Annotations, Ch 3
A note on languages
Statement 1: I love Star Trek. I wouldn’t be writing this fiction if I didn’t.
Statement 2: I love languages. They’re tricky beasts, always evolving and they’re the means by which we’re able to have any sort of meaningful relationships at all.
Statement 3: It is notoriously difficult to invent a language. The fact that Klingon is a legitimate invented language is quite impressive and someday I will take the time to sit down and learn it.
Right. All those statements are true. But it is beyond me why Star Trek insists that there is one monolithic language among the different alien species of the galaxy. Vulcan? Three dialects of Romulan? One standard form of Klingon? What?!
There are at least 116 languages considered “official” among nations on Earth. The actual number of languages spoken on earth right now is easily 50 times that. I’m not going to go into the debate about languages versus dialects, and I’m not counting the (probably) thousands of dead and lost languages. So what in the world makes them think that there is only one form of Vulcan or Andorian or Tellarite or Cardassian or whatever? Any person with knowledge of linguistics will tell you that this is not how languages work. They’re born (from where is a point of much debate), they die, they absorb new words and structures... I mean, it’s possible that Vulcans could get together and decide to make one standard form-I wouldn’t put it past them to do it. But all the other species?
Anyway, I make the distinction between Federation Standard and pre-Warp English since I imagine that by 23rd century, English (if it exists) will be vastly different. Example: Elizabethan English ≠ English today. The same goes for any other language, especially since the rise of nationalism beginning in the 20th century.