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plotty mcplotster
Ok, this is completely self-indulgent, except for when it's not. Because, see, I'm a linguistics major. Languages make me hot, sometimes in wholly unexpected and utterly terrifying ways. So, to a certain extent, I am being appallingly self-indulgent by wanting to write Linguists In Atlantis! because that could be me, see? That's totally my dream job, except for the part where if I tell my advisor that, she'll lock me in a little room.
BUT. But, but, but. There totally do have to be linguists in Atlantis, because, I mean, hello! Realistically speaking, when you go to another planet, they don't speak the same language, or even any language you understand. Because duh. And, ok, I think that on Earth they've more or less got Ancient translated—I never watched SG-1, so I have no clue—but that's like (and I totally plan to use this comparison in fic someday, fyi) Canadian French and France French, only on a scale of about a million. Because—and someone correct me on this if I'm wrong, but there were Ancients, on Earth, right? and then, plague? or some badness, so they packed it up and boogied to Atlantis. And then there were Wraith, which kind of sucked, so some of them came back to Earth, and presumably lived for another really long time before eventually, um, show!
Do I have this right? This is what the pilot says, I believe. And, see, in that case, whatever they've been translating has been separated from 'Atlantis Ancient' since, um, a while. Which means that it's been developing in different directions, and the two versions are probably not so mutually comprehensible, anymore. With me so far? Does this make sense?
So in my head, there's the head of the linguistics team, who has to harass the living shit out of Weir and O'Neill to be allowed to go, because they don't get how critical a linguistics team is. And he or she (I think her name is Zellig, but I can't tell) gives them the explanations above, and then there's a conversation something like this, between the Figures Of Authority and our intrepid hero(ine):
VOA: I understand that this is interesting, Dr, but quite frankly I'm worried that your people will be more of a hindrance than anything else at this point.
Z: A hindrance? How can we possibly hinder any more than the biologists? At least we talk to people!
VOA: The biologists will be needed to help ensure reliable food sources, in the event that the mission team is unable to return to Earth.
Z: should be!...nevermind. General O'Neill, do you know what most of my team has done at some point in their careers? Been dropped into a completely foreign situation, immersed in a language they don't speak, and asked to learn and use it. With all due respect, sir, we've done this sort of thing before. This is just a slightly longer trip, first."
"Doctor, are you saying that your people will be able to act as interpreters?"
"Sir, I'm saying that we're your best chance at being able to communicate with anyone in the Pegasus Galaxy."
"And all of them understand that they may not be able to come home?"
"We do, but considering the wealth of linguistic data to be accumulated, we all feel it's worth it."
And, you know, they go!
A little speech of Zellig's, from slightly later:
"Listen, there are really only two possibilities here."
"That's preposterous! There are more—" Her head snapped around, and she smiled, stepping forward. She got right up in McKay's face, still smiling, and crouched down until she was kneeling in front of his desk.
"Doctor McKay. I appreciate that you're a very intelligent man, but would you do me the favor of shutting the fuck up?" McKay did, to everyone's surprise.
"Thank you. Now, as far as language goes, there are two significant options. Behind gate number one, there are people who speak Ancient, in some form. Behind gate number two, there aren't. I don't care if they're dead, if there's been a change in government, if they've all moved to Turkmenistan. The point is, either we'll meet people who speak some version of Ancient, or we won't. With me so far? Great. Who can see what I'm angling at, here?"
"We need to learn Ancient, right?" She smiled, sunny and chill, and clapped her hands twice.
"Exactly. Particularly because even if we don't find people who speak some form of Ancient, there's still a very good chance we'll find ruins, relics," McKay harrumphed audibly, folding his arms across his chest as he renegotiated the seat. Zellig turned to face him, cocked an eyebrow, and added, slyly, "databases. And while, yes, there will be linguists there, it'll be better for everyone if you don't have to turn to us every time you need to ask where the bathroom is." The room tittered, and she waited until it passed before continuing. "We're working up a translation module now, but it's still exceedingly patchy, and we'd like to have something to fall back on if it punks out on us. So, without further ado, everyone please take a sheet and pass it back. These are your first hundred words in Ancient. Learn them and love them, but mostly learn them."
