Yea it's so good you can go undercover on an alien planet pretending to speak a language you can't. The sound cancellation seems reasonable lip sync doesn't.
I would rather it seem that aliens are speaking perfect English fluently, then them sounding like they typed a sentence into Google translate, Star Trek Beyond style.
@@CRYOKnox Star Trek online has Personal and Ship Holo Emiters for secret operations. The ship or person is covered by a holographic simulation. It is broken by animals secent (Targs in Klingon camps being a big example) and serious scanning. But the ship version was also used in the Romulan Drone Ship. Plus the Holographic Filters that they used a few times in DS9.
In Metamorphosis, Kirk outlines how the UT works to Zephram Cochran. Kirk: "There are certain universal ideas and concepts common to all intelligent life. This device instantaneously compares the frequency of brainwave patterns. Selects those ideas and concepts it recognizes and then provides the necessary grammar." Spock wraps it up: "And it simply translates its findings into english."
Believe it or not, there's real-world precedent for this. Currently, researchers are able to read a select number of thoughts by showing people images of objects and taking readings of their brain's reaction to each one. Then, using an expert system neural network, they can subsequently identify when their brain is seeing that image again. It's not perfect, but it's actually good enough to allow researchers to identify even objects which appear in people's _dreams._ That's close enough to mind reading that it's plausible for Star Trek level technology to interpret language that way.
Sorry but most of these experiments you are talking about that i read about are made with a rather small test group and they claim that they can identify the trough pattern of lets say an apple only problem i have with this is that there is no way to proof that the person that you try to read actually recognizes an apple the same way as another lets say that he is color blind would it be the same no of course not but even without color blindness lets say that that person never saw an apple in real live but only on pictures that would also create its own unique patter and so on my point is that thanks to the way the brain work we all experience sensory input like that different there is no universal constant between it thats what makes this field of science so hard to actually work with.
@@NoJusticeNoPeace in the late Soviet Union there was even an attempt to use the technology to decipher/study the language of Bottle-nose dolphins... sadly, with the chaos of the final soviet years, followed by the poverty of the early years of Ukrainian independence, meant the project was never finished and could only achieve limited results... but certainly certain forms of grammar and even nouns (referential-morphemes) were somewhat confirmed. given this was done on machines still using Punch-cards.... I can imagine today much more efficient building of models is possible if anyone returns to it.
Which should really happen more often, especially with cultures more recently encountered. Vocabulary and grammar are child's play next to idiom and metaphor to translate.
Honestly I never understood how those guys would even teach their language to their own children. I mean basic concepts is one thing but if you rely on metaphors to convey all information, how are you supposed to teach anyone what those metaphors are? Aside from acting out every last single one I guess.
@@GlitchG00D5 *Telmari her cleavage unfettered* *we never actually heard that one in the DarmoK episode, but it might have been implied at some point in the outtakes...would have been an interesting metaphor to translate regardless to say the least* *think the Ferengi might have been a bit quicker on the uptake with meaning and translation of that one* *just sayin'*
I was unreasonably excited by the way the UT was depicted as playing an audio signal at a delay over the original speech of the character in Star Trek Beyond.
I think that’s what Rick was meaning when he said we as the viewers don’t get that much if at all just for the convenience of watching a TV show. But I can see that being the more realistic way it would work.
There's a strong theory I've seen around that speaking with a non-American accent is a tell that someone is actually speaking English (or whatever Fed Standard really is) rather than using the UT. Hence the suggestion that the reason Deanna Troi has an accent but neither of her parents do is because she learned the language as a non-native speaker but Lwaxana and other Betazoids we see are using the translator. This also suggests that Worf might be speaking Russian while his parents are speaking English as a second language. Or he just got the accent down because he was already uncomfortably different enough by being Klingon.
The real reason behind the Troi story (as described by Marina Sirtis in some interview) was that Marina Sirtis was tasked to come up with an alien accent for Encounter at Farpoint. When her mother was later cast to be Majel Barrett, the actress simply used her own native accent and since she's such a legendary person in Star Trek, nobody including Sirtis dared to oppose her doing so.
I like that, but I'd rather Worf be a Beorussian speaker. Just for the heck of it, they need some love. My personal reason for Deana's accent was that she was raised in a different part of the planet than her mom grew up in and so she picked the local accent up in school and that's part of why they don't get along because her mom didn't like that. But I like your thing better. Mind you, there are actual North American characters on the show, Kirk and Riker being examples (Iowas an Alaska, respectively) so not all North American accents would indicate use of the U.T., only a large subset.
@@frankharr9466 I always thought this was the case. We wouldn't question why someone's Texan mother spoke differently than her California raised children, after all.
I recall a brief scene from the Voyager episode, The 37's, where Janeway explains to the resuscitated people that she has a UT, and the 37's are confused, as they are hearing each other speak in their native languages, such as the Japanese officer hearing everyone in Japanese, whereas the rest hear each other in English. This would lend credence to the neural basis, rather than aural. ua-cam.com/video/KRnRszarHRw/v-deo.html
My issue with that is, considering the size of the device needed to scan one brain in sickbay, there's no way a much smaller device can scan dozens of brains, and transmit brainwave patterns back to re-write what they hear. But if it was just aural, then the UT would be transmitting about 5-6 languages in that scene and be impossible to hear. So this is an episode that really breaks the believably for me.
@AngemonRulez The different crew members speak their own languages. So Picard speaks French, Sato spoke Japanese and Worf spoke Klingonese (That's what Klingon is called according to TOS). When the UT fails, they are stranded having to speak their own languages without translation.
@AngemonRulez *wonder how the UT would handle deep back woods Southern dialects ... reckin' it might be something of a booger whopper fer it to decifarr*
Even then there are times such as when the Klingons say various phrases at random throughout their sentences which do not get translated, so I always assumed translators could read intent, or most Klingons know English... which actually wouldn't surprise me, they'd do it just to show us up.
I always assume those are words that don't translate. I think the same thing happens whenever they are speaking to an alien and they say some phrase and the aliens asks "what?" and they have to explain the phrase. I assume that means the phrase didn't translate ito the alien language.
@@williamozier918 except that sometimes it should recognize it. Like in STDS9 where a Klingon insults Odo's mother. Shouldn't the words "your" and "mother" not translate at least?
Noise cancelling headphones I think work by "listening" to incoming things and playing the same wave-inverted sounds to cancel them out. That idea applied to a UT is much more reasonable than reading minds.
As a community organizer, I have experience with "whisper translation" in which, at meetings, you have someone sitting with their mouth cupped to your ear listening to what you hear and whispering a simultaneous translation to you. It's labour-intensive, meaning you need one-to-one translators for every person present, but they are essentially acting as a Universal Translator. I'm thinking that Star Trek technology is sufficiently advanced to do the same thing by using bone induction to "whisper translate" directly into your skull by vibration, so no one else can hear it. Using noise cancellation, it could simultaneously block the voice it is translating at the same time. The effect would be to hear someone in almost real-time in your own language while cancelling your ability to pick up their actual words.
Uhura speaking Klingon in Star Trek 6 in order to get through Klingon space because they'd be found out if the Enterprise's translation matrix was online, really made just how knowing the language of other species so important.
The whole concept of instant language translation has always been a subject of interest for me. Communication would certainly be vital when dealing with new lifeforms. Great video, as always. I appreciate the thought and time that goes into making these entertaining and informative videos. Respect and Blessings from Wild Wonderful West Virginia. 🙏
Yeah, and I think with forcefield tech being available, it should be doable to silence sounds except in specific directions. In fact we do know that the feds have the ability to make sounds come from any position or direction they wish, and sound differently for different people in the same location - it's required for holodecks to work with multiple individuals.
This also makes more sense with com badges. Like, speaker only? Not only rude but also a potential problem if your ship needs to get important information to an away team without tipping off the hostile aliens.
And definately not as far-fetched as most of anything else in Star Trek, for example ... warp drive, time travel, space-whales, hive-mind biomechanical cyborgs, thought-controlled space, galactic-center aliens pretending to be god, aliens that actually are god, teleportation, replicators and Captain Janeway.
