Grrl Power #681 – Babelfishing
This is one of my favorite pages in a while, as if features Sydney at peak Sydney. You have to forgive her for forgetting to lead with English, but she got excited about breaking out her vast repertoire of fictional alien greetings.
As a first contact protocol, shotgunning a bunch of different languages probably isn’t the best strategy. Especially if, like Sydney, you only know a handful of words from each one. Sydney is properly fluent in Klingon though, and while Qapla’ isn’t actually a Klingon greeting, I thought it would be easier for you guys to recognize than the actual word, which seems to be “nuqneH.” I vaguely recall hearing that in an episode or two, but if there’s a single word that means “Yo, what up, Klingon here.”, it’s Qapla’.
This particular page features a pair of cameos. One of them shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. The other one is preeeety obscure, I think. I’ll probably blab about it one someone guesses it, cause it’s from something cool I saw when I was a kid. Weirdly, and I didn’t know this until a few years ago, but it was my first exposure to the Cthulhu mythos. That’s all the hints you get. :)
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How did she not see the “Nud Gurlz” sign? And if she did, how did she not see that it’s English (just not written English)?
Maybe the Translation field takes a few minutes to take effect?
When she first entered the mall all the signs were illegible.
She has no reason to look at them again.
She’s kinda distracted and running low on her meds
Objection! (maybe not that strongly, but I just got the urge to use the phrase)
She has her meds with her in the utility belt (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2163). She also seems pretty coherent if understandably lost.
Didn’t mean her supply, butt the last dose would be running out by now, not to mention the last time she slept would have been when she was back on Earth
Sydney probably doesnt want to try generic ADHD-b-gone pills that make her a little loopy(er) and see people as puppets or whatnot (as far as she knows) when she’s doing things like fighting Cthulu-like giant monster planetkillers or on an alien wormhole station many, many, many light years from Earth
Actually agree with Noc in that she still has a supply in her bat-belt
Didnt say she doesnt have them. Just that she probably doesnt want to use pills which will make her loopy with unpredictable side effects right now, given where she is.
Fairly sure they wouldn’t be generic pills, not dispensed by the Archon Super-Doc (unless she slipt placebos as payback, butt doubt she would do that concerning medicinal matters)
But, if I recall correctly, the last time she took the Archon supplied pills, Dabbler had an illusion of muppet Max talk to her shortly after she took it… and Sydney took it in stride as a side effect.
So therefore perceives those pills as making her loopier than normal.
You tell me. This question has been asked multiple times already in these comments and discused to death. Yyet here you are asking it all over again..
Have a look at panels 4 & 5. Those give Sydney’s point of view. Sydney was not focused on the sign, she was looking at the two exotic aliens in front of her. The sign was not legible to her when doing that, especially whilst fixated on the task. Something that people with ADSL can be especially prone to do.
Although, in these conditions, I think anybody could have done the same. We are so used to seeing advertising signs around us* that we ignore them unconsciously, whenever there is an important task at hand. Sydney (or anyone else) could not drive a car, though a city, without such an ability.
* Especially for Americans. I found my first trip there to be disconcerting from the sheer quantity of such intruding into daily life, even in the relatively small town I was visiting. Something I would expect in a big city, but not in a quiet place. Up until you factor in the dominance of capitalism over environment in America, then it all makes sense. And Sydney lives in a big city (such as Dallas), so the signs will be even more intrusive in daily life.
Yes, butt panel one shows a different angle, one in which she should have been able to see the LIV NUD GURLZ sign… if wasn’t pre-occupied (which she was)
It’s been three years, I’ve read this scene multiple times, and I didn’t see it until I read your comment.
The sign in the background is delightfully specific.
Wait, is that Scaroth of the Jagaroth? Shouldn’t he be in Paris 1979?
He might be, but I also thought that some of these aliens are using a disguise field, and they are a Dr Who fan doing a slight cosplay? >:)
This might be what Count Scarlioni does when he isn’t exploding on primordial Earth and kick-starting life, or trying to outwit that dude with the woolen rainbow scarf.
Perhaps it is Paris 1979?
Sydney did pass through a wormhole, so could be in an alternate timeline where Dr Who failed to prevent the destruction of Earth. Which was clearly done to use the prime real estate for this station.
The impressive feat being moving its inner star along with it.
You know I always considered odd that people in Stargate all spoke English. But in this setting it would make sense.
Not in the way that everyone adapted a earth langauge. But that earth adapted the galactic language.
There has been “tourism” as far back as the Egyptians. And the council existed for centuries. With people like “Greeny” even working on earth. Way enough time for a Galactic Langauge to color earth communications.
Except that most of the world doesn’t speak English. Less than 5% of earth’s population speak it natively.
English is the language of international commercial aviation.
I’d like to think it’s the most popular Second language for those for which it isn’t the primary.
(Citation Needed)
more then 5% as the united states alone makes up about 5% of the worlds population.
At first, I was going to say you made up that number, but you qualified your statement by saying ‘natively’
1.5 billion people on Earth speak English. That’s 20% of the planet as of 2018. When you take native-only English speaking, that’s sabout 380 million people, whichi s where IHeartComics is coming up with 5%.
It’s a misleading statistic that IHeartComics is using though, since a LOT more people than 5% speak English. 5% are people who ONLY speak English and no other languages in addition to English. The amount of people who speak English (plus at least one other language) is actually 1.5 billion (20%).
