The untranslated Breen was worth it for the laughs, though.
Language in Trek that bugs me!!!!
- Thread starter GalaxyClass1701
- Start date
It could be that even in the 24th century, the translators had on going problems with translating certain concepts which had elaborate meanings. And so would leave those terms in the original language. If you were to say for example the word "Bushido" which is Japanese, would the translator repeat way of the warrior, or the seven chief virtues, or code of the ruling caste between these years ..., not all words have straight across meanings in another language. And how does it handle proper names? Many names have meanings, when I speak my own first name does the translator just leave it alone or translate it into freeholder farmer.
Putting mouth movements to the side, if Worf as speaking Klingonese during the show and everyone's translator was flipping it to their own preferred language, how did he know which word to clarify?
Putting mouth movements to the side, if Worf as speaking Klingonese during the show and everyone's translator was flipping it to their own preferred language, how did he know which word to clarify?
Your first name is Yeoman? Weird. 
I have a noun name, too, though, so it would also be subject to the same problems.
I have a noun name, too, though, so it would also be subject to the same problems.
That always bugged me about Worf. He'd say something in Klingon, then translate it for everyone. Why not say it in English in the first place? And if he could translate it, what's wrong with the bloody translator?
Yes I agree some very funny moments with that.
Carleeta in ancient germanic is freeholder farmer, it means something different in spanish.
Dude, totally.
This is what I meant: they are talking in their language, but we hear it as English. So far, so good. So, what's the deal when they suddenly say stuff no-one else understands, but it's obviously Klingon? They're not actually speaking English but Klingon anyway! Us hearing something in Klingon (as well as everyone else) intermixed with English doesn't make sense. And it's not like they're just using special terms the translator doesn't get. It's regular stuff, everyday conversations that get translated in other instances.
"I didn't know you spoke Klingon?" Man, I don't have to. I have the fucking translator thingie up my ear. Seriously. The Klingons do not speak English. Gah!
So....wtf?
That's sort of weak.
Funniest example I ever heard of that was in a movie theater before the show. A Spanish-speaking couple was talking in the row ahead of me, and in the midst of a paragraph of Spanish, I heard "...fuck it..."
Gah! But what about when they speak in Klingon and no-one understands it? What the fuck is that?
That's what I'm wondering. It's obvious they're speaking in Klingon all the time.
That's what I'm wondering. It's obvious they're speaking in Klingon all the time.
Yes, the issue listed in the OP does bug me.
What also bugs me just as much is how the writers often insert totally-plot-irrelevant nonsense alien and/or alien tech names into the dialogue for no good reason. That also happens all the frickin' time and is really annoying IMO.
What also bugs me just as much is how the writers often insert totally-plot-irrelevant nonsense alien and/or alien tech names into the dialogue for no good reason. That also happens all the frickin' time and is really annoying IMO.
On a similar note, the scene in VI was ridiculous; maybe the translator would be recognised by the klingons, but surely the crew could have used it to translate what the klingon was saying to them and then provide them with the appropriate response for Uhura to read out.
However I did like how the court scene in VI treated language translation.
However I did like how the court scene in VI treated language translation.
Yeah, it's like a European saying metres (or meters) instead of yards.
Or Picard saying merde.
But, TBH, English (like a lot of languages) adopts other words anyway- If a lawyer says he's got a prima face case, nobody says "oi, no Latin!"
I agree--that would've worked a lot better.
I do think that the use of the translator in speech is likely to be detected...at least in my own stories, it tends to wash out a person's inflections a bit, and some people find it has a slightly mechanical sound. NOWHERE near as bad as the burr the TNG Borg seem to have, but some people can hear it.
But your solution would've been a much more elegant way around that particular problem.
Yes, that worked very well.
It might be reasonable to suspect that the UT isn't coded for French or other less common human languages. The UT's abilities become slightly less ridiculous if every species uses its own auxiliary language. English is the humans' species language, but it may be the only natural language that any major species uses... after all, it does happen to be well-suited to real-time translation if paired with another language where sentence position determines meaning.
I mean, what kind of unlikely name for a language is "thLngan Hal" (or however that's spelled) if it's not an artificial language? It's like instead of "English," the name of my language was "People."
Btw, I missed the early TNG Picard cursing.
Although it's 90% of the time Latin phrases are poorly pronounced and 99% of the time Latin phrases are misspelled. For a bunch of people trying to sound smart, you'd think they'd have realized the Latin J 1)does not properly exist and 2)is not pronounced J.
It does go to the point though. These are now English words, if technical ones, and we can spell them with J's and pronounce them any stupid way we want.
Actually, it...depends upon the Latin you use. Your commentary re no J (as was drummed into us all by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) is correct for classical Latin. For ecclesiastical Latin, however, from which much legalese descends, there can indeed be a J, and pronounciations can be totally different from the classical form.
That's true, yes--a good example perhaps being a concept such as "cuius est solum eius est ad coelum et ad inferos" (to who owns the ground, go also the heavens and the depths), which was invented, whole cloth, by Blackstone in the 18th century, and was never a Roman legal concept, nor a preexisting common law precept (or, for that matter, particularly widely accepted at all, at least in such a bald formulation--oil is drilled and planes fly, after all).
"Juice" (ius) cogens is also a recent coinage, afaik, but I still think it ought to be pronounced and spelled with a consonantal I...
"Juice" (ius) cogens is also a recent coinage, afaik, but I still think it ought to be pronounced and spelled with a consonantal I...
Actually, more accepted a principle than you'd think. That's legally the truth, at least in land law in virtually all of the US - you're generally considered to own up to 1000 feet above the highest point on your property (so if your building stretches up to 70 feet, you "own" the airspace up to 1000 feet above the highest point in the building), as well as a cone extending from the edges of your property down to the center of the Earth. (There are exceptions, but that's the general rule.) Oil is drilled, yes, but the oil driller owns the land the well sits on (or leases it or whatever), and you gotta drill a certain distance from the edge of the property for it to be indisputably yours.
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