This is yet again another worldbuilding related ramble, this time on how one could implement translator devices in one's sci-fi / fantasy story. This is just my thoughts on the matter, but I hope you find interesting ideas here that you can write about.
You see, I did consider using these in a series I'm working on, but then, I sort of got stuck on the specifics. How would they work? What would be the limitations?
There are several possible options I could think of, and that's basically what's in this article.
Option 1: Translating between known languages
This is actually available to us right now, which you definitely know if you've tried Google translate in one way or the other. However, there are some interesting questions you can consider with this.
Interpretation
So, this issue happens because generally, languages don't map one-to-one. You probably know this first hand if you speak two or more languages. Example scenarios:
- Sometimes, the target language just lacks a specific word.
- Maybe, the entire concept doesn't quite exist.
- Sometimes, one word in one language maps to several words in another.
- The meaning of a word could change through context.
- Certain grammatical concepts exist in some languages and not in others. For example, you might not look at time the same way in two different languages.
- Then there's languages that leave out stuff that's implied, either through grammar (the subject in, say, Spanish) or through context (anyone learning Japanese here?).
- Some information will have to be conveyed in some languages, but not so much in others (gender in romance languages)
These are definitely not all the possible scenarios, but basically, translating languages is hard. This is partially why you can run stuff through a translator multiple times and get a hilarious result (though to be fair, a group of human translators might produce something equally hilarious in that situation).
The point I'm getting to is that you absolutely can build this into your translator machines. Another option would be to have them point out other possible interpretations when ambiguities exist, which could be ridiculous or ridiculously tense depending on how you play it.
Speech / text / images?
Is your translator device limited to just text? Does the text have to be typed? Can it scan images? Do the scanned images have to be printed or is it successful with handwriting? Does it depend on language?
Another interesting possibility with a translator scanning images is what happens if it reads just part of the image or misreads part of it. What sort of errors will result from it? And, depending on your story, would you be able to twist it into a diplomatic incident?
Speech adds yet another layer of complication. Accents maybe difficult for a translator which can lead to funny or not so funny mistranslations. Homonyms complicate things further. How much of it would be affected by background noise? How good is noise filtration in your translator device? Can it lip read? Would it be able to infer what the missing words are if it can make out only part of what's being said?
Other things to consider would be whether it can read sign languages and other visual languages and produce them in response. Is there a limit to the number of signs it can read? How likely is it to mix up signs? There's the issue of signs that resemble each other here as well. What if your translator robot takes some physical damage? How would that affect its ability it communicate?
All this can result in translation errors again, which can add an interesting dimension to your writing.
Option 2: Translating a language your translator hasn't seen
This is the kind of thing that tends to happen if your characters crash land into a new planet, or if they got blown into an alternate dimension - you can work out the specifics of how your characters got here. What I want to talk about is the interesting implications of this.
For starters, this is the place your universal translator can potentially outshine your human / otherwise sentient translators you have with you, as they'd have to learn the language. On the other hand, you have to figure out how these translators are going to acquire the new language in the first place. Provided you want to deal with it, of course.
Observe and learn
This is the most obvious thing to do in this situation. Your translator listens to / otherwise acquires the new language for a while, and then starts translating stuff that's being said. This raises some interesting questions.
How much language does it need to acquire in order to produce a decent translation?
This is entirely up to you, but you can approach it in a few ways. You can have it learn more words as the translator is exposed to the target language. You can expedite the process by making the translator capable of tuning into and analyzing several conversations at once. Is it able to infer words that it doesn't know? Does it come up with nonsense attempted compound words in this scenario? Does it just give up?
How does the translator understand what's being said in the first place?
Extent of translation
There are a surprising number of places on earth named desert desert or mountain mountain or river river. When does your universal translator stop? What are the implications of this? Sure, it could be funny, but what if understanding the other language immediately marks you as the enemy?
The convenient Rosetta stone
This is another possible strategy - have your characters find a sample of the language containing a known language. Again, you'd have to deal with the vast gaps in your translators knowledge of the language unless you find a lot of text, but at least it'll be a useful starting point and your translator can learn quickly from there.
Magic?
This is one way out of the problem. You could say your translator picks stuff up magically and get over the whole language learning issue. However, this still leaves you with the same issues that you get with translating between known languages, if you want to deal with them.
Some other points
All this is based on the assumption that your translator can capture the type of language that's being spoken in the first place. You can definitely push this - for example, in sci-fi, nothing is stopping you creating a group of aliens who speak in radio waves. This would be very difficult to build a translator for, not because we can't capture the radio waves but because it would be nearly impossible to establish any communication with them until someone figures out they're actually using radio waves.
Another possibility is these aliens use visual communication, such a a form of sign language which you can't use with human hands, so you would need a translator robot that looks like them.
The possibilities are endless. You can expand it further if you get magic involved (your imagination really will be the limit here).
In conclusion
Basically, the point I'm trying to make here is, you can make your ridiculously useful / convenient universal translators a bit more complicated / interesting if you want to. These are definitely not the only questions you can ask about these, at all. You'll probably be able to come up with more interesting ways in which a universal translator can fail or cause a scene.
On top of that, please don't feel any pressure to have to include these issues in your writing, because frankly, a lot of stories don't need them. For some stories, you can just ignore these issues as out of scope / irrelevant to the story / adds nothing to it. For some, suspension of disbelief will allow you to ignore these. Most readers won't think about the specifics of how a translator works unless they're prompted to (unless they're theorizing about how the translators work which is a very specific situation that you probably don't need to concern yourself about).
So, that's all I have to say about this topic for now. If you have anything else to add, or if you just want to discuss this further, please do comment below.
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Until next time!
