Aliens Speaking English: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Graeme''': ''How come I can understand you? Are you using some sort of [[Translator Microbes|neural language router]]?''

 

As unlikely as it may seem, most alien species [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|can speak English]]—or [[Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe|Japanese]], or French, or whatever the language of the show's producers and intended demographic is. This has the added advantage that the characters can sometimes lapse into their native tongue when the [[Pardon My Klingon|script demands]].

 

{{examples}}

* Lum, Ten, and Lum's father from ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'' speak Japanese, but Lum's mother cannot (her speech is rendered as [[Mahjong]] tiles). Rei can say just a few words, and Lum forgets Japanese for an entire episode after getting hit by a baseball.

** But... practically every alien other than Lum's mother is fluent. Benten, Oyuki, Ran, Elle, the taxi driver...

* Completely averted in [[From Far Away]]. The [[Trapped in Another World]] main character can't speak a word of that world's language when she arrives, and spends a good hunk of the story gradually learning it so that she'll be able to communicate with people.

* When the girls of ''[[Magic Knight Rayearth]]'' are transported to Cephiro, they seem to take it for granted that everyone speaks Japanese. That is, until they meet Caldina and notice her [[Kansai Regional Accent]]. Then they start asking if there's an Osaka in Cephiro too.

* Lampshaded in ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]''. Keroro and other keronians/aliens (like mois) speak pefect Japanese/English. When asked about this by Fuyuki he counters by saying that Japanese/English sounds like Keronian.

* Used in [[DearS]] when Ren learns Japanese in one night by reading a single Japanese textbook. Justified because it's a genetic trait programed into the Dears to learn languages. How this also allows her to SPEAK Japanese however is [[Voodoo Shark|never explained]]

 

== Comic Books ==

 

 

* When the four arrive on C'hou in ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', they immediately meet people who speak accented English (much to their relief). Everywhere else they go, everyone speaks English. However, early on, John and Ringo encounter several books in other languages, and Stal mentions that some names (Idri'en Tagen and Raleka) are “old language names.” And different races have different styles of names, suggesting derivation from different languages. As the four have other things to think about and are not linguists, they never delve into this topic.

* In the ''[[RWBY]]'' fanfic ''[[Emergence]]'', the natives of Remnant speak modern, idiomatic English -- but they call it "Valic".

 

== Film ==

* In ''The Player of Games'' by [[Iain M Banks]], the narrator explains that although all dialogue takes place in either Marain (the official language of the Culture) or Eachic (the language spoken in the empire in which most of the story takes place), it has been translated into the (reader's) language, albeit in a cruder form. Banks exploits the 'translated for the reader' device to drop a couple of heavy hints about the reader's (that is, Earth) society. Probably the [[Anvilicious|least subtle]] is the long digression discussing how the third, dominant sex of the Azadians will be referred to by the pronouns of the dominant sex in the reader's society. In English, at least, all members of the 'apex' sex [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|are referred to as 'he'.]] ''Player of Games'' arguably constitutes an in-universe aversion of this trope, as it's a minor plot point that the different languages available, having evolved out of exceedingly different cultures, affect the way the protagonist thinks, and therefore acts, depending on which one he's using. As in, there are concepts common to Eachic inexpressible in Marain, and vice versa.

* Lampshaded in a ''[[Samurai Cat]]'' tale. The duo are on an alien ship trying to decipher the controls, and find that they're actually labelled in Japanese. Then they realise that, despite being from 17th century Japan, they were speaking English.

* In Christopher Stasheff's ''[[A Wizard in Rhyme]]'' series, the [[Ordinary High School Student]] protagonist transports himself to the story's alternate universe by deciphering a [[Summon Magic]] spell. The problem is, said alternate universe is a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|Fantasy Counterpart Version]] of Medieval Europe, and he explicitly learned their version of French. Then he goes and has adventures with Italians, Germans/Austrians, even ''Muslims'', and yet there is no language barrier.

** French actually was a widely-used international language for quite a bit of the middle ages. Several of the people he meets are visibly uncomfortable with it as a second language (especially the Arabs), and he occasionally has to fall back on magical translation.

* With a case of demons speaking English, in ''[[Angel]]'' the inhabitants of the demon dimension Pylea speak English and communicate with dimensional travellers without problem, but their books are still written in strange demonic tongue that takes effort from a person familiar with the dialect to translate.

** Speaking of 'Angel' - why on Earth is Illyria speaking perfect unaccented English? Considering that the creature lived when humans hadn't yet come into being or were little more than apes, one would expect it to have a real, REAL lot of trouble understanding any human language. Of course, one could assume that Illyria absorbed the knowledge of English automatically from its 'shell'. Still, it should have been given at least some time to process and learn to apply that knowledge.

* In the pilot episode of ''[[ALF]]'', Willie's radio intercepts ALF's spaceship and then ALF's voice comes out, but he appears to be speaking a different language. Then, when ALF is brought into the house, he not only speaks English, but he speaks English fluently, tells pop culture jokes and apparently, so do other Melmacians. Also, anytime that we see a book from Melmac, it is in English. How contradictory!

* ''Tracker'' subverted this with Cole, who had to learn English after landing. Zin, however, spoke it fairly well.