7:58 I came across a theory that said that the universal translator translates thought. The act of specifically making certain noises with your mouth (eg when I speak French) is nothing like what your brain goes through in normal speech so isn't translated. When Worf meets Dax is a good example of this. She says something in Klingon specifically so that only he understands it in a crowd
Your knowledge base and dedication to research is incredible. I wish you were hired as a consultant for all New Trek writing rooms. Even if you didn't write yourself, just having you as an on hand resource would elevate the quality of new episodes.
There was an episode of DS9 where Quark and his family were swooped into the past. Somehow in the story the UT was disabled. They were then smacking their ears implying that their UT's were implants in the ear canal. Maybe this is commonplace for all species?
It sounds like a shame we never had an episode exploring all the undocumented features of the universal translator. Mind reading and controlling what individuals hear would be scary powers.
I have a combination of both. Neural Implants are the most advanced being able to translate Audio and Visual in real time. And Accessories are usually used by Body Purists. The accessory has two parts. An Earpiece and a Microphone that can be attached to Clothing. Slight delay. There's technically a third one. Which is a hand held device, however it's outdated by 5 Centuries and thus not really used. Edit: Needed to fix a few things. Also this point in the Universe is set in the Mid-31st Century.
Most sci-fi: Why do the aliens speak English? Because. Star Trek: why do the aliens speak English? They're speaking their own language but our character have access to technology that translates it for them in real-time.
My head cannon was always that every species had their own UT devices and to produce a translation the devices would communicate with the opposite species device. And since their processing power is extremely high, the devices could negotiate a translation in essentially real time.
The Terrans in the sci-fi universe I've been working on mostly use implants hooked up to their sensory organs that can intercept and "translate" visual and auditory stimuli into a known database using augmented reality. However, the incoming stimulus must be in a compatible language format (usually in some version of Terran Standard) while the Interstellar Phoenetic Alphabet is used for writing and signposting. For example, this comment would be written the way I speak it, not the way I write it, because the way something is written is not always how it is spoken (see the billion different silent letters and stuff present in the English language). It also requires the use of an Algorithmic Intelligence(non-sophont Electronic Intelligences) to assist a biological Terran. For non-biological Terrans, they often have their own built-in software to audio receptors and cameras that allow the translation as soon as they load in. Other forms of Terrans, such as the Uplifted, require unique translation software for their own languages to be understood by human Terrans, as they often rely on body language, pheromones, or other forms of communication instead of just verbal. When interacting with non-Terrans, they often have to rely on special constructed languages meant as trade pidgins until a database of grammar, vocabulary, and context can be constructed. It's a little more involved and less reliable than the usual sci fi translator but I figured it was an interesting and different take on the idea. Less space magic, more extremely advanced Google translate.
Just gonna put this out there: when the UT was made available, there was suddenly very little need to learn another language. It'd get translated anyway! Think about this. Hoshi Sato may have been one of the last real linguists in the Federation.
You'd always have some hobbyists out there who'd insist on doing it the hard way, and some professionals who'd want or need "natural" language skills for situations where the UT tech isn't allowed. The things read mental activity, which A) won't work on sufficiently alien species until their physiology is very well understood and B) is going to trigger every alarm bell in the universe for people with the slightest bit of (possibly justified) paranoia. Real people don't like facial recognition software today for the ways it can be abused. Can you imagine what a gadget that sifts through your head to determine what you'll say is going to look like to privacy-rights organizations, secret agents, diplomats, etc?
@@richmcgee434 Also, you need the linguists to create or at least refine and correct the 'on-the-spot' translation databases. Two noted linguists later in the timeline were Uhura of the Enterprise crew and Amanda, Spock's mother (who apparently met Sarek while working on the Vulcan/English translation table.)
Rich McGee Yeah, didn’t Picard have to memorize a speech to a culture that tolerated no imperfection in pronunciation, nor mistakes in performing their elaborate rituals?
It’s worth mentioning that the Universal Translator was presumably on regularly, if not all the time, on the USS Discovery during season 2, as when *SPOILERS* Discovery encountered the Sphere, it affected the UT in such a way as to mix languages not only on the onboard systems, but also amongst the crew. So either the UT just happened to be active ship-wide when Discovery encountered the sphere, or it was on at all times. I suppose it is possible that the Sphere activated the UT, then scrambled it, but I feel like that’s less likely than the UT simply being active at all times onboard the ship.
Someone's already mentioned Diane Duane, and considering how her stuff is used in STO, I might as well toss this out there...in her version of the setting, the Starfleet version of the UT (at least in the TOS era) involves a subcutaneous implant, put into the upper arm on your average humanoid, and notably using 'cesium-rubindium crystals' (an important plot point in one book).(Non-homonids like the Horta have voders that have the function built in to it). This taps into the nerve system of the user, and provides the translation in both directions that way. It's also noted that at least for Starfleet languages, this implant is consideredsuperior to those of, in particular, the Rihansuu.
Rick buddy, I think you have to do both the Babelfish and a comparison analysis of both [w/UT,] somewhere in there is a mention of the KLI, and their work with Bing [not the best Klingon translation, but it incrementally improves over time I've noticed.] That said you know best what you've already touched upon. Dude thank you for UT today! You still rock dude!
The moment I saw this, I was reminded of the ST:TNG episode Darmok, which demonstrates the limitations of such a device: The device translates words more or less exactly as they are said. Unfortunately, knowing the words isn't much use when a race communicates via "memes", in that unless you're well versed in their culture and mythology, it all just comes out as a bunch of seemingly random phrases. This is actually a problem encountered with computerized translation programs from the time of that episode: When the term "Out of sight, out of mind" was run through a translation program from English to Russian, and then back to English, it came back as "Invisible Insanity". Just knowing what the words mean doesn't tell you what the sentence means.
I recently watched all the Star Trek series and I remember at least once when inside starship they didn't "speak" English among the crew because the universal translator was broken. It wasn't gibberish but actually recognizable languages. One could either assert the universal translator onboard translated the original English to random languages, or that it didn't translate the original words at all...
In my fictional universe, a bio-chip is installed into the brains of the person which interfaces with the language and speak centers of that person. This radically magnifies their ability to learn process and use language. Some species install this from infancy. As the Bio -chip only assists the brain and does not replace any of its functions, degradation of the assisted areas of the brain does not occur.
@@DanielRichards644 That kind of thinking is what keeps humans limited, weak, and vulnerable. When a language bio-chip is installed it is either because it is needed for where you are, or you want one. Force compulsory installation of otherwise unneeded bio-enhancements is what leads to "The Borg". I would think that any advanced civilization would be looking to become Post biological, or at least live symbiotically with their technology not unlike the highly cybernized worlds of "Deus Ex" and "Ghost in the Shell" (which coincidentally feel like they happen in different parts of the planet a few years apart). If you are looking for a Utopian existence that only happens when such things are not an issue.
Tom Guo so I’m wondering, is the UT always going on in the background to translate for those who don’t speak English? If it is, can you set it for more than one language if you are fluent in more than one. Which would be why it wouldn’t translate Klingon into English for her since she already can speak Klingon.
Matthew Jay learning French was a pain in the ass for me in high school. And least English and French share an alphabet and the like. I can pick out some French words just by listening. Something like Japanese I am completely lost just by listening or looking at their writing without someone giving me context. Now take a complete alien language from another planet who’s speaker’s vocal cords and hearing range might be completely different from us. The task sounds impossible.
What about cases where it failed? I am thinking of: DS9, the Babel Virus. TNG, The Tamarian Language. That time on Discovery when the UT backfired and started translating every langauge into something else, causing utter confusion as nobody could intentionaly speak the same language anymore.
