Language in Trek that bugs me!!!!

[GalaxyClass1701]

Ok so i don't know about you but I find it really annoying when Aliens in Trek are speaking and they will say a few words in there own language.

EX. When worf is on a Klingon vessle he says everything in English except the distance of the ship. He would say Kelocams.

DOes this bug you?

 

[Nardpuncher]

Yeah, I mean...they could go the whole way and have subtitles. No Problem. Or have them speak all English. No Problem.
Peppering the dialog with a word here and there sounds silly to me too.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

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EX. When worf is on a Klingon vessle he says everything in English except the distance of the ship. He would say Kelocams.

DOes this bug you?

No.

It would be awkward to have them constantly speaking Klingonese, so we hear it as English. But a kellicam is a Klingon unit of measurement, so it's not out of line to hear them say that.

 

[GalaxyClass1701]

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EX. When worf is on a Klingon vessle he says everything in English except the distance of the ship. He would say Kelocams.

DOes this bug you?

No.

It would be awkward to have them constantly speaking Klingonese, so we hear it as English. But a kellicam is a Klingon unit of measurement, so it's not out of line to hear them say that.

Why woulf that be the only word in English though, that is the part that doesn't make sense?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Personally, I wish the aliens got subtitles. But then that would be too much work on the part of the writers, to actually develop a language ever week.

Even if we had just got Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian, that would've been enough to really add to the sense of realism.

Now, as to the idea of just dropping certain words in an alien language--it's possible that either certain terms don't translate, or the speaker is doing the galactic equivalent of Spanglish. At least in my own fanfic, both are known to happen; one of my human characters definitely speaks in a mix of English and Cardassian, and it's very easy to reflect this in a written format. It's called code-switching, and has a basis is real life.

 

[Nick086]

I would kill to see Romulans and Klingons speak their own language in their own scenes. It would make it more realistic, instead of having all alien races speak Human. I always avoid movies where they have English or American actors playing German, French, and Russian roles.

 

[Myasishchev]

Ok so i don't know about you but I find it really annoying when Aliens in Trek are speaking and they will say a few words in there own language.

EX. When worf is on a Klingon vessle he says everything in English except the distance of the ship. He would say Kelocams.

DOes this bug you?

I dunno--by the 24th century, words like "patagh" and "kaplah" (sp, I am so not looking them up) could have become co-opted into English.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I would kill to see Romulans and Klingons speak their own language in their own scenes. It would make it more realistic, instead of having all alien races speak Human. I always avoid movies where they have English or American actors playing German, French, and Russian roles.

Must not see a lot of movies.

 

[Nick086]

I would kill to see Romulans and Klingons speak their own language in their own scenes. It would make it more realistic, instead of having all alien races speak Human. I always avoid movies where they have English or American actors playing German, French, and Russian roles.

Must not see a lot of movies.

lol I do, but they are mostly in German, French, Dutch, Russian, and Spanish.

 

[SchwEnt]

I'm not bilingual, but FWIW...

I do hear bilingual people speaking Spanish in conversation and suddenly switch to a word or phrase in English and then continue on in Spanish. And not proper English words that have no Spanish translation, just tossing in a few nondescript words of English, right in the middle of their Spanish conversation.

So hey, maybe this real life example works in ST, too.

 

[Tiberius]

If the Klingon says "cha kellicams," then the translator translates cha as two. What then could it translate kellicams as? What if a kellicam is 1962 meters and 39.6758939 centimeters? Would the computer translate it as two lots of 1962 meters and 39.6758939 centimeters? Needlessly bulky.

 

[scotpens]

. . . I do hear bilingual people speaking Spanish in conversation and suddenly switch to a word or phrase in English and then continue on in Spanish. And not proper English words that have no Spanish translation, just tossing in a few nondescript words of English, right in the middle of their Spanish conversation.

That happens all the time in bilingual cultures. In Israel, I used to hear people converse in English and then casually switch to Hebrew and back again. What was funny was to hear a stream of Hebrew with some choice English curse words here and there.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Ok so i don't know about you but I find it really annoying when Aliens in Trek are speaking and they will say a few words in there own language.

EX. When worf is on a Klingon vessle he says everything in English except the distance of the ship. He would say Kelocams.

DOes this bug you?

I dunno--by the 24th century, words like "patagh" and "kaplah" (sp, I am so not looking them up) could have become co-opted into English.

That's quite possible...English is REALLY bad about stealing from other languages.

 

[UssGlenn]

If the Klingon says "cha kellicams," then the translator translates cha as two. What then could it translate kellicams as? What if a kellicam is 1962 meters and 39.6758939 centimeters? Would the computer translate it as two lots of 1962 meters and 39.6758939 centimeters? Needlessly bulky.

This is what I was going to say. The Federation translation of Kellicam is Kellicam and it means a unit of measurement that is X meters long.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Personally, I'd like to see the aliens speak English when they interact with the main cast (the universal translator can explain that) and then speak their own language when they're the only ones on screen.

The closest Trek came to this, IMO, was in "The Way of the Warrior." When Gowron and Martok talk amongst themselves during the attack on DS9, we hear them speak Klingon, not English. The only problem is that, for whatever reason, TPTB decided not to give us subtitles.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Personally, I wish the aliens got subtitles.

That would be fantastic!!!

They did it in Star Wars.

 

[RegFan]

Personally, I'd like to see the aliens speak English when they interact with the main cast (the universal translator can explain that) and then speak their own language when they're the only ones on screen.

I agree. The UT could explain the occasional Klingon words in otherwise English speech, too, but it still feels a bit strange.

 

[GalaxyClass1701]

Personally, I'd like to see the aliens speak English when they interact with the main cast (the universal translator can explain that) and then speak their own language when they're the only ones on screen.

The closest Trek came to this, IMO, was in "The Way of the Warrior." When Gowron and Martok talk amongst themselves during the attack on DS9, we hear them speak Klingon, not English. The only problem is that, for whatever reason, TPTB decided not to give us subtitles.

Agreed!

 

[CommanderRaytas]

What I don't get is why the Klingons speak English and then sometimes whole sentences in Klingon. I always assumed they actually spoke Klingon standard or something and the universal translator made the humans hear it as English.... but why then would we still have the Klingons speak Klingon, and the other people not understand it... like when they go "I didn't know you spoke Klingon".

Assuming the Klingons speak English doesn't do, because I don't think they would (especially not amongst themselves). Maybe some government officials, but that's it (and that may be stretching it already). So what is that other stuff? Dialects? Different languages other than standard? I could believe that, but I know that whatever Klingon they speak on screen is always the same language.

My brain tries to find satisfactory explanations, but can't. *sigh*

 

[Diddle]

I don't mind they speaking English even among their own people, technically it's because of the translator that we hear it like that. I just wish that translator worked to us for the Breen as well. :I Never know what those bastards are saying.

(Besides they would have to actually create the whole language to almost every race, I don't think anyone has time for that)

(Not that I'd mind having a Cardassian or Romulan Dictionary)