* [[Xena: Warrior Princess]] travels to Rome, Brittania, Africa, India, China, and Japan, yet never runs into language barriers.

* Every Orkan alien from ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' seems to speak English.

* Parodied in ''[[Hyperdrive]]'', in which the aliens speak their own language that, by pure coincidence, is exactly the same as English.

 

== Other ==

* According to [[Dragon Tails|Norman]], aliens would probably speak with a slight French inflection. "We come in le peace!"

* There are multiple galactic languages in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', but English still makes the short list. Or rather Galstandard West, which is one of [[Common Tongue|the common galactic languages]] corrupted by English. However, most English puns [[Contrived Coincidence|conveniently]] work in Galstandard West as well. This, of course, is shamelessly lampshaded both by the narrator and the author in his occasional [[The Rant|rants]].

* In ''[[Freefall]]'', Sam Starfall speaks English just fine, possibly learning it from the human scientists that discovered he had stowed away on their ship.

* Inverted in ''[[Alien Dice]]'', English is actually a dialect of Galactic Standard introduced by a bunch of [[Human Aliens|Rishaan]] who were dumped on Earth.

** {{spoiler|Presumably Sburb would want all the players destined to enter the Medium to speak the same language...in particular, one that happens to be the namesake of [[Eldritch Abomination]] [[Big Bad]] Lord English.}}

* Justified in ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', Uryuoms have the abilty to learn (or teach) any language by rubbing their antennae on a person's forehead (or presumably anywhere close to their brain) for about three seconds. They can only do this kind of thing with languages though.

* Inverted and Justified in ''The Accidental Space Spy'' - when the human character asks "How come all aliens are speaking English?", they explain that the someone [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/thorsby/spacespy/series.php?view=archive&chapter=48599#193466 hid mind control devices on a lot of planets], which gradually turn one of the planet's languages into Vricaltian. The culprit? {{spoiler|The Vricaltian Tourist Agency. To make it easier for tourists.}}

* Interplanar aversion in ''[[Planescape Survival Guide]]'', as it turns out when the cast make it to the first world (earth) [[Common Tongue|Common]] has nothing in common with English.

* On the planet in ''[[Verlore Geleentheid]]'' Afrikaans is evidently the dominant language (some English is spoken too). But considering it's somehow identical to South Africa in every way save for [[Schizo-Tech|some]] of the technology and the fact that the inhabitants aren't human that is to be expected.

* In ''[[Winters in Lavelle]]'', all of the humans in Lavelle (so far) speak English. However, it's averted hard with the Gard, a species of (rather violent, it seems) half-deer men. They all speak Gardish, and the only one shown to be able to speak English so far is Xan- though his grasp on it is [[Strange Syntax Speaker|rather]] [[Eloquent in My Native Tongue|tenuous.]]

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* ''[[Land Games]]'': Averted, the Woken speak in their natural language, which Jayle can somewhat understand. They have no trouble understanding spoken English though.

* [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in ''[[Chaos Fighters]]'', as explained [http://journal-of-murazrai.xanga.com/755247488/page-104-random-chaos-fighters-tidbit-1/ here]. However, it is noted that initially communications were done using pictures and animations at first before the aliens learned English during cultural exchange and spread out to the entire universe. ''Beyond The Earth'', set in 2012 however use [[Aliens Steal Cable|special spells]] as an excuse and apparently they were doing that long before the incidents in the installment started.

* ''[[Cracked.com]]'' calls Aliens Speaking English [http://www.cracked.com/article_18721_the-5-stupidest-ways-movies-deal-with-foreign-languages_p2.html The 2nd Stupidest Way Movies Deal with Foreign Languages].

 

== Western Animation ==

* In the '80s ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' cartoon, upon meeting [[Usagi Yojimbo|Miyamoto Usagi]] for the first time (brought over through a dimensional portal) Raphael points out, "He's not only from an alternate dimension, but also ancient Japan. So naturally, he speaks English."

** In the [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|new series]] an alien arrives and while at first speak a foreign language, the [[Translator Microbes|collar]] she wears is activated to translate it into English.

{{quote|"Hey!" "What?" "''Hey!''" "''What?''" "Hey!!" "What?!"

* Lampshaded on a ''[[Fantastic Four]]'' cartoon. The aliens spoke in their native tongue for awhile, then freeze framed as an animated [[Stan Lee]] came out and said "For the convenience of those who don't speak Alien, we'll have them speak English for the rest of the episode."

* Whilst not aliens (although, the jury is out on the Olmecs), everyone in ''The Mysterious Cities of Gold'' speaks the same language (which you would assume is Spanish). Whilst it may be logical for some of the Native Tribes to have some people amongst them who had learned the Spanish Language by the time Esteban and co arrive in South America, it certainly doesn't explain why every little village girl, hidden tribe and TAO (who had been alone on an isolated island until meeting Esteban and Zia) could speak Spanish.

* The titular character of ''[[Muzzy in Gondoland]]'' is an alien speaking English in a cartoon that ''teaches'' English.

* 1973-74 ''[[Superfriends]]'' episodes "The Power Pirate", "Too Hot To Handle", "The Balloon People" and "The Watermen". The aliens in all of these episodes spoke perfect English with no explanation.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Alien Tropes]]

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