I always liked how the TARDIS translated languages. It went into the brain of someone and changed the brain's input of a foreign tongue into the native language of the receiver both written and spoken words (except Galliferyan). That way it works on all communicating parties with no time delay.
i think the output of badge works via bone conduction. maybe future tech can bring sounds to your ear from the rib cage or youve a small bluetooth chip in or close to your ear
Aww yes, but you forget that the Xenos' lucky enough to become sla- I mean civil labour's will need to be able to understand the orders from there human foreman‽ 😚
According to Voyager it is the noise cancelling signal kind or something similar. In the episode the 37's one of the revived people stated that everyone on board seems to speak their language, implying that they don't hear a dubbed version but hear as if all the people around them actually speak the language
There was an episode of Voyager, "the 37s," after they thawed out the people from the early 20th century. As they were talking, an Asian man spoke up and said that they were all speaking Japanese. One of the other Americans replied that, to them, he was actually speaking English. Janeway pointed to her communicator and mentioned how it was a universal translator, allowing them all to understand each other. This seems to imply that the UT of the 24th century is not only able to translate in real time without any lag, but apparently also able to dubb over your own voice, allowing others to hear their language come out of your mouth.
Consider too in the first episode where Bashir helped the other augments, there was an option to replay the dominion negotiations in native language mode.
I remember there was a DS9 episode where Dr. Bashir and the other genetically modified humans were going over a recorded diplomatic meeting with the Dominion, and manually turned off the translation so they could pick apart Weyoun's dialogue in its true form.
My linguist friend started constructing the entire Vortan language from that scene. Yes, they call it Dominionese in the show, but that's a silly name probably applied to it from the outside, and she and I suspect that the Vortan language became the lingua franca of the Dominion from their being the Founders' administrators. And also the Jem'Hadar have names and words completely different from the sentence Weyoun speaks.
The noise-cancelling isn't far-fetched at all. We actually have similar technology in real life. Basically, infrasonic technology allows you to essentially transmit sound to a specific point. A real-life test of the technology involved making a person hear the sound of breaking glass in a glass store that was near the research lab. The technology has been explored for use in cars so that each passenger can separately hear their own song without hearing the music that other passengers want to listen to. If this is possible in real life, I don't see why it would be a problem for science fiction. It should be really easy for the communicator to transmit the translation directly into the ear of the person wearing the communicator such that they will only hear the translation. And because it's an individual translation where only the person wearing the communicator would hear the translation it wouldn't cause a commotion around them. If it didn't work this way then the first time they would infiltrate a pre-warp civilization the translation to English would undoubtedly affect that civilization's development.
I always thought of the way messages aren't translated to be a conscious choice, since we know that it reads thoughts. Basically let's say you want to insult someone in Klingon, you don't want the message to be translated, so it ends up not getting translated if that makes sense.
We''ve started well into our own UT tech. Now it's not privy to the decoding matrix that is in ST but works on a database but with the right equipment we can get on the fly translation.
Left unsaid were the two wars instigated when a hacker changed the phrase "We come in peace" to "I came in your mom", along with several clever fart jokes.
It's interesting to think that we actually have no idea how many characters in Trek actually speak/understand English, even among human characters. For instance, before that episode when they were sent back in time to Earth with their UTs busted, we had no indication that Quark, Rom, and Nog could neither speak or understand English. That could be true of literally any character. I particularly wonder about characters who we see learn to speak during a series. For example, there was the episode of DS9 when they find a baby Jem Hadar and it grows and learns to speak in a matter of days. What language does it actually learn?
I think theres also a part in Voyager where Seven simply breaks the translator in Think Tank episode (where George Constanza plays) and beats them because aliens simply cant understand each other anymore
Personally I like the idea that Vulcan technology was at least partially telepathic. And it only works with thoughts yo are actually saying because it scans the speach centers. To go "deeper" than that requires a lot more sophistication and invasion. Just to keep Sato's role going, I'm going to suggest that her work on human and non-human languages lead to much better processing algorithms because Earth has an unusally varied number of existing and documented extinct languages so she had more data to draw from. But that's just me.
voyager's the 37s also confused tha issue further with the universal translator apparently translating anything spoken in a room. It really does seem to operate like somekind of local area effect babelfish
Oh come on.... we all know that everyone has a babelfish inserted in their brains, and the "universal translator" nonsense is just a conspiracy on the part of tech companies to make some sweet gold-pressed latinum.
I always thought the Starfleet officers have UT implants like Ferengi. It looks like Ferengi have a better UT technology. UT implants make more sense when Starfleet officers operates consoles of for example Klingons which happend many times. It would translate what they see directly into the brain so they would have a perfect understanding of a written language
Voyager, the 37's episode (the one with Amelia Earheart), when they first wake up the 37's the 37's talk about how to them everyone is speaking their native language, Janeway says thats because of the UT, so frankly it sounds more like the babelfish then the "talking over" or cancelling out of the speakers real voice to replace it with english.
well they do adress it kinda in Star Trek Beyond, where the rescued women spoke in her language, then the UT kicked in overlapping her voice whit a computer voice while muting the original sound.. and the lip sync was not even in the picture..
The telepathic component nicely explains how people can speak french or klingonese when they want, like when Donna tries to speak latin to some one in Pompei in Doctor Who.
Starfleet: Reading your mind since 2260 whether you want us to or not. LMAO, That's a good one. As is the "Translator malfunction" at the end of the video.
On the point of people occasionally speaking other languages _without_ a translation, I think the thought reading note can be invoked there instead of the U. T. being off, so they deliberately choose to speak said language, the U. T. picks up on the decision, so doesn't translate the speech. Or it's generally off, but activates when someone wants to speak to someone else who doesn't share an understanding of their language/who they themselves don't understand the language of - so it looks for some sort of activation/deactivation signal instead of being on or off.
legend has it that after hoshi figured out the adaptive continuously evolving algorithm that the universal translator runs on she went insane and simply vanished into the wind.
Of course, anybody who has ever even done the rudiments of learning another language knows that "real time" translation is impossible due to varying grammar. Warp drives are actually more plausible than this thing.
I always thought by TNG they were basically like Babel fish. I found it an interesting concept, since that could mean that, potentially, nobody on a starfleet ship spoke the same language, and just, relied entirely on the communicators.
" . . . then again, this IS science fiction, so, . . . sure, why not?" And here I am watching and digging the show and I get thrown this. Totally took me out of my Star Trek "mood".
I like to think the universal translator sends a signal through the body's nervous system to vibrate the bones in the ear. Or perhaps it interfaces directly with the Cochlear Nerve.
The Universal Translator is more an Interpreter, as interpretation is the art of rendering the meaning of one language into the vernacular of another in real time, on the fly. Translation is something more directed to a written document rendered in another language. It’s a technicality in terms of definition and for most, the terms are interchangeable. Besides UT rolls off the tongue better than UI.
I know I'm a couple of years late to this conversation, but I always assumed that Quarks odd pronunciation of "human" as "hooman" was due to the UT. As mentioned in the video, we learn in one episode that he has an UT implant, which suggest that he doesn't know a word of English and that he simply relies on the UT, which makes perfect sense for Quark as a character. This then means that everything he's said throughout the seven seasons of DS9 has been in the Ferengi language, hence why we and the Starfleet characters hear it as perfect English. That is, except for the word "human." Why? Well, since there wouldn't be a Ferengi word for human, Quark would simply try to pronounce it as well as he can, hence "hooman", and the UT, noticing a sudden English word, wouldn't bother to translate it. So a strange side effect of the UT is that it translates everything into a perfect version of any given language, unless the speaker is actually trying to speak that language.
the fact that the UT apparently reads minds makes that Voyager episode where they have to hide all their telepaths seem like..........one huge continuity error haha. That anti-telepath species would have just killed everyone on Voyager for that.
I always assumed it was some kind of holographic sound that was projected to the individuals auditory organs, and projecting from the speak organs, that way it was effectively the same that listening and speaking in a natural way.
I always took it to be using a futuristic version of LRAD to focus the intended sound and the noise cancellation at each listener. That's insane tech to pack into a comm badge, but it's not the most insane tech they use regularly ~cough~replicators~cough~.
This is all well and good (I enjoy this channel)....but, I can't ignore the fact that since this whole rona pandemic started, I binged watched all the Star Trek shows and movies, followed by watching this guys videos....now I'm playing Star Trek Online......thanks...lol
The DS9 - Translation was done on the fly replacing the audio to translated audio for the person, using the origional Persons voice... So a Klingon would hear me speaking Klingon in my voice and I hear them speaking english in their voice. Translators were very advanced and very complex Tech by the 2300's.
