intruiging question

[phleg]

In the start of X-btf you meet the teladi and they are speaking jibberish in our standards. Anyway how does the ships computer learn the teladi language so quickly? it knew the other species languages because the teladi donloaded information to the shuttle's computer.

[The_Abyss]

Easy. It's Christmas. So it's magic.

I'm a believer!!!

[nobbystyles]

well in star trek the universal translater knows their language without even hearing a single syllable. at last the human computer has to hear some of the language. pity it couldn;t filter out the teladis awful "speaking through a funel" effect

[Mudkest]

simple, you'll hear the on-board computer say something like *universal translator learning*, then you ask the teladi phoenix to repeat, still gibberish, then the captain of the teladi ssspasse sship phoenixsss will say that he thinks that there's languige compatibility, wich points out that their computer also had an universal translator that needed to learn. Seeing how clsoe you resemble the argon it might have been(probably was) their computer that learned fastest.

[Wargod.]

I wonder what the Argon language sounds like... Sonce they are somewhat related to humans they must have some human like language...

[Tiberian Commander]

the ship was scaned and so found that it was the same as argon if you think about it and if you played the game lots of times you will remember the story in X-BTF

[BurnIt!]

Helge's novel gives a simple explanation for that (you can read that as soon as the trnaslation is complete)

The Teladi speak the trading language which was introduced by the argon - and is similiar to what we know as japanese (the trading language as it happens to be during the colonization of the x-universe by humas)

knowing that the argon are ancestors of the first human settlers they introduced this language into the x-universe


I hope I remembered that right... if not, Helge will certainly tell you

[HelgeK]

The Teladi speak the trading language which was introduced by the argon - and is similiar to what we know as japanese (the trading language as it happens to be during the colonization of the x-universe by humas)

Correct The Teladi do have a language of their own, of course, but they're completely fine with speaking the Trading Language. It's making them profits after all, isn't it?

What's more interesting is that their written language is slowly changing in favor of using argono-roman letters. The original written language of the Teladi consisted of a kind of hieroglyph system; now they're more and more adopting the argono-roman, even internally.

That has some funny side-effects: in a Teladian spacecraft, for example, you can find signs (e.g. on doors and on some controls) in teladian language but written in roman letters. If you're not used to it, you would think they're putting totally random sequences of letters on their signs, controls, etc....

Helge




PS: Speaking about Teladian doors and controls.... did you know, that door handles, light switches, etc. on Teladian ships and installations are all on floor-level, and are operated by feet? That's really a bit weird when you're aboard a Teladian ship for the first time, but you can get used to it. Humans are known to accidently _break_ handles/controls with their clusmy feet, tho.

[Gandalf The White]

Interesting stuff. Helge how far is there to go? Can't weight to read this novel, it has been talked about to much.

[HelgeK]

Interesting stuff. Helge how far is there to go? Can't weight to read this novel, it has been talked about to much.

We're very far into the raw translation now! I expect to have it completed by February. After that, it'll still take some time for Steve to turn it into "good english". Could be, we're done by next summer. I'm sorry if we can't go faster - it's a lot of work, even for a handful determined volunteers

Helge

[Gandalf The White]

Take your time. Don't rush it as it might spoil it and nobody wants that.

Am looking forward to it very much so.