Communicating without a Common Language

The Music has been going well. We had wrapped up Galactic Accelerator and even put together a recap (summarize the story so far). Working on what should be the last song shortly (everyone is putting together the sounds they want to use).

Funny thing, this forced me to ask a question. In the new song, there will some clips from Aliens talking (just short stuff). Like announcements over a PA or otherwise. There was originally some of that in 3rd First Sunrise (the first song on this album), as they were watching the sunrise outside a Space Café (and could hear some of the discussion behind them). We took it out as we wanted to focus on a different vocal path.

This made me wonder how the spacecraft understood the aliens. I get that the speech is largely telekinetic in space and that ability allows all species to speak their own language and still be understood. However, I wanted to understand it better, so I asked DarkStar. Note, this was going to be a tough conversation as I was going to try and discuss hearing and comprehension with someone who has no ears (and technically there is no sound the way we vision it in the vacuum of space).

He explained that it is they do hear a voice (so we will try and get close to that), but that the words obviously do not make sense to them. However, it is sort of auto translated in that they comprehend the proper words. This is not perfect. Proper names normally come do not have a translation. So if an Alien told them to go and meet with Zimba over there, obviously Zimba would not translate for them (there is no equivalent to a proper name in our language).

This gets interesting when discussing some objects. I will use an earth type example. If you were asked what type of car you owned, and say it was a Mustang (or Bronco), the response would be confusing to the other side (basically you would respond, I have a car, it is a horse). However, seems everyone up there is well versed in these types of issues and works around them very quickly.

As another note, the person being communicated to does not have to be standing in front of you. Their public address systems seem to also be able to carry this along (so maybe the speaker is doing more than just making sound?). Everyone hears public addresses in their own language (except proper nouns, ie Mr Smith please report to the courtesy phone).

I found that interesting (and wondered if we would have to develop that ability before becoming a real space fairing species, or if we would develop it quickly once we got out into space (is there some sort of babble fish that would help us along).