With the mind-reading element, the UT would not translate foreign words spoken on purpose in the foreign tongue -- even without it, if you suddenly switch from, say, English to French or Klingon for one word, a smart UT could recognize that you don't want that word translated (assuming it's not an already adopted-into-English word), tho user intent would certainly help with that, but without mind-reading there could still be a way of telling the UT, for example by the inflection of your voice. Also, I always wondered whether/why not (at least come) Starfleet might not also use the inside-the-ear version.... Maybe Section 31 and intelligence types in order to avoid the tracing aspect, the obvious translation part (when they can't just learn the language), etc -- and if they can do any part of the rest of Trek tech, I am sure they dampen/bounce the sound of the voice away and replace it with the translated version so that one would not notice it much, unless they try.
I always assumed that by TNG era that most if not all starfleet personnel had neural universal translator chips implanted which had capability to interconnect with such devices from other species in much the same way that starships of different races could hail/communicate, as one possible explanation for why the ferengii implants didnt initially work when they went back in time to 1950's earth....
We already have speech synthesis now, so I feel like it's not that farfetched in ST. There could also be any number of sci fi explanations. Playing sound while also playing sound that cancels it out in the direction of the speaker isn't too crazy either.
I tend to think that the universal translator is active all the time, even on Federation starships. Humans are still a diverse species with their many different races. I'm certain those human races still speak their own languages like they do in the here and now. The UT can allow a Japanese Starfleet officer to speak to one who speaks English for example. Then again, it would be helpful for all human Starfleet officers to speak the same language in case the ship suffers a communications failure that would render the UT useless.
I wondered if a UT needed time to activate. You have a bunch of Klingons speaking with an accent, they are actually speaking English, then use a Klingon word or phrase, it goes untranslated because the UT doesn't have time to kick in. Or when discussing a self aware holodeck Moriarty, a normal English conversation for the senior staff of Enterprise D, then Picard's 'merde'.
In the original Star Trek they would go somewhere get captured and relived of their communicator's but still communicate just fine even when addressing multiple species at the same time. When Klingon's speak it comes out in English without the heavy C and K sound but when they speak Klingon phrases it's not translated at all.
I always thought it was funny that when Data got sent back to 19th century San Francisco, he literally bet his piece of 24th century technology com badge in a card game. Seems like a court martial able offense to me if the temporal prime directive existed then.
My take: The UT was always on and Picard was speaking French the entire time of the show. And there is an option on the UT to not translate certain words, thats why you hear Picard saying "merde" instead of "shit".
"We is condemning food and things and supplies." Uhura I never understood why they couldn't use the computer to pull up appropriate phrases for them to get past that Klingon checkpoint. She said they couldn't use the U.T. because it would be recognised, but computer still beats looking up translation in a book in real time.
Note about another culture deciphering who sent the translated message by software. Star Trek VI, had to actually speak Klingon and not use the Universal Translator so the Klingons would not realize the Enterprise was in Klingon space on route to Rura Penthe to rescue Kirk and McCoy. Noted in a past comment “Don’t catch any bugs”
I don't think scenes of characters intentionally speaking in other languages proves the UT was off, merely that it's designed to account for that. Otherwise borrowed phrases like "vice versa", or even casual conversation like "the ___ word for that is ___" wouldn't work.
*the closed caption option on many youtube videos can provide some truly bizarre translations...such as one found for the pending greenland movie that says i'm going to get my family into that pumpkin (this is in a specific video and not on all of the trailers for this movie...i've checked)*
I'm not so sure about the supposition that the UT is switched off as standard on board Starfleet ships and installations and that the characters we follow are all speaking English, and my reasoning for this is accent. Across the board, we see that when a characters speech is being mediated by the UT, what comes out the other end sounds to us like standard American, but when it isn't, it doesn't. So, Captain Picard we can say is actually speaking English, because he speaks it with an English accent, likewise, I think we can say Deanna Troi is actually speaking English with a Betazoid accent while her mother, who doesn't share Deanna's accent at all, must be speaking Betazoid via the UT. In DS9, all the main alien characters (Kira, Dax, Quark, Odo*, Worf**) speak with American accents, so, unless they have learned accent-perfect English (which might be plausible for some, but not all, I doubt for instance that Kira's past life allowed her any time to learn English), it makes sense to assume they're being translated as well. This theory of mine puts into a different context some of the times we see aliens speaking stilted English, for example, the Nausicaans who stab the young Picard in Tapestry were actually showing a lot of cultural sensitivity by learning the native language, which makes the Starfleet cadets' rigging of their dom-jot game against them seem very cruel in response! *Odo might be a special case, as I can imagine advanced linguistic ability might be a natural changeling ability, given that we know that changelings do take on some of the mental state of the lifeforms they emulate, but I can't think of anything specifically in the show that supports or weakens this theory. **It drove me nuts trying to work out what language Worf might actually be speaking according to this theory. His mother tongue is definitely Klingon, but the Rozhenkos are Russian speakers who speak English with Russian accents. If Worf was taught English by the Rozhenkos, it would be reasonable to assume he would pick up a Russian accent, but he has no trace of one, so he must be speaking either Klingon or Russian throughout his appearances. This then raises the issue of romantic relationships where both parties never actually hear each other's unmediated speech (Worf and Dax potentially speaking Klingon/Russian and Trill to each other...), and then, what happens if they were actually to have a child together, what language would the baby hear when their two parents are talking to them?? How does anyone actually learn any language with a UT that is by default always-on? I think the UT is a hugely unexplored bit of Star Trek kit. I was thinking the other day that a potentially fun episode might be one following a mixed language ship where the UT breaks down...
I'm more impressed that the UT lip syncs as well!
Yea it's so good you can go undercover on an alien planet pretending to speak a language you can't. The sound cancellation seems reasonable lip sync doesn't.
Yep!
I would rather it seem that aliens are speaking perfect English fluently, then them sounding like they typed a sentence into Google translate, Star Trek Beyond style.
HOLOGRAMS this freaking holograms read your brain patterns and simulate it...
@@CRYOKnox Star Trek online has Personal and Ship Holo Emiters for secret operations. The ship or person is covered by a holographic simulation. It is broken by animals secent (Targs in Klingon camps being a big example) and serious scanning. But the ship version was also used in the Romulan Drone Ship.
Plus the Holographic Filters that they used a few times in DS9.
In Metamorphosis, Kirk outlines how the UT works to Zephram Cochran.
Kirk: "There are certain universal ideas and concepts common to all intelligent life. This device instantaneously compares the frequency of brainwave patterns. Selects those ideas and concepts it recognizes and then provides the necessary grammar."
Spock wraps it up: "And it simply translates its findings into english."
That's always a useful quote when discussing the UT.
Believe it or not, there's real-world precedent for this. Currently, researchers are able to read a select number of thoughts by showing people images of objects and taking readings of their brain's reaction to each one. Then, using an expert system neural network, they can subsequently identify when their brain is seeing that image again. It's not perfect, but it's actually good enough to allow researchers to identify even objects which appear in people's _dreams._ That's close enough to mind reading that it's plausible for Star Trek level technology to interpret language that way.
Sorry but most of these experiments you are talking about that i read about are made with a rather small test group and they claim that they can identify the trough pattern of lets say an apple only problem i have with this is that there is no way to proof that the person that you try to read actually recognizes an apple the same way as another lets say that he is color blind would it be the same no of course not but even without color blindness lets say that that person never saw an apple in real live but only on pictures that would also create its own unique patter and so on my point is that thanks to the way the brain work we all experience sensory input like that different there is no universal constant between it thats what makes this field of science so hard to actually work with.
@@NoJusticeNoPeace in the late Soviet Union there was even an attempt to use the technology to decipher/study the language of Bottle-nose dolphins... sadly, with the chaos of the final soviet years, followed by the poverty of the early years of Ukrainian independence, meant the project was never finished and could only achieve limited results... but certainly certain forms of grammar and even nouns (referential-morphemes) were somewhat confirmed.
given this was done on machines still using Punch-cards....
I can imagine today much more efficient building of models is possible if anyone returns to it.
Imagine if this device existed!!! Also think how wonderful it would be to understand every spoken language on earth?
