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Starfish Language: Difference between revisions
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* In ''[[Macross Frontier]]'', the Vajra are of the singing variety; apparently they "talk with their tummies."
** Being a [[Hive Mind|swarm lifeform]] normally without a need for communication, they didn't even grasp the concept of language. Their solution? Create a human/vajra hybrid; really, a human-form vajra. It took [[Idol Singer|her]] sixteen years to realize what she was, but it worked (and she helped make another one like her in the process too).
* In ''[[Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys]]'', the titular [[Starfish Aliens|Deoxys]] spoke to each other through aurorae, which one of the characters could translate with her [[Magical Computer|laptop]]. They also made strange airplane engine-esque noises as well.
** The Pokémon themselves would count as well, since they're somehow able to communicate fluently with each other despite their dialogue consisting only of the names of their given species. In one episode where Ash became separated from their Pokémon, the Pokémon spoke to each other without any trouble (complete with English subtitles).
** Also in ''[[Pokémon: The Movie 2000|Pokémon 2000]]'', Pikachu was able to communicate with the legendary lightning bird, Zapdos, through electric shocks. Strangely enough, Meowth was able to decipher what they were saying.
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** So did the alien invaders from ''Camelot 3000''.
* German artist [[Walter Moers]] had some friends who suggested him to write a story about some aliens landing near the house of Franz Josef Strauß (very conservative Bavarian politician, meanwhile dead) but can only communicate by belching and [[Dirty Commies|waving red flags]].
* [[Guardians of the Galaxy]] member Groot, a giant walking tree, can only say one thing: "I AM GROOT!" However, similar to the Pokémon example, it turns out that he's actually [[Genius Bruiser|brilliant]] and is often providing solutions in [[Techno Babble]] with that one phrase.
* The Enelsians from ''[[Astro City]]''.
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* An adaptation depicts the language of the [[Transformers (film)|Transformers]] as sounding like a cross between a howling velociraptor and a burst of computer noise. This is reasonable, given that they're robots.
** The movie proper gives them deep muttering noises. Frenzy, for some reason, has a much higher and more frenetic series of noises, though it certainly fit him.
** One of the myriad [[All There in the Manual|manuals]] explains that spoken Cybertronian is extremely efficient - a few sounds can contain lots of information - and the prequel comics show that they are also capable of "texting" each other soundlessly (this is how Bumblebee communicated with the other Autobots after having his throat destroyed), but this is highly impersonal and typically only used for battlefield orders and such like.
** The Mini-Cons talk in bleeps and whistles similar to the droids in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' universe. Each major Minicon has a distinct "voice," his or her range of noises being unique. Humans and large Transformers alike find Minicon-speak incomprehensible initially, but grow to be able to understand it somehow. The Minicons eventually learn to speak English as well.
* The native language of the Tenctonese in the first ''[[Alien Nation (film)|Alien Nation]]'' movie resembles the popping of bubble wrap run through a synthesizer; technically, they're all sounds humans can make, but few human languages use them.
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* [[Newspeak]] from ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''. It's a grossly simplified version of English with just about all of its words being compound words. And it has no parts of speech; a word can be a noun, verb, adjective, or an adverb. Also, it has no articles and words can be interpreted in many ways.
** Of course, this is justified because its goal is to keep people stuck in a [[Mind Rape]] happy [[Commie Nazis|Communist-Fascist]] [[Crapsack World]] and they need to be able to speak, perform, and hear two paradoxical concepts at the same time without being weirded out by the [[Mind Screw]]. Its only saving grace is that it uses English grammatical structure.
* Several from the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]]. The Vahni Vahltupali communicate visually, flashing patterns across their skin. They can even "sing". The Citoac, meanwhile, communicate by using sounds of a pitch that stimulates the brain of another being, directly influencing their neurology. Efrosian language is music-based, and they can describe complex equations, schematics and diagrams by humming. The languages of several aquatic races such as the Alonis are also musical.
* In the [[Eberron|Dragon Below Trilogy]], the [[Starfish Aliens|Daelkyr]] with no mouth communicates using telepathy, but it happens to be completely incomprehensible to people who are not stark raving mad ([[The Dragon|Dah'mir]], [[Big Bad Friend|Vennet]], and [[Black Magician Girl|Medala]] are the only ones who ever actually manage to understand what he is saying), and listening to it for too long is probably going to drive you stark raving mad anyway.
* In Robert Jordan's ''[[Wheel of Time]]'', wolves communicate in howls and telepathy and primarily deal with smells. According to Perrin, human tongues just can't compare.
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* Unicorns, in the ''[[Apprentice Adept]]'' series, understand human speech just fine, and can speak it when in human form (Those that bother to learn, anyway). In their natural state, they use "hornspeak", communicating through musical notes blown through their horns. (In Phaze, unicorn horns are hollow and produce sounds similar to musical instruments.)
