A universal translator is a device common to many
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
works, especially on television. First described in
Murray Leinster
Murray Leinster () was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins (June 16, 1896 – June 8, 1975), an American writer of genre fiction, particularly of List of science fiction authors, science fiction. He wrote and published more than 1,500 ...
's 1945
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...
"
First Contact", the translator's purpose is to offer an instant
translation
Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...
of any
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
.
As a convention, it is used to remove the problem of translating between
alien languages when it is not vital to the plot. Especially in science fiction television, translating a new language in every episode when a new species is encountered would consume time normally allotted for plot development and would potentially become repetitive to the point of annoyance. Occasionally, intelligent alien races are portrayed as being able to extrapolate the
rules of English from little speech and rapidly become fluent in it, making the translator unnecessary.
While a ''universal'' translator seems unlikely, scientists continue to work towards similar real-world technologies involving small numbers of known languages.
General
As a rule, a universal translator is instantaneous, but if that language has never been recorded, there is sometimes a time delay until the translator can properly work out a translation, as is true of ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
''. The operation of these translators is often explained as using some form of telepathy by reading the brain patterns of the speaker(s) to determine what they are saying; some writers seek greater plausibility by instead having computer translation that requires collecting a database of the new language, often by listening to radio transmissions.
The existence of a universal translator tends to raise questions from a logical perspective, such as:
* The continued functioning of the translator even when no device is evident;
* Multiple speakers hear speech in one and only one language (so for example, for a
Spanish speaker and a
German speaker listening to an
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
speaker the Spanish speaker would only hear Spanish and neither the original Italian nor the translated German, while the German speaker would not hear any Spanish nor Italian but only German);
* Characters' mouths move in sync with the translated words and not the original language;
* The ability for the translator to function in real-time even for languages with different word order (such as a phrase ''the horse standing in front of the barn'' would end up in
Japanese as 納屋の前に立っている馬, lit. ''barn-in-front-at-standing-horse''; however, there is no delay for the Japanese listener even when the English speaker has yet to mention the barn).
Nonetheless, it removes the need for cumbersome and potentially extensive subtitles, and it eliminates the rather unlikely supposition that every other race in the galaxy has gone to the trouble of learning English.
Fictional depictions
''Doctor Who''
Using a
telepathic field, the
TARDIS
The TARDIS (; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space") is a fictional hybrid of a time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' and its various spin-offs. While a TARDI ...
automatically translates most comprehensible languages (written and spoken) into a language understood by its pilot and each of the crew members. The field also translates what they say into a language appropriate for that time and location (e.g., speaking the appropriate dialect of
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
when in ancient
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
). This system has frequently been featured as a main part of the show. The TARDIS, and by extension a number of its major systems, including the translator, are telepathically linked to its pilot,
the Doctor
The Doctor, sometimes known as Doctor Who, is the protagonist of the long-running BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. An extraterrestrial Time Lord, the Doctor travels the universe in a time travelling spaceship called th ...
. None of these systems appear able to function reliably when the Doctor is incapacitated. In "
The Fires of Pompeii", when companion
Donna Noble
Donna Noble is a fictional character in the long-running British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. Portrayed by British actress and comedian Catherine Tate, she is a companion of the Tenth and Fourteenth Doctors (both portr ...
attempts to speak the local language directly, her words are humorously rendered into what sounds to a local like Welsh. One flaw of this translation process is that if the language a word is being translated into does not have a concept for it, the word may not be correctly translated or understood. For example, the Romans don't have a word or a general understanding of "volcano" as
Mount Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius ( ) is a Somma volcano, somma–stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuv ...
has not erupted yet.
''Farscape''
On the TV show ''
Farscape
''Farscape'' is an Australian-American Science fiction on television, science fiction television series conceived by Rockne S. O'Bannon and produced by The Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment, originally for the Nine Network. It prem ...
'',
John Crichton is injected with bacteria called translator microbes which function as a sort of universal translator. The microbes colonize the host's brainstem and translate anything spoken to the host, passing along the translated information to the host's brain. This does not enable the injected person to speak other languages; they continue to speak their own language and are only understood by others as long as the listeners possess the microbes. The microbes sometimes fail to properly translate slang, translating it literally. Also, the translator microbes cannot translate the natural language of the alien Pilots or
Diagnosan
The television series ''Farscape'' features an extensive cast of characters created by Rockne S. O'Bannon. The series is set aboard a living spacecraft named Moya of the Leviathan race. The physical, racial and species-specific cultural chara ...
s because every word in their language can contain thousands of meanings, far too many for the microbes to translate; thus Pilots must learn to speak in "simple sentences", while Diagnosans require interpreters. The implanted can learn to speak new languages if they want or to make communicating with non-injected individuals possible. The crew of
Moya learned English from Crichton, thereby being able to communicate with the non-implanted populace when the crew visited Earth. Some species, such as the
Kalish, cannot use translator microbes because their body rejects them, so they must learn a new language through their own efforts.
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''
In the universe of ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' is a Science fiction comedy, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC ...
'', universal translation is made possible by a small fish called a "babel fish". The fish is inserted into the auditory canal where it feeds off the mental frequencies of those speaking to its host. In turn it excretes a translation into the brain of its host.
The book remarks that, by allowing everyone to understand each other, the babel fish has caused more wars than anything else in the universe.