You should have mentioned the events of the TNG episode "Darmok" and how the UT couldn't translate the metaphoric language of the Tamarians.
Shaka, when the walls fell..
And “Sanctuary” in DS9 where it took a good 20 minutes to kick in!
Which should really happen more often, especially with cultures more recently encountered. Vocabulary and grammar are child's play next to idiom and metaphor to translate.
Honestly I never understood how those guys would even teach their language to their own children. I mean basic concepts is one thing but if you rely on metaphors to convey all information, how are you supposed to teach anyone what those metaphors are? Aside from acting out every last single one I guess.
@@GlitchG00D5 *Telmari her cleavage unfettered*
*we never actually heard that one in the DarmoK episode, but it might have been implied at some point in the outtakes...would have been an interesting metaphor to translate regardless to say the least*
*think the Ferengi might have been a bit quicker on the uptake with meaning and translation of that one*
*just sayin'*
I was unreasonably excited by the way the UT was depicted as playing an audio signal at a delay over the original speech of the character in Star Trek Beyond.
I think that’s what Rick was meaning when he said we as the viewers don’t get that much if at all just for the convenience of watching a TV show. But I can see that being the more realistic way it would work.
That and Discovery are the only examples in the entire franchise that accurately portray how the UT would realistically work.
There's a strong theory I've seen around that speaking with a non-American accent is a tell that someone is actually speaking English (or whatever Fed Standard really is) rather than using the UT. Hence the suggestion that the reason Deanna Troi has an accent but neither of her parents do is because she learned the language as a non-native speaker but Lwaxana and other Betazoids we see are using the translator. This also suggests that Worf might be speaking Russian while his parents are speaking English as a second language. Or he just got the accent down because he was already uncomfortably different enough by being Klingon.
The real reason behind the Troi story (as described by Marina Sirtis in some interview) was that Marina Sirtis was tasked to come up with an alien accent for Encounter at Farpoint. When her mother was later cast to be Majel Barrett, the actress simply used her own native accent and since she's such a legendary person in Star Trek, nobody including Sirtis dared to oppose her doing so.
They figured maybe Deanna's accent came from her dad. But then they introduced her dad later, so...
I like that, but I'd rather Worf be a Beorussian speaker. Just for the heck of it, they need some love.
My personal reason for Deana's accent was that she was raised in a different part of the planet than her mom grew up in and so she picked the local accent up in school and that's part of why they don't get along because her mom didn't like that. But I like your thing better.
Mind you, there are actual North American characters on the show, Kirk and Riker being examples (Iowas an Alaska, respectively) so not all North American accents would indicate use of the U.T., only a large subset.
@@frankharr9466 I always thought this was the case. We wouldn't question why someone's Texan mother spoke differently than her California raised children, after all.
Worf speaks Russian, I love it.
Then what about Chakotay's dad and Khan?
I recall a brief scene from the Voyager episode, The 37's, where Janeway explains to the resuscitated people that she has a UT, and the 37's are confused, as they are hearing each other speak in their native languages, such as the Japanese officer hearing everyone in Japanese, whereas the rest hear each other in English. This would lend credence to the neural basis, rather than aural.
ua-cam.com/video/KRnRszarHRw/v-deo.html
My issue with that is, considering the size of the device needed to scan one brain in sickbay, there's no way a much smaller device can scan dozens of brains, and transmit brainwave patterns back to re-write what they hear.
But if it was just aural, then the UT would be transmitting about 5-6 languages in that scene and be impossible to hear.
So this is an episode that really breaks the believably for me.
Maybe because it is less specific, while the UT only recognizes language or intent related patterns?
I love the scene in Discovery when translator stop working.
*break out those emergency Babble Fishes*
@AngemonRulez The different crew members speak their own languages. So Picard speaks French, Sato spoke Japanese and Worf spoke Klingonese (That's what Klingon is called according to TOS). When the UT fails, they are stranded having to speak their own languages without translation.
@AngemonRulez *wonder how the UT would handle deep back woods Southern dialects ... reckin' it might be something of a booger whopper fer it to decifarr*
Even then there are times such as when the Klingons say various phrases at random throughout their sentences which do not get translated, so I always assumed translators could read intent, or most Klingons know English... which actually wouldn't surprise me, they'd do it just to show us up.
The idea of Klingon English school is extremely amusing to me
Or maybe those random Klingon words that don’t get translated simply are impossible to translate because there is no equivalent word in English
@@spoke2639 Or they have a language censor that leaves curses untranslated.
I always assume those are words that don't translate. I think the same thing happens whenever they are speaking to an alien and they say some phrase and the aliens asks "what?" and they have to explain the phrase. I assume that means the phrase didn't translate ito the alien language.
@@williamozier918 except that sometimes it should recognize it. Like in STDS9 where a Klingon insults Odo's mother. Shouldn't the words "your" and "mother" not translate at least?
Noise cancelling headphones I think work by "listening" to incoming things and playing the same wave-inverted sounds to cancel them out. That idea applied to a UT is much more reasonable than reading minds.
“Simply overlooked for the sake of the story” is an explanation I wish more Star Trek fans would be willing to accept
As a community organizer, I have experience with "whisper translation" in which, at meetings, you have someone sitting with their mouth cupped to your ear listening to what you hear and whispering a simultaneous translation to you. It's labour-intensive, meaning you need one-to-one translators for every person present, but they are essentially acting as a Universal Translator. I'm thinking that Star Trek technology is sufficiently advanced to do the same thing by using bone induction to "whisper translate" directly into your skull by vibration, so no one else can hear it. Using noise cancellation, it could simultaneously block the voice it is translating at the same time. The effect would be to hear someone in almost real-time in your own language while cancelling your ability to pick up their actual words.
Uhura speaking Klingon in Star Trek 6 in order to get through Klingon space because they'd be found out if the Enterprise's translation matrix was online, really made just how knowing the language of other species so important.
The whole concept of instant language translation has always been a subject of interest for me. Communication would certainly be vital when dealing with new lifeforms. Great video, as always. I appreciate the thought and time that goes into making these entertaining and informative videos. Respect and Blessings from Wild Wonderful West Virginia. 🙏
Late comment, but it would be key for humans to start bridging the gap between the rest of the planet.
Actually we have directional speakers in real life, so it is not so farfetched that only one person would hear a translation.
Yeah, and I think with forcefield tech being available, it should be doable to silence sounds except in specific directions.
In fact we do know that the feds have the ability to make sounds come from any position or direction they wish, and sound differently for different people in the same location - it's required for holodecks to work with multiple individuals.
This also makes more sense with com badges. Like, speaker only? Not only rude but also a potential problem if your ship needs to get important information to an away team without tipping off the hostile aliens.
And definately not as far-fetched as most of anything else in Star Trek, for example ... warp drive, time travel, space-whales, hive-mind biomechanical cyborgs, thought-controlled space, galactic-center aliens pretending to be god, aliens that actually are god, teleportation, replicators and Captain Janeway.
then explain the Japanese guy that voyager found "You speak Japanese?"
7:58 I came across a theory that said that the universal translator translates thought. The act of specifically making certain noises with your mouth (eg when I speak French) is nothing like what your brain goes through in normal speech so isn't translated.
When Worf meets Dax is a good example of this. She says something in Klingon specifically so that only he understands it in a crowd
Your knowledge base and dedication to research is incredible. I wish you were hired as a consultant for all New Trek writing rooms. Even if you didn't write yourself, just having you as an on hand resource would elevate the quality of new episodes.
There was an episode of DS9 where Quark and his family were swooped into the past. Somehow in the story the UT was disabled. They were then smacking their ears implying that their UT's were implants in the ear canal. Maybe this is commonplace for all species?
It sounds like a shame we never had an episode exploring all the undocumented features of the universal translator. Mind reading and controlling what individuals hear would be scary powers.
Zhou Fang wars could be started!
Or using it to illegitimately kick someone out of something by giving them what looks like a mental disability.
I would like to remind that ST humans increased their collectivism a bit more higher.
This is why when I write sci-fi or similar I prefer implants to accessories. The ferengi really have the right idea.
I have a combination of both.
Neural Implants are the most advanced being able to translate Audio and Visual in real time.