And, okay, obviously they've got a pretty good translational handle on Ancient, but there's still a difference between being able to translate something to a reasonable approximation of comprehensible and being conversationally fluent, and I'd bet that most of the people on the Atlantis mission are the former, and not the latter.
And then, later, there's some sort of translator module—it's got the database of 'things we know how to say in Ancient, and as many grammatical principles as we can figure out, and the directions we think they're most likely to have evolved in over the millionty one years since they were written. yay!' And it, hmm. It's got to translate what they say—some sort of box on the chest, responding to sound waves? Or not distinct enough...maybe it doesn't translate them, and there's someone on the team who's got a knack for Old Ancient, and who just says whatever they want to say. And then the box processes sound input and spits out a probable translation—or, hey, maybe they input what they want to say and it spells it out in phonetics? That sounds best. Completely improbable, but that's no object. And Sheppard, of course, gets it, since he has no training in Ancient because he was busy flying too fast.
To the Athosians (and most people, really), the thingydoo (I really like the translator device not ever getting named, and just being called 'the thing' in a lot of different ways) spits out what sounds like High Latin or something—old, formal, semi-religious, not universal in any way, but comprehensible. And of course they have their variant, Modern Standard Ancient or what have you, and they speak that, and the translator whirrs away and spits out something much closer to comprehensible. (okay, actually, the truc is totally going to be called the Developmentally Sensitive Translation Device, because then it's the D-STD, which is so awful that they have to call it something, anything else)
And at some point, when Sheppard's team gets tired of being the ONLY team that can go to the inhabited planets (sometime in S1, maybe before the Genii? because at the end of that episode, Weir mentions that one of the other teams has brokered a deal for food. Also, that would tally, because with the Wraith being everywhere, it would be kind of freaky to be the team that gets shot at all the fucking time.) and Teyla starts teaching the trade languages to the linguists, which puts linguists on teams, which, yay. Then, once they've got it down, the linguists—who've pretty much figured out the variant of Ancient that Atlantis has—start teaching Atlantis Modern to everyone. Which means language classes for all! Which is fun and sexy, and maybe something I can to for the schools challenge over on sga_flashfic, on the off chance that I stop being fucked up and start actually writing this.
Here endeth the lesson. more after my next stats class, which is when I write this stuff, because stats sux, yo.
If anyone a) reads this, b) has thoughts on it, or c) wants to do something with it...rock steady! I'm really not so interested in writing this as I am in reading it.
BUT. But, but, but. There totally do have to be linguists in Atlantis, because, I mean, hello! Realistically speaking, when you go to another planet, they don't speak the same language, or even any language you understand. Because duh. And, ok, I think that on Earth they've more or less got Ancient translated—I never watched SG-1, so I have no clue—but that's like (and I totally plan to use this comparison in fic someday, fyi) Canadian French and France French, only on a scale of about a million. Because—and someone correct me on this if I'm wrong, but there were Ancients, on Earth, right? and then, plague? or some badness, so they packed it up and boogied to Atlantis. And then there were Wraith, which kind of sucked, so some of them came back to Earth, and presumably lived for another really long time before eventually, um, show!
Do I have this right? This is what the pilot says, I believe. And, see, in that case, whatever they've been translating has been separated from 'Atlantis Ancient' since, um, a while. Which means that it's been developing in different directions, and the two versions are probably not so mutually comprehensible, anymore. With me so far? Does this make sense?
So in my head, there's the head of the linguistics team, who has to harass the living shit out of Weir and O'Neill to be allowed to go, because they don't get how critical a linguistics team is. And he or she (I think her name is Zellig, but I can't tell) gives them the explanations above, and then there's a conversation something like this, between the Figures Of Authority and our intrepid hero(ine):
VOA: I understand that this is interesting, Dr, but quite frankly I'm worried that your people will be more of a hindrance than anything else at this point.
Z: A hindrance? How can we possibly hinder any more than the biologists? At least we talk to people!
VOA: The biologists will be needed to help ensure reliable food sources, in the event that the mission team is unable to return to Earth.
Z: should be!...nevermind. General O'Neill, do you know what most of my team has done at some point in their careers? Been dropped into a completely foreign situation, immersed in a language they don't speak, and asked to learn and use it. With all due respect, sir, we've done this sort of thing before. This is just a slightly longer trip, first."
"Doctor, are you saying that your people will be able to act as interpreters?"