* [http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/lingo.html This article] includes some interesting notes on very foreign languages and an index of science fiction stories that have tackled the idea of alien languages.
* The language of the Knnn race in ''[[Chanur Novels|The Chanur Saga]]'', which consists of whale song-like vocalizations. Their language is so alien as to be completely incomprehensible to oxygen breathers, and even the methane-breathing T'ca and Chi have trouble with it. The T'ca and Chi are ''themselves'' only half comprehensible in turn- the T'ca, most comprehensible and friendly of them and unnoficial go-betweens for Oxy and Methane, speak in "matrix sentences" of words arranged two-dimesionally with no particular reading order or discernable grammar.
* The Chur, from Katherine Kerr's ''Snare'', typically speak at a frequency so low humans cannot hear it, and also have their own well-defined body language.
* The Octospiders from the [[Sequel|sequels]] to ''[[Rendezvous With Rama]]''. Not only are they actual starfish (well, starfish-like) but they speak with colors, colors that come out of their 'heads' in a little fountain, and working out a way to translate said colors into people speak is a major plot point (and turns out to be both very difficult and remarkably ineffective) due to the fact that they use a number of colors that people cannot see, and have a number of terminologies that simply do not translate, at all.
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* In the book ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'' the apes spoke a completely different language (since it wasn't [[Earth All Along]]) which the protagonist had to learn. It was a normal vocal language, however.
* The Priest-Kings of ''[[Gor]]'' communicate exclusively via scent. They also have a ''411'' letter alphabet (yes, letters not ideograms).
* The Mother Thing from [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Have Space
* A partial example: ''The Widget, the Wadget, and Boff'' is written as if partially translated from an alien language. The occasional word or phrase appears surrounded by double square brackets, intended to convey that it represents the closest approximation to the (literally untranslatable, referring to objects, situations, or actions completely outside our frame of reference) original.
* [[Bruce Coville]]'s ''[[My Teacher Is an Alien]]'' series has fun with this -- many could speak audibly, but some communicated in weird ways like reflecting light off of their bodies. In addition the stories point out that even vocal languages use gestures, which their [[Universal Translator]] was also able to work with.
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* ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'': The weird noises that baby Sunny makes are treated like this, with her siblings understanding her perfectly.
* In ''[[Pandora's Star|Pandoras Star]]'' and ''[[Judas Unchained]]'', Ozzie meets a [[Starfish Alien]] that is thought to be mute by all the people caring for it. {{spoiler|He discovers that it actually communicates by projecting UV shapes that form a pictographic language.}}
** Also, the Primes, being a hive-mind, are linked directly brain-to-brain. To the humans, their radio signals appeared to be just unintelligible garbage.
* The Graycaps in Jeff VanderMeer's ''[[Ambergris]]''-books speak mostly in rapid clicks and whistles that sounds vaguely insectoid to human listeners, who have mostly concluded that their language must be too dengenerate to properly deserve the title - as it turns out, it's in fact far more complex than any human language and utterly impossible to translate accurately. They understand human speech perfectly, but only begin to use themselves it in the third book, ''Finch''. They are also implied to communicate by breathing spores of their symbiotic fungi on each other.
* The aliens in the [[Isaac Asimov]] short story ''Playboy and the Slime God'' (a.k.a. ''[[What Is This Thing You Call Love?|What is This Thing Called Love?]]'') communicate by changing their color.
* In ''[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]'' by [[Robert A. Heinlein]], Martians speak in a "throat-scratching" language with many concepts that can only be expressed within it. A phonetic script devised for it has over eighty characters. Humans can, in fact, speak and learn it; it's the key to enlightenment.
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* [[Harry Potter]]'s Parseltongue, which apparently can only be spoken (through magic) who were born with the specific ability to speak it. Interestingly, Hermione at one point does manage to simulate the sounds Harry made when speaking Parseltongue, despite herself not being a Parselmouth - apparently it is ''comprehending'' the language that can only be accomplished with in-born magic. [[Did Not Do the Research|Noam Chomsky would have a few kind words about that.]]
** Also in the HP universe, [[Our Mermaids Are Different|Mermish]] might qualify as a starfish language. As do Troll, which sounds like random grunting, but apparently qualifies as a language despite the low intelligence of [[All Trolls Are Different|HP trolls]].
* Most of the saurians in [[Dinotopia]] have languages of various grunts, growls, squeaks, clicks, ect. Prosauropods have a form of musical language as well, often accompanied by a human partner on an instrument. Humans can learn them, and the translator protoceraptops can speak many of them, but sometimes larger species' tongues are tough-carnivores, for example, have deep, gruff vocalizations that don't mix well with human throats. (Note that this didn't come up as much in the digest novels, probably to make it easier for young readers to comprehend.)