And Accessories are usually used by Body Purists. The accessory has two parts. An Earpiece and a Microphone that can be attached to Clothing. Slight delay.
There's technically a third one. Which is a hand held device, however it's outdated by 5 Centuries and thus not really used.
Edit: Needed to fix a few things. Also this point in the Universe is set in the Mid-31st Century.
With a brain implant, you can be possessed by space Illuminati.
Most sci-fi: Why do the aliens speak English?
Because.
Star Trek: why do the aliens speak English?
They're speaking their own language but our character have access to technology that translates it for them in real-time.
Stargate sg1: because they stargate changes something in us and we have no idea how or why.
That doesn’t really make it better, just more OCD lol
Star Trek Beyond actually plays alien language and English together LMFAO.
That Universal Translator failure bit at the end was brilliant and hilarious.
Amusing to think from Picard's experience the entire of TNG is in French
My head cannon was always that every species had their own UT devices and to produce a translation the devices would communicate with the opposite species device. And since their processing power is extremely high, the devices could negotiate a translation in essentially real time.
Older video I know but the fact that he actually uses different languages at the end to say goodbye shows dedication and care. Awesome
The Terrans in the sci-fi universe I've been working on mostly use implants hooked up to their sensory organs that can intercept and "translate" visual and auditory stimuli into a known database using augmented reality. However, the incoming stimulus must be in a compatible language format (usually in some version of Terran Standard) while the Interstellar Phoenetic Alphabet is used for writing and signposting.
For example, this comment would be written the way I speak it, not the way I write it, because the way something is written is not always how it is spoken (see the billion different silent letters and stuff present in the English language).
It also requires the use of an Algorithmic Intelligence(non-sophont Electronic Intelligences) to assist a biological Terran. For non-biological Terrans, they often have their own built-in software to audio receptors and cameras that allow the translation as soon as they load in.
Other forms of Terrans, such as the Uplifted, require unique translation software for their own languages to be understood by human Terrans, as they often rely on body language, pheromones, or other forms of communication instead of just verbal.
When interacting with non-Terrans, they often have to rely on special constructed languages meant as trade pidgins until a database of grammar, vocabulary, and context can be constructed.
It's a little more involved and less reliable than the usual sci fi translator but I figured it was an interesting and different take on the idea. Less space magic, more extremely advanced Google translate.
Just gonna put this out there: when the UT was made available, there was suddenly very little need to learn another language. It'd get translated anyway! Think about this.
Hoshi Sato may have been one of the last real linguists in the Federation.
You'd always have some hobbyists out there who'd insist on doing it the hard way, and some professionals who'd want or need "natural" language skills for situations where the UT tech isn't allowed. The things read mental activity, which A) won't work on sufficiently alien species until their physiology is very well understood and B) is going to trigger every alarm bell in the universe for people with the slightest bit of (possibly justified) paranoia. Real people don't like facial recognition software today for the ways it can be abused. Can you imagine what a gadget that sifts through your head to determine what you'll say is going to look like to privacy-rights organizations, secret agents, diplomats, etc?
@@richmcgee434 Also, you need the linguists to create or at least refine and correct the 'on-the-spot' translation databases. Two noted linguists later in the timeline were Uhura of the Enterprise crew and Amanda, Spock's mother (who apparently met Sarek while working on the Vulcan/English translation table.)
this is somewhat reinforced in Star Trek 6 when Uhura and the others must use books to translate when they are sneaking into Klingon space
Rich McGee Yeah, didn’t Picard have to memorize a speech to a culture that tolerated no imperfection in pronunciation, nor mistakes in performing their elaborate rituals?
@@racheln8563 I believe he did, something to do with negotiations about a colony IIRC. Forget the name of the episode, though.
It’s worth mentioning that the Universal Translator was presumably on regularly, if not all the time, on the USS Discovery during season 2, as when *SPOILERS* Discovery encountered the Sphere, it affected the UT in such a way as to mix languages not only on the onboard systems, but also amongst the crew.
So either the UT just happened to be active ship-wide when Discovery encountered the sphere, or it was on at all times.
I suppose it is possible that the Sphere activated the UT, then scrambled it, but I feel like that’s less likely than the UT simply being active at all times onboard the ship.
Someone's already mentioned Diane Duane, and considering how her stuff is used in STO, I might as well toss this out there...in her version of the setting, the Starfleet version of the UT (at least in the TOS era) involves a subcutaneous implant, put into the upper arm on your average humanoid, and notably using 'cesium-rubindium crystals' (an important plot point in one book).(Non-homonids like the Horta have voders that have the function built in to it). This taps into the nerve system of the user, and provides the translation in both directions that way. It's also noted that at least for Starfleet languages, this implant is consideredsuperior to those of, in particular, the Rihansuu.
Rick buddy, I think you have to do both the Babelfish and a comparison analysis of both [w/UT,] somewhere in there is a mention of the KLI, and their work with Bing [not the best Klingon translation, but it incrementally improves over time I've noticed.] That said you know best what you've already touched upon. Dude thank you for UT today! You still rock dude!
I liked how Farscape covered it.
Everyone had a universal translator injected into them.
Wow translator microbes!
The moment I saw this, I was reminded of the ST:TNG episode Darmok, which demonstrates the limitations of such a device: The device translates words more or less exactly as they are said. Unfortunately, knowing the words isn't much use when a race communicates via "memes", in that unless you're well versed in their culture and mythology, it all just comes out as a bunch of seemingly random phrases.
This is actually a problem encountered with computerized translation programs from the time of that episode: When the term "Out of sight, out of mind" was run through a translation program from English to Russian, and then back to English, it came back as "Invisible Insanity". Just knowing what the words mean doesn't tell you what the sentence means.
I recently watched all the Star Trek series and I remember at least once when inside starship they didn't "speak" English among the crew because the universal translator was broken. It wasn't gibberish but actually recognizable languages. One could either assert the universal translator onboard translated the original English to random languages, or that it didn't translate the original words at all...
In my fictional universe, a bio-chip is installed into the brains of the person which interfaces with the language and speak centers of that person. This radically magnifies their ability to learn process and use language. Some species install this from infancy. As the Bio -chip only assists the brain and does not replace any of its functions, degradation of the assisted areas of the brain does not occur.
I just stick a babel fish in my ear. ;)
But no, that's a cool idea.
Question, do you want to become the Borg, because this is how you become the Borg
@@DanielRichards644
That kind of thinking is what keeps humans limited, weak, and vulnerable. When a language bio-chip is installed it is either because it is needed for where you are, or you want one. Force compulsory installation of otherwise unneeded bio-enhancements is what leads to "The Borg".
I would think that any advanced civilization would be looking to become Post biological, or at least live symbiotically with their technology not unlike the highly cybernized worlds of "Deus Ex" and "Ghost in the Shell" (which coincidentally feel like they happen in different parts of the planet a few years apart).
If you are looking for a Utopian existence that only happens when such things are not an issue.
But won't brain implants let space Illuminati take over your mind?
i like how his universal translator just.... malfunctions at the end. XD
When Riker first meets K'Ehleyr, he greets her in Klingon & she acknowledges that he is actually speaking Klingon. I wonder why that is.
K’Ehleyr is a Federation liaison to Klingon, and half-human, so naturally she would speak English on board a Federation vessel.
Tom Guo so I’m wondering, is the UT always going on in the background to translate for those who don’t speak English? If it is, can you set it for more than one language if you are fluent in more than one. Which would be why it wouldn’t translate Klingon into English for her since she already can speak Klingon.
"Princess Celestia, her television raw and beautiful..."
I’m a French teacher and I always found Hoshi Sato’s “abilities” to be B.S. with her fluency in a lot of different languages.
Matthew Jay learning French was a pain in the ass for me in high school. And least English and French share an alphabet and the like. I can pick out some French words just by listening. Something like Japanese I am completely lost just by listening or looking at their writing without someone giving me context. Now take a complete alien language from another planet who’s speaker’s vocal cords and hearing range might be completely different from us. The task sounds impossible.
What about cases where it failed? I am thinking of:
DS9, the Babel Virus.
TNG, The Tamarian Language.
