything, with the idea that the ones a real language doesn't use can be dropped. And half of learning it is learning enough linguistics to make sense of what it means. As a result, it's a pretty simple language -- mostly it exists so you can get talking enough to open communications. Here's an example of how my intro paragraph would break down:
Affirmative, firstperson-subject be-clear-futuretense with secondperson-plural-object. firstperson-subject shape-past-progressive-passive much Star-Trek-agent. secondperson-plural-subject can somewhat tell-present-progressive from firstperson-singular-possessive alien-plural...
And I don't even know if I did that right... I don't know all the names for English grammar tenses.
Anyway, a second implant in the speech center of the brain can switch the phonomes in a language for their LangMark equivalents, so you think you are speaking LangMark when you are speaking the set language. This also lets a non-telepath use this tech -- the telepath can send them her translation. (And get the reverse via earpiece.)
Now, you can tell it's a pain in the neck and only worth it when you literally are going where no one has gone before. It also is not something as easily done by machines -- no one has yet to get a machine to replicate psi in the PD-verse, though they can learn from the electrical and chemical signals in the psi's brain. Machines generally brute-force it -- take a lot of people speaking and look for patterns. People also are naturally better at interacting than a machine, which helps error-correcting.
The eventual goal, of course, is to get the language down so that someone can learn it for real and start to get nuances and all that other stuff.
(This is pretty much what Melody did on the Ankaa. She was in charge of maintaining all the science sensors while Riki was busy making sure things worked, and she has a chip in her brain that lets her speak to aliens. Most of her skills were enough science that she could be trusted as a tech and enough linguistics that she could be trusted to take field notes, telepathy, and the willingness to have cybernetics put in her skull and the training to use it. Granted, the rest of the crew has something like that, but it's less intrusive and required less training.)
I always feel somewhat self-conscious when playing with worldbuilding and stuff.
--
* So did Animorphs, for that matter.
** No relation to Larry Niven's 'verse. Just like the term for 'the parts of space we trade with' that doesn't convey the idea that the rest of the galaxy is a backwater.
*** Using the term loosely, since at least one species (the Nini, who only get a cameo in the comic proper) communicates via radio created by bio-electricity.
† Never set which human language was common there.
