The UT and Loud As A Whisper

[Vanyel]

I was reading the universal translator thread a watch Loud As A Whisper. My question is, why couldn't the UT decipher the sign language Riva was using?

Just a few other questions for those who know how to sign. Was Riva using ASL? And was it being translated right; by that I mean sometimes it seemed like Data finished translating Riva before Riva was through signing. And where was Josh? Sorry that's Reva not Riva.

 

[JNG]

Even if it does some mysterious whatnot with brain waves, the Universal Translator must work with speech-oriented elements and can't do a gesture-to-speech translation, or at least not without heavy modification or special supplementary equipment or something.

They might have been able to set something up if the episode hadn't insisted on having them be somehow caught with their pants down on the fact that he's a deaf-mute, even though he was supposedly a famed diplomat.

 

[Timo]

I could buy it that the UT normally translates incoming sound waves - but our space adventures should run into other types of language virtually every day, so their UTs really should have "interpret sign language" and "interpret temperature language" and "interpret smell language" and "interpret alpha wave language" as routine settings. After all, the UT can work on incoming communications signals, which are in no obvious way related to sound waves - the UT has to do its work first before those signals can be transformed into sound waves.

Riva may have been a famed diplomat, but he was not at the Federation's beck and call. For him to be both exotic and secretive would have been quite fitting. It's only when Worf and Picard discuss the fact that Riva mediated between the Feds and the Klingons in the past that things get beyond silly.

Then again, Riva said his method of communication had evolved "through the centuries". Perhaps using the Chorus in public was a recent development?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

Those are valid points. The translator I mentioned from the MTIAA series seemed to get around the gestural problem, presumably because of wherever it's located in the brain - the part (or parts) that translate both verbal speech and visual communication. So it can reliably translate both for the most part.

 

[Vanyel]

Even if it does some mysterious whatnot with brain waves, the Universal Translator must work with speech-oriented elements and can't do a gesture-to-speech translation, or at least not without heavy modification or special supplementary equipment or something.

They might have been able to set something up if the episode hadn't insisted on having them be somehow caught with their pants down on the fact that he's a deaf-mute, even though he was supposedly a famed diplomat.

The ship has a UT in its communication systems, it has to in order to translate the speech of the aliens they meet. And the ship's computer has several forms of sign language in its database. So why not have the ship's internal sensors monitor Riva, and then tie in the UT and have it access the sign language database? The computer voice could then "speak" for Riva while he was on the ship. You'd think Data would have thought of that once he saw the ship had a database of sign language. Riva can read lips, so he really didn't need to have the others sign back at him.

Make sense?

 

[Kaziarl]

I think a "Body Language" setting would be most usefull when dealing with the opposite gender.

 

[backstept]

My mom is a professional sign language interpreter, but I don't remember watching that episode with her . . .
I think he was using ASL
Data however was horrible at signing

 

[Tigger]

It's possible that for whatever reason(s), Riva's sign language was just as inscrutable to the UT as the Tamarian spoken language was and only Data's innate sentience allowed him to comprehend it, just as Picard's own innate sentience allowed him to begin to understand Dathon.

 

[Vanyel]

It's possible that for whatever reason(s), Riva's sign language was just as inscrutable to the UT as the Tamarian spoken language was and only Data's innate sentience allowed him to comprehend it, just as Picard's own innate sentience allowed him to begin to understand Dathon.

The UT was able to translate the individual words of the Tamarian language but not the context. That's why communication was, initially, impossible.

However the computer already had various forms of sign language in it, it was just a silly plot point to make sign language incomprehensible. Worf's comment on having a form of communication that has a tactical advantage by being silent, implying that it had never been used before, was also silly. I'm sure those in security learn many ways of communicating by gesture.

 

[JNG]

Worf's comment on having a form of communication that has a tactical advantage by being silent, implying that it had never been used before, was also silly. I'm sure those in security learn many ways of communicating by gesture.

Certainly they'd figured it out by "Allegiance"

 

[Unicron]

I thought that was an odd remark too - certainly a culture like the Klingons, with their emphasis on war, would have known about forms of silent communication.