Transcription
A series of Tweets by @Foone, each replying to the last:
Here’s the question I always have with universal translators in sci-fi: how do they know when to stop translation? Like say an alien asks about deserts on earth, and the human lists “the sahara desert, gobi desert and kalahari desert” Alien: You just said “desert” six times.
(“Sahara” is Arabic for “desert”. “Gobi” is Mongolian for “desert”, and “Kalahari” is Tswana for “desert”)
Man, the aliens are going to think we’re so bad at naming. Cause really, aren’t we?
Brit: Behold, the beautiful River Avon!
Alien: Ahh, the River River. You humans have such a knack for naming things.
“Here we are in Chad, looking upon the mighty Lake Chad!”
"Ahh yes, the land of Lake, bordering the Lake Lake. Another fine human name. "
“And here’s Nyanza Lac, in Burundi. As you can tell by the fact that it’s named Lake Lake in Bantu & French, it’s a la… actually this one’s a city. A city named Lake Lake”
Where do wookie names come from? What about “Arrgh-rrrrr-wwwww” translates to “Chewbacca”?
They can just distinguish between sounds better than us. What sounds to you like “Arrgh-rrrrr-wwwww” is actually 444hz (0.1 sec), 446hz (0.2 sec), 440 hz (0.1 sec), 339hz (0.4 sec), 338.5 hz (0.2 sec), 110 hz (0.05 sec), 194hz (0.04 sec), 889hz (0.2 sec), 105hz (0.1 sec), 110hz (0.14 sec). It translates to “tree on the wind of summer, with red moss,” if I remember my wookie correctly.*
spoiler
*this is totally made up. It’s actually wookie for chewing tobacco dog. **
**This is also totally made up, though chewbacca does come from a russian word for dog, and in the french translation it sounds like the word for tobacco.