In addition, English tends to be the universal language on Earth for most international functions, like air traffic control and trade (given the largest consumer bases are in english-speaking countries, especially the US), which is also not taken into account in the 20% statistic English is a rather prolific language on Earth, especially because of how simple it is to use compared to many other languages.
It makes sense that it would be easier to learn since it’s largely a hodge-podge language from many other languages, especially other ‘Romantic’ languages – which is one of the main reasons it spread so easily.
I do not speak English natively. It is a second language for me.
So you just dug a number of English speakers that does not include the very person you are speaking english with right now. That should show you how useless that figure is.
As it is a second language to you, you are not a native speaker of English
Thanks for repeating what I said exactly. If I ever need a Parot, I guess I know you are there.
Now do you have anything to say regarding the thematic?
That does not negate the proposition. Tourists do not necessarily go to all locations. In fact, barring a few adventurous types who like to explore the untrod paths, the vast majority go to areas that are well serviced by the tourism industry. So clustered around the transit hubs.
Therefore, running with the premise, we can take it that a principle arrival point was in England. Hence the locals learning the galactic language. Once there aliens would of course use local transport, to minimise the sightings of UFOs. So would take ships to overseas destinations (which still spoke primitive local languages).
As demand for more exotic tourism increased, the Twilight Council would have had pressure put on them to expand the shipping routes. So they would have made use of their local representatives to expand the empire.
Gradually improving transit times and overall comfort levels, by improving native technology. So that steam ships and trains, then more advanced forms of transport such as aircraft, could be used to allow tourists to reach every part of the globe. But not disrupting the locals too much by making them learn galactic. So universal translators would still be required in the backwaters.
I assume you mean synthetic as in “it was consciously created”, but a synthetic language already exists to mean a language in which a lot of information is given through a single word (a high morpheme-to-word ratio). Usually inflectional languages because they may allow to cram gender, case, animate or not, number, and a lot of things you want onto a single noun.
You’ve forgotten “Entaro Adun”…or the more modern “Entaro Tassadar”
Yup, that would have been a good one!
Or Adun Toridas. Of coruse I keep thinking of the song “Feliz Navidad” everytime I hear it, so use it sparingly.
Did Sydney really expect aliens to be familiar with fictional languages invented on Earth? I mean really…
I can tell you from experience that when your ADHD starts to “act up” you can do some pretty randomly weird and convoluted things that only later you realize there was a much simpler or obvious solution you overlooked.
The only overseas destination that we know Sydney to have travelled to is England (assuming that Zephan’s imagination of her assaulting a mugger is accurate). As such she is probably not habitually used to having to determine someone’s native language, when initiating a conversation.
Plus Sydney is used to hanging around nerds. Where using nerdspeak would earn cred points, as well as say ‘please let me know the languages you speak’.
I actually suffered from the reverse problem, with my first girlfriend in Bulgaria. Trying to describe a funny scene, rather than simply referencing it, only to have her say (in English) ‘Oh that was from Red Dwarf’. Yup, just because someone speaks a foreign language does not mean that they are not a nerd and fully familiar with English entertainment.
Although expecting the same of an alien is a bit of a stretch. ;-)
Don’t for get the good olde. 5 note one
_____ _____
_.-._ _(_)_ _____
___.-._#___|-____|_____.-.________________________________
___|/______|_____'_____|-_________|___.-.________________|
__.|___4_______________|_______|__|___`-_________________|
_: | )_4_____________________.-|__|______________________|
_`-+'________________________`-___|______________________|
.'
If I remember correctly, they accompanied the tones with hand signs, and the aliens replied in kind.
Correct! They also had specific colors too. Kinda wish the ASCII art I did was not misaligned. top two lines and bottom line need a bit of adjust to look right.
My first thought about the guy on the right is that he’s a shambling mound or a morel-looking myconid from D&D. But a myconid wouldn’t have tentacles, right? I guess the mound is still possible…
He looks familiar for some reason! Maybe a book I read…
Or a TV series you watched, some time ago. Perhaps a Doctor will help you recall?
Ok aga kikago googa!
Okak ek ok?
Lok’tar ogar!
Kreegah! Halo bundolo!
gimb terran-hai?
Oo, ee, oo ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing bang, oo ee, oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_one-eyed_creatures_in_mythology_and_fiction
and I did a bit, and came up with nothing of assistance …
Hah thomass, I did the same….then gave up. Where’s the author when we need him? Looks like he won this one!
Why is her hobercraft full of eels? Is that a reference?
By the way, oblgatory bojler eladó.
It is from the Monty Python sketch, ‘Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook’.
Credit to Dean, for picking up on that, on the 1st page of comments.
With the bowler? Cousin It.
Am I the only one to spot the xenomorph poster over Sidney’s shoulder in panel 2? It’s easier to see in panel 3.
Waaahahahahahahhaa!!! “A légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal!” Ha! You know, what that means? (That’s hungarian, by the way… xD
Yeah, I was pretty surprised as well. Still Hungarian is sometimes used as alien language in tv series, so Sydney wasn’t entirely wrong trying (by her own logic).
The mound on the right looks a lot like Kombu Infinity from One Punch Man!
To me, the tentacle-y creature reminds me of a thing from Space 1999. Can’t remember the episode name offhand, but it was a freaky one.