* In ''Lovely Assistant'' (by Geoph Essex), Jenny experiences {{spoiler|non-linguistic sensory signals that help her "appointments" (she's a newly minted [[Grim Reaper]]) decide which path to take [[Afterlife Antechamber|through the afterlife]].}} This comes in handy later, when it turns out {{spoiler|the [[Our Monsters Are Different|not-actually-Cthulhu creature]] goaded into destroying the world communicates using the same language of mental concepts.}}
* Played with in "Aftermath", a short story from ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' told from Murphy's POV. In it, Murphy repeatedly points out her fluency in Martian ... which is merely the "language" of grunts, mumbles, snorts, postures, and facial expressions used by human males to communicate unspoken, manly messages to one another. Without even realizing they're using a [[Starfish Language]] while doing so.
* The Etiquette section of ''[[Discworld|Nanny Ogg's Cookbook]]'' includes some information on [[Discworld]]'s version of the "language of flowers" tradition. Being written by Nanny Ogg, it not only explains that flowers could once be used, like navy signal flags, to say all sorts of things, but goes on to describe some NSFW gardens.
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** Additionally, the Imperial Guardsmen use so much military terminology (kloms, [[APCs]], NCO, [[New Meat|FNGs]], and other [[TL As]] (Three Letter Acronyms)) that at least one Inquisitor wonders if it should be declared its own sublanguage.
* Back in the day, ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' actually had alignment languages "wherein people of the same alignment could communicate through insinuations and intimations that only really make sense between those of like-minded affiliation with an aspect of a universal standard of ethic and morality". Meaning a lawful person could speak Lawful, a chaotic person could speak Chaotic, and so on. And if your alignment changed you forgot how to speak it, but could now speak the language of your new alignment. [[Flat What|What]].
** Would the Dabus from the [[Planescape]] setting count, too? A language requiring vision to understand because they speak in rhebus puzzles (presumably a visual representation of Common) that appear over their heads seems like it would qualify.
** A few monstrous races have been described as having a [[Starfish Language]], as with will-o-wisps' communicating by making their glowing bodies emit patterns of different-colored light flashes.
*** Saurials are described as having a language that is outside the range of human hearing, so either subsonic or ultrasonic, and also having a component based on chemical scent emissions.
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* In ''Star Wars: [[Knights of the Old Republic]] II: The Sith Lords'', Darth Nihilus is shown to speak a bizarre language (suggested by some fans to be Ancient Sith) which the PC is incapable of understanding, even though they can understand all other languages they come across in the galaxy.
* In ''[[Halo]] 1'', the Elites' language is unintelligible, but in the latter two games they are heard "speaking" English, due to improved [[Translator Microbes]]. Jackals on the other hand remained unintelligible throughout the entire trilogy, and Grunts always "spoke" English.
** Though in Halo 1 the Elites were really just speaking [[Subliminal Seduction|back-masked]] grunty English.
* ''[[Free Space]]'' has the Vasudan race, whose language sounds mainly like a bunch of very deep grunts (a mechanical translator provides a spoken English translation about a second after the Vasudans speak, so Terrans can understand). The game's files say that the Vasudan language is incredibly complex, containing multiple alphabets and dialects, with syntax, grammar, and vocabulary depending on a wide variety of factors including but not limited to: one's age, relative social status, continent of origin, and spatial distance from the Vasudan Emperor. The [[Big Bad|Shivans]], on the other hand, don't seem to communicate through any kind of means even ''detectable'' by humans. {{spoiler|A "rudimentary and crude" Shivan communications device (Project ETAK) is unveiled in the end of the second game, though we do not ever get to hear what comes out of it, and humanity doesn't get much chance to use it anyway before we are cut off from the Shivans.}}
* The character Geno from ''[[Super Mario RPG]]'' is a star being possessing a doll called Geno. He uses the name Geno because his real name, ♥♪!?, is "hard to pronounce".
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* ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' in spades, practically every alien spoke their native language. This was due to either a limited budget or limited time though, since all the alien speak was pretty much the same gibberish looped over and over with virtually no attention to the amount of actual dialogue it was meant to represent (taking nearly a full minute to say one sentence).
* "Old" Hylian in some of the ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' games, particularly ''[[A Link to The Past]]'' and ''[[The Wind Waker]]'' uses an entirely different alphabet.
** It is actually just a Japanese cipher. Some of the newer games use an English cipher instead.
** And then there's ''[[Twilight Princess]]'', which has Sky Writing -- the language of the ancient race called the Oocca. Only ''one guy in the entire country'' understands it. The player never sees more of the writing than a few isolated characters, but you do get to hear Shad [[Speaking Simlish|say part of it out loud]].
* In ''[[Spore]]'', some creatures will use this language, depending on what mouth they have. This will continue up to the Galaxy Stage.
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