Communicating with pre-warp species and other translating issues

[alixia]

Hi,

This is my first post here and I specifically joined because I just needed to have a discussion about this as it's been bugging me way more than it should! lol I'm rewatching the series and being overly critical, which is unavoidable the second time around when all the newness and wonder has faded...

Ok, so: communication with pre-warp aliens. How did they do it, if we can assume that those species definitely did not have a universal translator chip or whatever implanted into their ears? For instance, thinking about the Mintokans (sp?) episode of season 3 (those Bronze Age Vulcan-like aliens). Remember how Number 1 and the counselor go to visit them and pretend they're "travelers?".

They're like: "hey we're travelers, what's up?". I'm sorry, but how are they being understood? Clearly they're not speaking English, but let's say they have their comm badges on them and the translator is throwing a translation for them... exactly why aren't the Mintokans terrified that another voice is talking over, translating? That would be my first reaction, I would be like: "who is talking?? And why are you speaking a different language?"

And what about the times they don't have the comm badges to translate because those get taken away so often by mean guys. How exactly do they keep communicating? Other species like the Ferengi have chips but not Starfleet as far as I am aware. Also there was a Voyager episode where Janeway explains the comm badges do the translating so how do they communicate when those are taken away? Seen multiples instances of this happen.

Also final question related to all this: why doesn't the translator automatically translate foreign convos like for times when Klingons start blurting out stuff in their native language and there's a starfleet person in the room... I'm not thinking one off words like "Q'pla" or whatever idioms. Sometimes they have legit full convos. Thinking of a Voyager episode where Belana's daughter has to translate for Janeway, like why? Why does she have to translate anything to her? She has her badge on, they all do, the UT should have taken care of it. Someone give me something reasonable for that please.

Discuss.

 

[Tenacity]

Clearly they're not speaking English

The UT (in some way) is enabling them to actually speak the native language.

Perhaps, the UT user thinks of what they want to say, the UT supplies the words to the user - they "hear" it their brains - and they then mimic the words/sounds. With training and practice this could come out smoothly.

 

[Mojochi]

The ship's computer does something similar, like in the case of the Crystalline Entity or the Calamarain. It interprets all forms of intelligently designed patterns, & breaks it down so it can be understood by our Starfleet folks, & I assume in the case of the universal translator, it also either relays that info to the them, so they can communicate it themselves, or.. more likely, translates their language into the other alien language itself (& we the viewer just don't hear that happening, which would probably mean their combadge produces the words)

So essentially it's more than just a translator. It's an interpreter/translator. It interprets what both speakers are saying to each other, & then proceeds to translate the things both are saying so that each one is listening to their own language

The thing that gets a little sticky to me is when someone is deliberately SAYING a word or phrase in another language, like the Romulan in The Defector who speaks Klingonese when he calls Worf a P'takh & tohzah, & then Riker calls the Romulan a Veruul, in the Romulan tongue. Not sure how a translator device would know the difference between that & someone speaking a different language. So it must either get set to off in certain situations, or it's one fiendishly smart device

Also... Welcome

 

[Triskelion]

Because brainwaves.

 

[Mojochi]

In a weird way, in Star Trek 6 they show the translator working, wherein they then turn it around, & incorporate it automatically, so that it is bypassed for the rest of the scene/movie, & Star Trek has been working on that cue ever since... & perhaps even a little before that

 

[Timo]

We see a very explicit case in point in DS9 "Little Green Men": once the time-traveling Ferengi get their translator machines working properly, they can exchange thoughts with natives who only speak and understand English and have no devices of their own.

The UT could certainly achieve this without magic. Anything incoming would be taken in by the device, processed into Ferengieseanian, and fed forth into the deep ears of Quark as Ferengieseanian sounds, but this would result in delays and inaccuracies of all sorts. More probably, the device feeds the Ferengieseanian into Quark's brain in a manner that bypasses his physical hearing organs, and some levels of censorship as well, so Quark "thinks" he hears fluent Ferengieseanian while in fact he only gets a halting, gap-riddled translation that his self-deluding brain then smooths over.

