Omniglot: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''The Doctor:''' Every language.|''[[Doctor Who]]''}}

* [[The Flash|Impulse's]] mom learned English in 8 seconds thanks to super speed.

** Max Mercury duplicated the trick... mostly... when he was introduced to Impulse's mother. Bart gave him a "speed course" in Interlaq with a few 'errors'.

* Starfire of the [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]] has the power to learn any language, just by physical contact with a native speaker, but she usually ''kisses'' the speaker in question (The original Dick Grayson lampshades the situation during a crossover with the X-Men set just after the Dark Phoenix Saga when he apologizes to Professor X for Starfire kissing Colossus when he mutters to himself in Russian.). It is unknown how many languages she currently speaks, but it looks like she has the potential to speak... all of them.

** But then this is a trait of her species, and she still has an "accent" if you call it that.

** Played straight with Indy himself who speaks English, Spanish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Chinese, Hindi, Swedish and Russian, and can apparently understand many more.

** Indy's [[Evil Counterpart]] Belloq from ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'' knows some languages that Indy does not.

'''Belloq:''' Yes, too bad. You could warn them . . . if only you spoke Hovitos. [Turns around and starts giving orders to the Hovitos] }}

* Hans Landa of ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'' is a multilingual Nazi capable of speaking in German, French, English and Italian, and each of these skills becomes a plot point. Christoph Waltz actually does speak German, French and English, but his Italian is [[Faux Fluency]]. Tarantino nearly dropped the project after having difficulty casting the role.

* John Milton in ''[[The Devil's Advocate]]''. Which makes sense, considering...

* Similarly, in ''[[The Forbidden Kingdom]]'', a 20th-Century kid from L.A. (who happens to be a fan of classic chop-socky movies) lands... literally... in Mythic China. When he first awakens, he can't understand anyone, which proves disconcerting when a group of unpleasant soldiers start yelling orders at him. Jackie Chan's character arrives, defeats the soldiers with Drunken Boxing and tries to talk to our hero.

Jackie Chan: (speaking in perfectly clear, slightly accented English) That's because you're not LISTENING! (after which point every character starts speaking English) }}

* From ''[[The A-Team (film)|The a Team]]'':

'''Murdock''': You don't? }}

** This is also a [[Casting Gag]], as the actor playing Murdock is from South Africa, and does, in fact, speak Swahili.

* From the [[Discworld]] books:

** Rincewind is inexplicably talented with languages, despite not being an excessively intelligent character otherwise. This mainly serves as a plot device which allows him to travel around the Disc without resorting to the use of some sort of [[Translator Microbes]]. The justification given for this is that he, a consummate coward, wants to be able to scream for help and be understood in as many places as possible.

** Carrot, as [[The Chosen One]], learns languages unnaturally fast, but [[Painting the Fourth Wall|not perfectly]].

** Amber from ''I Shall Wear Midnight'' picks up almost any language unbelievably fast.

* The [[Witch Species|Sartan and Patryns]] from [[The Death Gate Cycle]] have the ability to learn languages instantly with their magic; this leads to a scene in the fourth book where Patryn [[Anti-Hero]] Haplo is dipped in magic nullifying water and loses all languages apart from his native tongue- and then instantly gets them back when he dries out, much to the amazement of the locals who'd rescued him.

* In [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s [[Just So Stories]] tale "The Butterfly That Stamped"

* Mars, the Incarnation of War, in Piers Anthony's [[Incarnations of Immortality]] series. There aren't any language barriers when it comes to War.

* In ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'' Lazarus Long claims that he can usually tack on a new language in a week, but refuses to do business with the Howards in any language but mid-20th century American English, which the Chairman learns in two days. Suggesting that it's a common trait for people who've lived multiple centuries.

** In one episode when encountering a telepathic alien he makes specific not that she has an abnormal mind, it's apparently hardwired to understand languages and that's why she is so good at them. She even ended up translating tonal pulses from a [[Starfish Alien]] and communicate back. Hoshi eventually ended up as the one to program the early [[Universal Translator]] that the later series take for granted.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' ("Hope and Fear"). Captain Janeway encounters an alien whose species has a natural aptitude for languages (he knows over 4000). And not just natural languages, a bit later he decodes {{spoiler|and falsifies}} an encrypted datastream in his head, despite Voyager having spent weeks trying to break it with powerful computers.

* In an early episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', when Riker considers a promotion to captain of his own ship, Picard informs him his first officer is known for his command of over 40 languages.

** Presumably, Data can speak several languages and can learn one simply by flipping through a dictionary, though this is never used thanks to the [[Universal Translator]].

** This skill is necessary for her species, as they are the only ones who have an allergic reaction to the microbes and can't take the easy way out.

* On ''[[The A-Team]]'' Murdock can apparently speak several languages including Spanish, German, Vietnamese, Japanese, Russian and Mandarin Chinese. He can also speak Italian, but it quickly strays into [[My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels]] territory.

* Barney Stinson in ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' seems to randomly know a number of languages including Korean, Mandarin, Latin, French, and possibly others. He's said to speak Ukranian to his tailor, but it is in fact Russian.

* ''[[Chuck]]'s'' Intersect contains several languages which he can speak (after flashing on them).

* ''[[Spirit of the Century]]'' makes no pretenses toward being realistic in this area. A character can speak a number of additional languages equal to their Academics skill (maximum of + 5 for player characters), however the player does not need to choose their languages up front. Rather, these are considered language "slots" which can be filled as is convenient. This effectively makes any character with decent academics an Omniglot until they run out of language slots, as they can just fill in whatever languages they encounter. The "Linguist" stunt adds an extra 5 language slots, and the "Gift of Tongues" stunt takes this a step further. Any character with this stunt can speak ''any'' mainstream language by default and can spend their normal language slots on esoteric languages they have no business ever having learned.

** The rulebook quote:

* There's actually a trait for it in ''[[Eclipse Phase]]'' called Hyper Linguist -- it reduces the time and cost to learn Language skills to one-third, lets your character automatically learn a language through a single day of complete immersion, and grants a + 10 modifier to interpreting languages they don't know. Given that you need 50 points in a language skill to be fluent, and you normally require one Rez Point per skill point and one week of studying per point, plus you're restricted to 5 points in a skill per month, this is '''very''' handy if you're not planning to rely on your Muse's translation program for communication. It can also be varying degrees of justified, as your character can be anything from a custom-programmed AI to a centuries-old world-weary immortal.

* One of the Epic Intelligence Knacks in ''[[Scion]]'' is Language Mastery - if you listen to a language for a few minutes, you'll speak it with complete fluency. There is a drawback: you can also write that language, but you don't gain automatic mastery of how it's ''spelled''.