"Sir, I'm saying that we're your best chance at being able to communicate with anyone in the Pegasus Galaxy."
"And all of them understand that they may not be able to come home?"
"We do, but considering the wealth of linguistic data to be accumulated, we all feel it's worth it."
And, you know, they go!
A little speech of Zellig's, from slightly later:
"Listen, there are really only two possibilities here."
"That's preposterous! There are more—" Her head snapped around, and she smiled, stepping forward. She got right up in McKay's face, still smiling, and crouched down until she was kneeling in front of his desk.
"Doctor McKay. I appreciate that you're a very intelligent man, but would you do me the favor of shutting the fuck up?" McKay did, to everyone's surprise.
"Thank you. Now, as far as language goes, there are two significant options. Behind gate number one, there are people who speak Ancient, in some form. Behind gate number two, there aren't. I don't care if they're dead, if there's been a change in government, if they've all moved to Turkmenistan. The point is, either we'll meet people who speak some version of Ancient, or we won't. With me so far? Great. Who can see what I'm angling at, here?"
"We need to learn Ancient, right?" She smiled, sunny and chill, and clapped her hands twice.
"Exactly. Particularly because even if we don't find people who speak some form of Ancient, there's still a very good chance we'll find ruins, relics," McKay harrumphed audibly, folding his arms across his chest as he renegotiated the seat. Zellig turned to face him, cocked an eyebrow, and added, slyly, "databases. And while, yes, there will be linguists there, it'll be better for everyone if you don't have to turn to us every time you need to ask where the bathroom is." The room tittered, and she waited until it passed before continuing. "We're working up a translation module now, but it's still exceedingly patchy, and we'd like to have something to fall back on if it punks out on us. So, without further ado, everyone please take a sheet and pass it back. These are your first hundred words in Ancient. Learn them and love them, but mostly learn them."
And, okay, obviously they've got a pretty good translational handle on Ancient, but there's still a difference between being able to translate something to a reasonable approximation of comprehensible and being conversationally fluent, and I'd bet that most of the people on the Atlantis mission are the former, and not the latter.
And then, later, there's some sort of translator module—it's got the database of 'things we know how to say in Ancient, and as many grammatical principles as we can figure out, and the directions we think they're most likely to have evolved in over the millionty one years since they were written. yay!' And it, hmm. It's got to translate what they say—some sort of box on the chest, responding to sound waves? Or not distinct enough...maybe it doesn't translate them, and there's someone on the team who's got a knack for Old Ancient, and who just says whatever they want to say. And then the box processes sound input and spits out a probable translation—or, hey, maybe they input what they want to say and it spells it out in phonetics? That sounds best. Completely improbable, but that's no object. And Sheppard, of course, gets it, since he has no training in Ancient because he was busy flying too fast.
To the Athosians (and most people, really), the thingydoo (I really like the translator device not ever getting named, and just being called 'the thing' in a lot of different ways) spits out what sounds like High Latin or something—old, formal, semi-religious, not universal in any way, but comprehensible. And of course they have their variant, Modern Standard Ancient or what have you, and they speak that, and the translator whirrs away and spits out something much closer to comprehensible. (okay, actually, the truc is totally going to be called the Developmentally Sensitive Translation Device, because then it's the D-STD, which is so awful that they have to call it something, anything else)
And at some point, when Sheppard's team gets tired of being the ONLY team that can go to the inhabited planets (sometime in S1, maybe before the Genii? because at the end of that episode, Weir mentions that one of the other teams has brokered a deal for food. Also, that would tally, because with the Wraith being everywhere, it would be kind of freaky to be the team that gets shot at all the fucking time.) and Teyla starts teaching the trade languages to the linguists, which puts linguists on teams, which, yay. Then, once they've got it down, the linguists—who've pretty much figured out the variant of Ancient that Atlantis has—start teaching Atlantis Modern to everyone. Which means language classes for all! Which is fun and sexy, and maybe something I can to for the schools challenge over on sga_flashfic, on the off chance that I stop being fucked up and start actually writing this.
Here endeth the lesson. more after my next stats class, which is when I write this stuff, because stats sux, yo.
If anyone a) reads this, b) has thoughts on it, or c) wants to do something with it...rock steady! I'm really not so interested in writing this as I am in reading it.