That time on Discovery when the UT backfired and started translating every langauge into something else, causing utter confusion as nobody could intentionaly speak the same language anymore.
I always liked how the TARDIS translated languages. It went into the brain of someone and changed the brain's input of a foreign tongue into the native language of the receiver both written and spoken words (except Galliferyan). That way it works on all communicating parties with no time delay.
i think the output of badge works via bone conduction. maybe future tech can bring sounds to your ear from the rib cage or youve a small bluetooth chip in or close to your ear
You don't need to understand the xeno, only that it's non-human.
Go be useful and exterminatus some Tyranid-infested planet!
Aww yes, but you forget that the Xenos' lucky enough to become sla- I mean civil labour's will need to be able to understand the orders from there human foreman‽ 😚
Love these Rick! Please keep them going!
According to Voyager it is the noise cancelling signal kind or something similar. In the episode the 37's one of the revived people stated that everyone on board seems to speak their language, implying that they don't hear a dubbed version but hear as if all the people around them actually speak the language
There was an episode of Voyager, "the 37s," after they thawed out the people from the early 20th century. As they were talking, an Asian man spoke up and said that they were all speaking Japanese. One of the other Americans replied that, to them, he was actually speaking English.
Janeway pointed to her communicator and mentioned how it was a universal translator, allowing them all to understand each other.
This seems to imply that the UT of the 24th century is not only able to translate in real time without any lag, but apparently also able to dubb over your own voice, allowing others to hear their language come out of your mouth.
Consider too in the first episode where Bashir helped the other augments, there was an option to replay the dominion negotiations in native language mode.
I remember there was a DS9 episode where Dr. Bashir and the other genetically modified humans were going over a recorded diplomatic meeting with the Dominion, and manually turned off the translation so they could pick apart Weyoun's dialogue in its true form.
My linguist friend started constructing the entire Vortan language from that scene.
Yes, they call it Dominionese in the show, but that's a silly name probably applied to it from the outside, and she and I suspect that the Vortan language became the lingua franca of the Dominion from their being the Founders' administrators. And also the Jem'Hadar have names and words completely different from the sentence Weyoun speaks.
@@tparadox88 based on that scene? How far did they come?
The noise-cancelling isn't far-fetched at all. We actually have similar technology in real life. Basically, infrasonic technology allows you to essentially transmit sound to a specific point. A real-life test of the technology involved making a person hear the sound of breaking glass in a glass store that was near the research lab. The technology has been explored for use in cars so that each passenger can separately hear their own song without hearing the music that other passengers want to listen to. If this is possible in real life, I don't see why it would be a problem for science fiction. It should be really easy for the communicator to transmit the translation directly into the ear of the person wearing the communicator such that they will only hear the translation. And because it's an individual translation where only the person wearing the communicator would hear the translation it wouldn't cause a commotion around them.
If it didn't work this way then the first time they would infiltrate a pre-warp civilization the translation to English would undoubtedly affect that civilization's development.
I always thought of the way messages aren't translated to be a conscious choice, since we know that it reads thoughts. Basically let's say you want to insult someone in Klingon, you don't want the message to be translated, so it ends up not getting translated if that makes sense.
We''ve started well into our own UT tech. Now it's not privy to the decoding matrix that is in ST but works on a database but with the right equipment we can get on the fly translation.
Left unsaid were the two wars instigated when a hacker changed the phrase "We come in peace" to "I came in your mom", along with several clever fart jokes.
It's interesting to think that we actually have no idea how many characters in Trek actually speak/understand English, even among human characters. For instance, before that episode when they were sent back in time to Earth with their UTs busted, we had no indication that Quark, Rom, and Nog could neither speak or understand English. That could be true of literally any character.
I particularly wonder about characters who we see learn to speak during a series. For example, there was the episode of DS9 when they find a baby Jem Hadar and it grows and learns to speak in a matter of days. What language does it actually learn?
I think theres also a part in Voyager where Seven simply breaks the translator in Think Tank episode (where George Constanza plays) and beats them because aliens simply cant understand each other anymore
Personally I like the idea that Vulcan technology was at least partially telepathic. And it only works with thoughts yo are actually saying because it scans the speach centers. To go "deeper" than that requires a lot more sophistication and invasion.
Just to keep Sato's role going, I'm going to suggest that her work on human and non-human languages lead to much better processing algorithms because Earth has an unusally varied number of existing and documented extinct languages so she had more data to draw from.
But that's just me.
voyager's the 37s also confused tha issue further with the universal translator apparently translating anything spoken in a room. It really does seem to operate like somekind of local area effect babelfish
Oh come on.... we all know that everyone has a babelfish inserted in their brains, and the "universal translator" nonsense is just a conspiracy on the part of tech companies to make some sweet gold-pressed latinum.
Synthetic babelfish?
I always thought the Starfleet officers have UT implants like Ferengi. It looks like Ferengi have a better UT technology. UT implants make more sense when Starfleet officers operates consoles of for example Klingons which happend many times. It would translate what they see directly into the brain so they would have a perfect understanding of a written language
Voyager, the 37's episode (the one with Amelia Earheart), when they first wake up the 37's the 37's talk about how to them everyone is speaking their native language, Janeway says thats because of the UT, so frankly it sounds more like the babelfish then the "talking over" or cancelling out of the speakers real voice to replace it with english.
well they do adress it kinda in Star Trek Beyond, where the rescued women spoke in her language, then the UT kicked in overlapping her voice whit a computer voice while muting the original sound.. and the lip sync was not even in the picture..
The telepathic component nicely explains how people can speak french or klingonese when they want, like when Donna tries to speak latin to some one in Pompei in Doctor Who.
Starfleet: Reading your mind since 2260 whether you want us to or not. LMAO, That's a good one. As is the "Translator malfunction" at the end of the video.
On the point of people occasionally speaking other languages _without_ a translation, I think the thought reading note can be invoked there instead of the U. T. being off, so they deliberately choose to speak said language, the U. T. picks up on the decision, so doesn't translate the speech. Or it's generally off, but activates when someone wants to speak to someone else who doesn't share an understanding of their language/who they themselves don't understand the language of - so it looks for some sort of activation/deactivation signal instead of being on or off.
I enjoy these specific lore videos. Stay well out there everybody, and Jesus Christ be with you friends.😊
legend has it that after hoshi figured out the adaptive continuously evolving algorithm that the universal translator runs on she went insane and simply vanished into the wind.
Of course, anybody who has ever even done the rudiments of learning another language knows that "real time" translation is impossible due to varying grammar. Warp drives are actually more plausible than this thing.
I always thought by TNG they were basically like Babel fish.
I found it an interesting concept, since that could mean that, potentially, nobody on a starfleet ship spoke the same language, and just, relied entirely on the communicators.
I wonder what Hoshi Sato's 'impact factor' in linguistics journals must have been like. I bet her work is still getting cited in 24th century papers.
I’ve been reading some of the old Voyager novels lately not cannon I know but they described the UT as a delayed audio over the speaker.
" . . . then again, this IS science fiction, so, . . . sure, why not?"
And here I am watching and digging the show and I get thrown this. Totally took me out of my Star Trek "mood".
I like to think the universal translator sends a signal through the body's nervous system to vibrate the bones in the ear. Or perhaps it interfaces directly with the Cochlear Nerve.
I wish the universal translator really existed I live in San Diego CA.
I always wondered how that worked during Troi's secret Romulan mission - if she used an UT, that would have given her off as a spy, wouldn't it?
The Universal Translator is more an Interpreter, as interpretation is the art of rendering the meaning of one language into the vernacular of another in real time, on the fly. Translation is something more directed to a written document rendered in another language. It’s a technicality in terms of definition and for most, the terms are interchangeable. Besides UT rolls off the tongue better than UI.
Why not combine them into Universal Translator/Interpreter? Abbreviated to UT- ...Oh wait....
Certifiably Ingame You’re a sharp cookie. I was hoping you’d pick up on that. I’m a health care provider and UTI is a very familiar term.
I would LOVE a 24th Century Star Fleet UT Com Badge! DO YOU KNOW HOW *HARD* IT IS TO GET THE BABELFISH!?!?!
