Universal translator
From Freepedia
The universal translator is a fictional device common to many science fiction works. Its purpose is to offer an instant translation of any language. Like hyperdrive, a universal translator is a somewhat improbable technology that is an accepted convention in science fiction stories. As a convention, it is used to remove the problem of translating between alien languages, unless that problem is essential to the plot. To do this in every episode a new species or culture is encountered would consume time (especially when most of these shows have a half to one hour format) normally for plot development and potentially (across many episodes) become repetitive to the point of annoyance.
In Star Trek, the universal translator was used by Ensign Hoshi Sato, the communications officer on the Enterprise in Star Trek: Enterprise, to invent the linguacode matrix in her late 30's.
As a rule, a universal translator is instantaneous, but if that language has never been recorded, there is sometimes a time delay until the translator can properly work out a translation, as in the case of Star Trek. Some writers seek greater plausibility by instead having computer translation that requires collecting a database of the new language, often by listening to radio transmissions. Usually it ignores any grammar rules between languages, giving it as perfect English.
Most of the time, it's depicted as a machine that works with a communications monitor. An exception is the Babel fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a small organism that fits in the user's ear. (The Babel fish itself is a parody of the universal translator convention.) Another exception is the "translator microbes" from the Farscape series, which were probably inspired by the Babel fish.
The existence of a universal translator is sometimes problematic in film and television productions from a logical perspective (for example, aliens who still speak English when no universal translator is in evidence), and requires some suspension of disbelief when characters' mouths move in sync with the translated words and not the original language; nonetheless, it removes the need for cumbersome and potentially extensive subtitles.
In the television shows Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, there are no personal translation devices used, and most aliens or Human cultures on other planets speak English. The makers of the show have themselves admitted this on the main SG-1 site, stating that this is to save spending ten minutes an episode on characters learning a new language (early episodes of SG-1 revealed the difficulties of attempting to write such processes into the plot). The Star Wars films feature a similar situation, with the setting featuring an "official" language, Galactic Basic, which sounds remarkably like English, though the written form (Aurebesh) is distinctly different.
In the Star Control computer game series, almost all races are implied to have universal translators. The VUX have the most advanced Universal Translators. This created a problem during the first contact between Vux and humans, in a starship commanded by Captain Rand. According to Star Control: Great Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Captain Rand is referred to as saying "That is one ugly sucker" when the image of a VUX first came onto his viewscreen. However, in Star Control II, Captain Rand is referred to as saying "That is the ugliest freak-face I've ever seen" to his first officer. It is debatable which source is canon. Whichever the remark, it is implied that the VUX's advanced Universal Translator technologies conveyed the exact meaning of Captain Rand's words. The effete Vux used the insult as an excuse for hostility toward humans. Also, a new race called the Orz was introduced in Star Control II. They presumably come from another dimension, and at first contact, the ship's computer says that there are many vocal anomilies in their language, making communication with the Orz somewhat difficult, and absurd at times, when they are translated to say things like "happy campers", "silly cows", and "heavy space".
See machine translation and speech recognition for a discussion of real-world natural language processing technologies.
External links
- Universal translator article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
- Universal Translator A Universal Translator / Visual Dictionary. It works by displaying images of the word/s that you input which in theory someone from any country should be able to understand.