Once we postulate the direct-to-brain action, we can trivially postulate the reverse action, in which the UT sucks information from the language center of Quark's brain and translates that into muscular impulses to speak English. The English speakers around might be less deluded by the halting translation, but they, too, would quickly learn to ignore it, just like we learn to ignore pidgin and concentrate on the information content.

As for untranslated words, that's simple enough - about 90% of those are cusswords, so naturally the chaste UT would flat out refuse!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nakita Akita]

I think the show would suck if the dialogue was like this:
'Q'klt c,yet th juyytg'thhr.
Hu'yyhyvhhyu, yhh?
Or;
I.................
Think...................................we...................
Can.............get.............................gold .......................pressed..............................
...........Latium............................

in reality, it bugs me too but I've just learned to live with it.

 

[JesterFace]

I guess a lot of the original question can be answered if we know if it is enough if one of two aliens have universal translator, or is one enough? Do both sides need one?

I'm under the impression that only one is needed for two people who don't have a common language to understand each other.

 

[alixia]

But what when there's several people in the room, and each has a different language. The translator certainly can't make the English speaker (or whatever language they're speaking) say what they're saying in the other language, clearly the words that come out are in English or whatever they're speaking, but it gets relayed to the listeners in their language. Can we assume there's some sort of bypass and whatever comes out of the speaker's mouth is muted in the listener's brain somehow and replaced by a translation in real time in their native tongue, which also happens to sound natural, have the right tone, and have the same voice? Haha I know we need to learn to suspend disbelief but this is science fiction not fantasy... I need a little bit of science

And as far as when words aren't translated... I wonder if the UT knows intent hah. Like does it know when the speaker doesn't want the audience to understand them, for example...

 

[Nerys Myk]

Haha I know we need to learn to suspend disbelief but this is science fiction not fantasy... I need a little bit of science

It works psionically and places the translation directly into the brain.

 

[Mojochi]

It works psionically and places the translation directly into the brain.

That sounds kind of like what Timo was saying. I find that sort of creepy. I prefer to just assume it's a tech thing that is overlooked for the sake of dramatic continuity lol

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yeah it is, but I was going for something pseudo-sciencey.

 

[JesterFace]

I wonder, does the Universal Translator have a "bleeb function", it could bleeb out all the nasty stuff...

 

[gillmanjr]

I think this is one of the biggest gaps of the entire Star Trek universe. Your confusion is "only human". I don't think there is any answer other than, in real life it would never work the way it does in Star Trek. Its just not possible. But the show would never work if we were constantly listening to a computer voice translate everything that is said by the actors, it would be ridiculous. I'm actually reading the TNG books right now and the one I am currently reading has a lot about the universal translators. Its book #2, called the Peacekeepers. Geordi and Data are stuck on an alien planet and they are constantly turning their universal translators on and off so the inhabitants don't understand everything they are saying. And the book specifically describes how the communicators are actually translating their words as they speak, but the translated words don't actually come from the people, but rather the communicator. So basically Data or one of the natives says something and then the communicator says it again in the translated language. Like I said this would never work in a television show, we would always be listening to the computer's voice.

Of course the books aren't considered to be part of the official Star Trek canon but then again thats open to debate. I consider the events of the books to be part of the timeline.

 

[Jedman67]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AliensSpeakingEnglish

 

[Timo]

Thanks to so many examples from the episodes, we can rule out quite a few theories on how the UT works, and what we're left with is fairly magical. But what we do today with mobile phones would certainly appear magical to the educated 19th century gentleman, and utterly unconvincing if included in Jules Verne fiction. And what we really shall do in the 24th century will put Trek to shame, no doubt of that. Either way, "takes in sound, puts out sound in another language through a chest-mounted loudspeaker" is the operating mode that's the most strongly ruled out.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nyotarules]

The Perservers taught everyone English

 

[gillmanjr]

The Perservers taught everyone English

Are you referring to the episode "The Chase". I actually didn't think about that, lol. Maybe everyone in the galaxy does know english, it could be in their DNA as a universal language.

 

[Nyotarules]

^It also explains why all aliens looked like humans and spoke English in Stargate...blame those Egyptian speaking Go'auld.

 

[JesterFace]

I liked the Translator Microbes idea in Farscape, when those were injected into bloodstream, two aliens from different worlds could understand each other, both needed a dose though.