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]]?''<br />

 

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]].

 

 

If you want to keep things lively, using a [[Bilingual Dialogue]] with ''alienese'' as the foreign language is always cool. If you want your aliens to be scary, have them instead speak in the [[Black Speech]].

If the words are understandable but the grammar rules are not, then it's a [[Strange Syntax Speaker]]. See [[Eternal English]] for the time travel equivalent. Occasionally justified by a [[Common Tongue]]. Compare [[Anime Accent Absence]] for when the japanese forget to put accents on their foreign characters

 

 

== Anime & Manga ==

** It is also revealed in "Visser" that Hork-Bajir brains actually mangle the different languages together naturally. Which means even when controlled by a Yeerk, the Yeerk will find themselves mixing the languages as well.

* Averted in ''[[Lacuna (Literature)|Lacuna]]''; the Toralii are physically incapable of speaking any Human language (and Humans are incapable of speaking Toralii) but they can understand it.

** And it's mentioned that they need surgical help in order to even produce the sounds necessary for human speech. They communicate with each other by telepathy, as well as bioluminescent colour shifts.

** And even then, they speak by buzzing, which sounds creepy and abnormal even though they can technically get the English sounds just right.

** Lampshaded in other novels set chronologically later in the same universe. Virgil Samms describes to Rod Kinnison the communication difficulties that would be experienced in first-contact situations taking place under extreme pressure, and even acknowledges that the solution would require "a Deus Ex Machina with a vengeance". Shortly thereafter, the Arisians provide him with just what he needs, but it's more than adequately justified in canon. In ''Galactic Patrol'', when Kim Kinnison describes how the Lens causes the receiver of the Lensman's thoughts to "hear" the words spoken fluently in their own language, he admits that without the Lens, he only speaks a few words of Valerian Dutch "and those with a vile American accent".

** Averted ''again'' (and even more radically) in Virgil Samms' contacts with the frigid-blooded, partially hyperdimensional Palainians, some of whose ideas and practices are so alien that warm-blooded three-dimensional beings have no way of conceptualising or understanding them. The Lens in this case supplies an otherwise-meaningless word or term which thereafter is associated with that concept. We never find out in Smith's original canon what a dexitroboper does, despite a demonstration (Samms is only able to understand it as being a job description to do with nourishment or nutrients), nor what emmfozing actually is (he knows it is to do with reproduction, but Kragzex can't explain it to him because humanity only has two sexes).

* Spoofed in ''Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers'' by [[Harry Harrison]]. Every alien race the heroes come across has “listened to your radio broadcasts” and learned fluent English for one reason or another.

* In Robert Jordan's ''[[The Wheel of Time (Literature)|The Wheel of Time]]'' Perrin has no problem interpreting the "vision-speak" the wolves send him even with no common cultural background and Wolfbrothers were exceedingly rare to the point that most wolves didn't even know humans still had the ability.

** In "I, E.T.", the crew crashes on a planet that has never had interplanetary contact. Crichton is able to understand them (which works), but the inhabitants understand him (which shouldn't and isn't really explained).

** Recurring character Sikozu, however, actually does speak English (or whichever language is necessary at the time). According to her, her species can't tolerate translator microbes, but can learn other languages if spoken to after sufficient time.

** Watching that scene, I assumed that it was a [[Translation Convention]], and she was actually speaking ancient Latin or some other ancient language Duncan might know.

* Most tokusatsu has this trope all over the place, including ''[[Power Rangers]]'', ''[[Super Sentai]]'' and ''[[Kamen Rider]]''.

* [[Handwaved]] in [[Stick Man Stick Man]] with a [http://qntm.org/files/stickmanstickman/comics.php?n=935 half-plausible technobabble explaination]. Miracles of modern technology!

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

** It's not technically English--it's Galstandard West, which is basically the common galactic language 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 (Webcomic)|Freefall]]'', Sam Starfall speaks English just fine, possibly learning it from the human scientists that discovered he had stowed away on their ship.

[[Category:Alien Tropes]]

[[Category:Aliens Speaking English]]