They teach Latin at Starfleet Academy?

[jayrath]

Timo wrote:

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I think the real question here is, why do they teach languages?

And I don't mean, why do they teach languages at the Academy? I mean, why bother at all, anywhere? Obviously, "language" is an outdated concept in Star Trek, having been replaced by infallible interpretation machinery. There is no value in a shared code of communication because the machinery makes all codes interchangeable. Learning, say, English is not really useful for service in Starfleet, because everything ever said (or, apparently, printed) will also be translated to your native Udmurtian or perhaps your native Obscure Muttering and Mumbling, and vice versa.

Languages are useless, except as hobbies. Which is as good a reason to study Latin as anything else.

Timo Saloniemi

I always admire your posts, Timo, except for this one. As noted above, translation of ancient texts provides a poor understanding of literature compared to the original language. Even today, simple puns evident in ancient literature are indistinguishable. Short of inserting smiley faces, how are we to understand the writers' true intent, except by learning the languages in which they wrote?

Why do you think there are so many different editions of the Bible? The New Revised Standard edition is extremely different from the King James translation. To get at true meaning, you need to go back to primary sources and original language.

[Elias Vaughn]

Of course an archaeology aficionado like Picard would probably elect to take a Latin class. Doesn't surprise me.

Did he even say he took Latin at the Academy? Maybe he took classes on the holodeck.

[Nerys Myk]

It could have been part of his pre-Academy education. His father seems to be a "traditionalist", so I can see Picard being made to learn a dead language.

[Tiberius]

Of course, the real reason that they all learn Latin is so that when they are surrounded by evil aliens, they can chat in Latin and come up with a plan and no one else can understand what they are saying.

[Nerys Myk]

Tiberius wrote:

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Of course, the real reason that they all learn Latin is so that when they are surrounded by evil aliens, they can chat in Latin and come up with a plan and no one else can understand what they are saying.

Oddly enough, it doesn't work with Romulans.

[EmperorTiberius]

Santa Kang wrote:

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Oddly enough, it doesn't work with Romulans.

[RPJOB]

Uhura Prime knew Swahili but not Klingon. Her Nu-counterpart knew all three dialects of Romulan but apparently they are so similar to Vulcan that the previous communications officer couldn't tell them apart. Maybe Nu-Uhura simply picked up Vulcan from her boyfriend and the Romulan dialects were childishly simple for her. Much as Asian languages have words that appear to western ears to ve quite similar in places but to a native speaker a minor difference in tone or pitch changes the meaning. Uhura's good ear could simply have made those differences more obvious. It's not that she learned Romulan, she learned Vulcan and picked up Romulan almost by default. She could have just wanted to play the pre-holodeck version of Vulcan Love Slave in it's original language.

[T'Girl]

RPJOB wrote:

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She could have just wanted to play the pre-holodeck version of Vulcan Love Slave in it's original language.

Which role do you think she played?

[Timo]

To get at true meaning, you need to go back to primary sources and original language.

Only if the translation is imperfect. But the Universal Translator gets puns and nuances across all right - and even translates an alien term for a cave-dwelling slave race as "troglyte", inserting suggestive Greek roots where there originally were none, to demonstrate that it is way smarter than its users!

The UT makes language a completely outdated concept. Not just the learning of languages, but their very existence. It is the new thing that replaces language.

Or at least it should damn well suffice for one. No hero ought to require even a native language in order to be perfectly understood and to perfectly understand everybody else, across lightyears and millennia and cultural and biological borders if need be. Every time this does not happen is an inconsistency in Star Trek, really.

...Perhaps the UT only replaced language in the 24th century?

Timo Saloniemi

[emergencyfruit]

Learning languages is engaging and complex, and specifically Latin would allow a much greater appreciation of history, including everything Earth history can teach us about war, diplomacy, politics, and human behavior over the long run.

And while technically the universal translators can make fluent changes, sometimes there may simply be no English word to match the foreign one. You see that today all the time with cultural idioms, or even simple vocabulary. In German, there's a non-vulgar word which refers to a person who is outrageously tactless, arrogant, or otherwise insufferable: Backpfeifengesicht. The closest approximation English can make is "a face that cries out for a fist in it". So the universal translators, on seeing that word, must either turn the one word into that roundabout (if humorous) phrase, or else replace it with some other, less perfect word. Perfectly fine for day-to-day, but the true zest of the original would be forever just out of reach...

[Tiberius]

Santa Kang wrote:

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Oddly enough, it doesn't work with Romulans.

Or the Borg...

[Christopher]

emergencyfruit wrote:

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In German, there's a non-vulgar word which refers to a person who is outrageously tactless, arrogant, or otherwise insufferable: Backpfeifengesicht. The closest approximation English can make is "a face that cries out for a fist in it". So the universal translators, on seeing that word, must either turn the one word into that roundabout (if humorous) phrase, or else replace it with some other, less perfect word. Perfectly fine for day-to-day, but the true zest of the original would be forever just out of reach...

Actually it seems to be a popular English idiom these days to say that someone has a "punchable" face. So that comes pretty close.

[Retu]

Maybe Latin was just an extracurricular course, that Picard took. After all, he did encourage Wesley in "Samaritan Snare" to study more than Academy had to offer.

PICARD: There is no greater challenge than the study of philosophy.

WESLEY: William James sure won't be on my Starfleet exams.

PICARD: The important things never will be. Anyone can be trained to deal with technology, and the mechanics of piloting a starship.

WESLEY: But Starfleet Academy--

PICARD: It takes more than just that. Open your mind to the past... to history, art, philosophy. And then... this will mean something.

[Greg Cox]

Plus, you never know when you're going to get stranded on a Roman gladiator planet without a universal translator . . ..

[Christopher]

^Oh, that's no problem. They conveniently speak modern English on Roman gladiator planets.