Language in Star Trek
Star Trek has raised and helped us understand philosophical issues. These run the gamut from politics to games to identity to our relationship with technology. The universal translator has been a core piece of technology in the Star Trek universe from the beginning. Sort of like the transporters, it was a practical necessity for creating the show. It wouldn’t make for very good television if no one could understand what anyone else was saying. Also, like the transporters, once it was made part of the universe, the writers started using it in their stories. This was most evident in Enterprise, as it was about the first warp five ship and the universal translator was new technology in the timeline of the show. Unlike the transporters, though, Trek never grappled with the philosophical issues raised by real-time, cross-cultural translation.
Modern advances in AI mean that the universal translator is coming ever closer to existence in the real world. It is not clear how successfully people will adopt the technology. We need to have a broad, public discussion of these issues, and Star Trek can help. Only through an open, public discussion will people learn to trust our own version of the universal translator. The philosophical questions which arise from a universal translator are two-fold: first, we must consider whether such a devise is epistemically possible; if it is, then, we must consider whether and what ways it’s use would be desirable.
Epistemology
Any translation is rife with epistemic issues. (It’s an open question for some people whether translation is even possible.) Two things make the universal translator different. The first is that it is real-time and supposedly seamless. With an old-fashioned translation, if there is ambiguity or confusion, the translator can elaborate. She can explain why she chose the word she did and even offer up some other possible words. This happens all the time when reading an English translation of a philosophical work. The universal translator cannot elaborate as such; it is designed to facilitate natural conversations. The only way to do that is to pick a translation and stick with it. The translator can’t consistently stop the conversation to say, “He said love, but it’s not like romantic love or paternal love. It’s a little like what the Romans would call caritas with a connotation of. . .”. Without elaboration, we will have to decide on an appropriate level of trust when using the translator.
The second, related, difference is deciding what to do when an object or action or concept in one language simply does not exist in the other language. The translator could leave the word untranslated. We do that frequently now. When there’s no good translation into English for the word, we simply take the word from the other language. We didn’t translate quesadilla. We could have, but we still use the Mexican-Spanish word. The other option is for the translator to coin a term that gives us the sense of the meaning. This happened in the Star Trek Enterprise episode called “Cogenitor” with the word cogenitor. Enterprise encounters an alien species that has three biological parents involved in the reproductive process: the mother, the father, and the cogenitor. Tripp befriends a cogenitor and is upset that they are treated poorly by the rest of the Vissians. The episode deals with lots of philosophical issues from gender identity to bigotry to the Prime Directive. One thing that it never deals with, however, is the word cogenitor. It would be a shocking coincidence if the Vissian word for the third parent is cogenitor, their words having roots like English words for with (co) and creation (genesis). That’s unlikely. Which means the universal translator created the word. It sounds similar to progenitor, so we might be able to guess that it has something to do with parenting or creating, but we really don’t know what it means. If the other culture is significantly different from our own, it raises the question of how successful communication can be even with a translator.
Ethics
Then, there are the ethical issues with translation. Any time two or more parties have different interests, there are potential ethical issues. For instance, a speaker may wish to be understood while a listener does not want to be offended. If the speaker says something insulting, which is more important? Is it the fidelity to what was said or the listener’s feelings? In the real world, we currently have a scattershot approach to this problem. We sometimes bleep things that might be offensive. We sometimes indicate that an offensive word was used, “He used a slur for Jewish people.” We sometimes simply use the words unfiltered. A lot of the decision making comes down to context (more on that in a moment).
Star Trek is similarly inconsistent. Sometimes, the universal translator leaves words untranslated. The most famous example of this is the Klingon word, “P’tahk” (although the transliteration differs frequently). Riker described it as a curse word, and that is certainly how it is used. According to Memory Alpha (a great fan site for all things Star Trek), the original definition was “weirdo”, but it is clearly more serious than that. To my ears, the way it is used sounds more equivalent to when English speakers refer to someone as a non-human animal (worm, snake, B-word, etc.). Whatever it means, the universal translator doesn’t translate it. At the same time, the universal translator readily translates an Andorian slang term for humans as “pink skin.” There is debate whether this rises to the level of a slur, but it is certainly not a compliment. Then, there is the in between case of Ferengi mispronouncing “human” as “hyoo-män.” It’s the only instance of a mispronunciation by the universal translator, and it seems to be a way for the Ferengi to insult people.
As in most ethical consideration, ultimately, context is king. If a hate group, like the KKK, were holding a rally, any translator should probably censor their speech. But if African Americans use the exact same words while talking to each other, it should be unfiltered. An academic discussing hate-speech should be able to say the words being discussed but shouldn’t be able to use them. In other words, intent is a huge part of evaluating the ethics of a speech act.
A Real Universal Translator
Will we get to a point where we can trust a universal translator with recognizing intent? Probably not given how variable people and their feelings, intentions, and speech acts are. People can’t always trust that they know their own intent. Will we reach a point with a universal translator where we can be confident that the speaker and listener are understanding the same ideas? Again, probably not. It is hard enough to do that with two people who speak the same language. Even in the Star Trek universe, the universal translator isn’t that good.
There’s an episode in Star Trek Discovery’s second season called “An Obol for Charon”. In it, there is a scene where the universal translator malfunctions and starts translating everyone’s speech into different languages. The crew can’t even read their computer displays. Saru is able to fix the problem because he is the one crewmember who, as he puts it, “bothered to learn a foreign language.” The scene is a plot point, and played for laughs, but it is Trek’s best lesson about translation technology. There are many potential benefits to creating a universal translator. For example, it could give us unprecedented access to other cultures. It could make migration much easier. It could remove barriers to employment and education. We should pursue the technology. However, unlike everyone except Saru in Star Trek, we should never rely exclusively on the technology. Some things, like treaty negotiations, where it is vital for everyone to be on the same page will still need a sentient, conscious interpreter who can interact with the participants. The bottom line is that there will never be a true substitute for learning another language.
Qapla!