Thread: Language

I started my 3rd sci-fi novel a long time ago and now ready to write it. One dilemma, the language of the world (other humans) the Earthlings crash land on. Of course creating a language takes thought and explaining the language to the reader takes up page space. Other option -What would explain everyone speaking English? Some kind of phenomena on the world where the Earthling can understand them.

Do you mean that the world that the Earthlings crash land upon is full of other humans? (Sorry if I'm misunderstanding... I got that impression because after you wrote "the language of the world" you wrote "other humans" in parentheses.)

If the other world that the Earthlings land on is full of actual aliens:
-- Telepathy. The aliens are able to broadcast their thoughts to the Earthlings in such a way that the Earthlings perceive it to be English (only they "hear" it in their minds.) (like The Martian Chronicles.)
-- The aliens have had contact with someone from Earth before. Maybe some sort of ambassador that taught them about Earth culture? (like Avatar.)
-- The Earthlings know how to speak the alien language, and you state up front that they are speaking this language. (It could of course still be written in English, you would just have to relay somehow to the reader that they were speaking in the alien tongue.) When I was a teenager, I used to read Star Trek novels, and when the authors were describing events that happened on the Klingon home planet, for example, they would just throw out something that would allow the reader to understand that the conversation was being conducted in Klingon, but they wouldn't actually write out the language. (Because, as nerdy as it may be, there is an actual Klingon dictionary with an entire Klingon language out there...
-- Some sort of "Universal Translator" (a la Star Trek).

On the other hand, if the other world is full of humans (totally guessing here...):
--Maybe long ago a contingent of humans went off to colonize another planet, and now in the "present" of your story people from Earth are just now rediscovering them. Maybe the "offworld" humans have ancient texts that they brought with them that are part of their culture, that give them a glimpse of an ancient language that their ancestors used to speak. Perhaps from this they could glean enough knowledge to communicate with the newcomers.

All good ideas, VanishingSpy. The aliens or the humans, or both, could have been monitoring each others' radio and television broadcasts before making face to face contact as in that Jodie Foster movie a few years ago.

Another, if the story lasts long enough or if there is a back story, either the aliens or the humans can eventually learn the other language after some prolonged inability to communicate. The aliens might find languages easier to learn than humans do. Almost every story in your situation uses a character with previous experience with the other culture as a translator.

I was just thinking: what might be more comfortable to me as a reader? I sort of get the sense that it would be easiest if the aliens were able to speak our language. Perhaps not just english but all languages on earth. Maybe in some way they could also communicate with animals. Maybe even have a heightened ability to commune/understand nature.

I only feel this way because historically, writers have always assumed that the aliens were the smart ones and we were the undeveloped race. So I think most readers might be able to accept that line of thinking without too much of a stretch (we have been conditioned to accept this in stories) and without losing your readers.

On the other hand, you might be interested in breaking the mold with something new, but unless it is believable (whatever that means to readers) it might suffer from trying to be too "cute" or something.

Safe = the aliens are a higher form of life and can speak any language and can communicate with any life form
Not so safe = trying something new and different

*However, if it is within you to come up with something new and different, by all means do. But it has to "work".

I think a good example of something bad would be that the aliens communicated in sign language which we use for people that are deaf. How would that work trying to tell a story?

Sorry for the long reply. I was interested in your dilemma....

Regards,

Joe

All great thoughts! My back story: an Earth "starship" enters a wormhole where it then crashed on a planet full of humans. 1option: Unbeknownst to the characters this world they land on used to be a prison planet 1000's of years ago. An advanced race set satelites in orbit, which transmits a mind altering sygnals, so all the prisoners could understand each other. But then what about their written language? 2option: the Earthings could learn the world's language - "George, Shamus and Oli learned the turlu language over the weeks of healing from the crash...."