I know I'm a couple of years late to this conversation, but I always assumed that Quarks odd pronunciation of "human" as "hooman" was due to the UT. As mentioned in the video, we learn in one episode that he has an UT implant, which suggest that he doesn't know a word of English and that he simply relies on the UT, which makes perfect sense for Quark as a character. This then means that everything he's said throughout the seven seasons of DS9 has been in the Ferengi language, hence why we and the Starfleet characters hear it as perfect English. That is, except for the word "human." Why? Well, since there wouldn't be a Ferengi word for human, Quark would simply try to pronounce it as well as he can, hence "hooman", and the UT, noticing a sudden English word, wouldn't bother to translate it.
So a strange side effect of the UT is that it translates everything into a perfect version of any given language, unless the speaker is actually trying to speak that language.
the fact that the UT apparently reads minds makes that Voyager episode where they have to hide all their telepaths seem like..........one huge continuity error haha. That anti-telepath species would have just killed everyone on Voyager for that.
if i remember correctly in Voyager they established that the ship is constantly monitoring the brain-wave patterns of the entire crew
I just saw Star Trek generations and Tuvok was there in the opening act , or it could have been. I checked IMDb and it is Tim russ in that movie
I always assumed it was some kind of holographic sound that was projected to the individuals auditory organs, and projecting from the speak organs, that way it was effectively the same that listening and speaking in a natural way.
I always took it to be using a futuristic version of LRAD to focus the intended sound and the noise cancellation at each listener. That's insane tech to pack into a comm badge, but it's not the most insane tech they use regularly ~cough~replicators~cough~.
This is all well and good (I enjoy this channel)....but, I can't ignore the fact that since this whole rona pandemic started, I binged watched all the Star Trek shows and movies, followed by watching this guys videos....now I'm playing Star Trek Online......thanks...lol
The DS9 - Translation was done on the fly replacing the audio to translated audio for the person, using the origional Persons voice... So a Klingon would hear me speaking Klingon in my voice and I hear them speaking english in their voice. Translators were very advanced and very complex Tech by the 2300's.
There's are multiple different episodes where different people on the Starship can understand each as well translating to a different language
With the mind-reading element, the UT would not translate foreign words spoken on purpose in the foreign tongue -- even without it, if you suddenly switch from, say, English to French or Klingon for one word, a smart UT could recognize that you don't want that word translated (assuming it's not an already adopted-into-English word), tho user intent would certainly help with that, but without mind-reading there could still be a way of telling the UT, for example by the inflection of your voice. Also, I always wondered whether/why not (at least come) Starfleet might not also use the inside-the-ear version.... Maybe Section 31 and intelligence types in order to avoid the tracing aspect, the obvious translation part (when they can't just learn the language), etc -- and if they can do any part of the rest of Trek tech, I am sure they dampen/bounce the sound of the voice away and replace it with the translated version so that one would not notice it much, unless they try.
I'm glade you pointed out that this science fiction after all.
Sparrow and Barbosa, on the ocean.
Sparrow, on the island.
I always assumed that by TNG era that most if not all starfleet personnel had neural universal translator chips implanted which had capability to interconnect with such devices from other species in much the same way that starships of different races could hail/communicate, as one possible explanation for why the ferengii implants didnt initially work when they went back in time to 1950's earth....
We already have speech synthesis now, so I feel like it's not that farfetched in ST. There could also be any number of sci fi explanations. Playing sound while also playing sound that cancels it out in the direction of the speaker isn't too crazy either.
I tend to think that the universal translator is active all the time, even on Federation starships. Humans are still a diverse species with their many different races. I'm certain those human races still speak their own languages like they do in the here and now. The UT can allow a Japanese Starfleet officer to speak to one who speaks English for example. Then again, it would be helpful for all human Starfleet officers to speak the same language in case the ship suffers a communications failure that would render the UT useless.
When the universal translator started malfunctioning in discovery lol
I wondered if a UT needed time to activate. You have a bunch of Klingons speaking with an accent, they are actually speaking English, then use a Klingon word or phrase, it goes untranslated because the UT doesn't have time to kick in. Or when discussing a self aware holodeck Moriarty, a normal English conversation for the senior staff of Enterprise D, then Picard's 'merde'.
In the original Star Trek they would go somewhere get captured and relived of their communicator's but still communicate just fine even when addressing multiple species at the same time. When Klingon's speak it comes out in English without the heavy C and K sound but when they speak Klingon phrases it's not translated at all.
I always thought it was funny that when Data got sent back to 19th century San Francisco, he literally bet his piece of 24th century technology com badge in a card game. Seems like a court martial able offense to me if the temporal prime directive existed then.
My take: The UT was always on and Picard was speaking French the entire time of the show. And there is an option on the UT to not translate certain words, thats why you hear Picard saying "merde" instead of "shit".
"We is condemning food and things and supplies." Uhura
I never understood why they couldn't use the computer to pull up appropriate phrases for them to get past that Klingon checkpoint. She said they couldn't use the U.T. because it would be recognised, but computer still beats looking up translation in a book in real time.
Because that scene was hilarious. Especially the look of exasperation they give at the end after fake-laughing with the Klingons at the watch post.
Note about another culture deciphering who sent the translated message by software. Star Trek VI, had to actually speak Klingon and not use the Universal Translator so the Klingons would not realize the Enterprise was in Klingon space on route to Rura Penthe to rescue Kirk and McCoy. Noted in a past comment “Don’t catch any bugs”
I don't think scenes of characters intentionally speaking in other languages proves the UT was off, merely that it's designed to account for that.
Otherwise borrowed phrases like "vice versa", or even casual conversation like "the ___ word for that is ___" wouldn't work.
Getting different meanings, sounds alot like Goggle. Even 200 years later, they are still at it 🤣
*the closed caption option on many youtube videos can provide some truly bizarre translations...such as one found for the pending greenland movie that says i'm going to get my family into that pumpkin (this is in a specific video and not on all of the trailers for this movie...i've checked)*
I'm not so sure about the supposition that the UT is switched off as standard on board Starfleet ships and installations and that the characters we follow are all speaking English, and my reasoning for this is accent. Across the board, we see that when a characters speech is being mediated by the UT, what comes out the other end sounds to us like standard American, but when it isn't, it doesn't. So, Captain Picard we can say is actually speaking English, because he speaks it with an English accent, likewise, I think we can say Deanna Troi is actually speaking English with a Betazoid accent while her mother, who doesn't share Deanna's accent at all, must be speaking Betazoid via the UT. In DS9, all the main alien characters (Kira, Dax, Quark, Odo*, Worf**) speak with American accents, so, unless they have learned accent-perfect English (which might be plausible for some, but not all, I doubt for instance that Kira's past life allowed her any time to learn English), it makes sense to assume they're being translated as well. This theory of mine puts into a different context some of the times we see aliens speaking stilted English, for example, the Nausicaans who stab the young Picard in Tapestry were actually showing a lot of cultural sensitivity by learning the native language, which makes the Starfleet cadets' rigging of their dom-jot game against them seem very cruel in response!
*Odo might be a special case, as I can imagine advanced linguistic ability might be a natural changeling ability, given that we know that changelings do take on some of the mental state of the lifeforms they emulate, but I can't think of anything specifically in the show that supports or weakens this theory.
**It drove me nuts trying to work out what language Worf might actually be speaking according to this theory. His mother tongue is definitely Klingon, but the Rozhenkos are Russian speakers who speak English with Russian accents. If Worf was taught English by the Rozhenkos, it would be reasonable to assume he would pick up a Russian accent, but he has no trace of one, so he must be speaking either Klingon or Russian throughout his appearances. This then raises the issue of romantic relationships where both parties never actually hear each other's unmediated speech (Worf and Dax potentially speaking Klingon/Russian and Trill to each other...), and then, what happens if they were actually to have a child together, what language would the baby hear when their two parents are talking to them?? How does anyone actually learn any language with a UT that is by default always-on?
I think the UT is a hugely unexplored bit of Star Trek kit. I was thinking the other day that a potentially fun episode might be one following a mixed language ship where the UT breaks down...
The UT is a plot device powered by suspension of disbelief.
The UT works like the Babel Fish.
Don't worry about it.