The book also explains that the babel fish could not possibly have developed naturally and therefore proves the existence of God as its creator, which in turn proves the non-existence of God. Since God needs faith to exist, and this proof dispels the need for faith, this therefore causes God to vanish "in a puff of logic".
''Men in Black''
The
''Men in Black'' franchise possess a universal translator, which, as
Agent K explains in the first film,
''Men in Black'', they are not allowed to have because "human thought is so primitive, it's looked upon as an infectious disease in some of the better galaxies." remarking “That kinda makes you proud, doesn’t it?”
''Neuromancer''
In
William Gibson
William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ear ...
's novel ''
Neuromancer
''Neuromancer'' is a 1984 science fiction novel by American-Canadian author William Gibson. Set in a near-future dystopia, the narrative follows Case, a computer hacker enlisted into a crew by a powerful artificial intelligence and a traumatis ...
'', along with the other novels in his
Sprawl trilogy
The Sprawl trilogy (also known as the Neuromancer trilogy) is William Gibson's first set of novels, and is composed of ''Neuromancer'' (1984), ''Count Zero'' (1986), and '' Mona Lisa Overdrive'' (1988).
The novels are all set in the same fictio ...
, ''
Count Zero
''Count Zero'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, originally published in 1986. It presents a near future whose technologies include a network of supercomputers that created a "matrix" in "cyberspace", an acce ...
'' and ''
Mona Lisa Overdrive
''Mona Lisa Overdrive'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, published in 1988. It is the final novel of the cyberpunk Sprawl trilogy, following ''Neuromancer'' and ''Count Zero'', taking place eight years afte ...
'', devices known as "microsofts" are small chips plugged into "wetware" sockets installed behind the user's ear, giving them certain knowledge and/or skills as long as they are plugged in, such as the ability to speak another language. (The name is a combination of the words "micro" and "soft", and is not named after the software firm
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
.)
''Star Control''
In the ''
Star Control'' computer game series, almost all races are implied to have universal translators; however, discrepancies between the ways aliens choose to translate themselves sometimes crop up and complicate communications. The
VUX, for instance, are cited as having uniquely advanced skills in linguistics and can translate human language long before humans are capable of doing the same to the VUX. This created a problem during the first contact between Vux and humans, in a starship commanded by Captain Rand. According to ''
Star Control: Great Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict'', Captain Rand is referred to as saying "That is one ugly sucker" when the image of a VUX first came onto his viewscreen. However, in ''
Star Control II'', Captain Rand is referred to as saying "That is the ugliest freak-face I've ever seen" to his first officer, along with joking that the VUX name stands for Very Ugly Xenoform. It is debatable which source is canon. Whichever the remark, it is implied that the VUX's advanced Universal Translator technologies conveyed the exact meaning of Captain Rand's words. The effete VUX used the insult as an excuse for hostility toward humans.
Also, a new race called the
Orz was introduced in ''Star Control II''. They presumably come from another dimension, and at first contact, the ship's computer says that there are many vocal anomalies in their language resulting from their referring to concepts or phenomena for which there are no equivalents in human language. The result is dialogue that is a patchwork of ordinary words and phrases marked with *asterisk pairs* indicating that they are loose translations of unique Orz concepts into human language, a full translation of which would probably require paragraph-long definitions. (For instance, the Orz refer to the human dimension as *heavy space* and their own as *Pretty Space*, to various categories of races as *happy campers* or *silly cows*, and so on.)
In the other direction, the
Supox are a race portrayed as attempting to mimic as many aspects of other races' language and culture as possible when speaking to them, to the point of referring to their own planet as “
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
,” also leading to confusion.
In ''Star Control III'', the
K’tang are portrayed as an intellectually inferior species using advanced technology they do not fully understand to intimidate people, perhaps explaining why their translators’ output is littered with misspellings and nonstandard usages of words, like threatening to “crushify” the player. Along the same lines, the
Daktaklakpak dialogue is highly stilted and contains many numbers and mathematical expressions, implying that, as a mechanical race, their thought processes are inherently too different from humans’ to be directly translated into human language.
''Star Trek''
In ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
'', the universal translator was used by
Ensign
Ensign most often refers to:
* Ensign (flag), a flag flown on a vessel to indicate nationality
* Ensign (rank), a navy (and former army) officer rank
Ensign or The Ensign may also refer to:
Places
* Ensign, Alberta, Alberta, Canada
* Ensign, Ka ...
Hoshi Sato
Hoshi Sato , played by Korean American actress Linda Park, is a fictional character in the science fiction on television, science fiction television series ''Star Trek: Enterprise''.
In the show Sato, born in Kyoto, Japan on July 9, 2129, is the ...
, the communications officer on the ''
Enterprise
Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:
Business and economics
Brands and enterprises
* Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
* Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
* Enterpris ...
'' in ''
Star Trek: Enterprise'', to invent the linguacode matrix. It was supposedly first used in the late 22nd century on Earth for the instant translation of well-known Earth languages. Gradually, with the removal of language barriers, Earth's disparate cultures came to terms of universal peace. Translations of previously unknown languages, such as those of aliens, required more difficulties to be overcome.
Like most other common forms of ''Star Trek'' technology (warp drive, transporters, etc.), the universal translator was probably developed independently on several worlds as an inevitable requirement of space travel; certainly the
Vulcans had no difficulty communicating with humans upon making "
first contact" (although the Vulcans could have learned
Standard English
In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone codification to the point of being socially perceived as the standard language, associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and off ...
from monitoring Earth radio transmissions). The Vulcan ship that landed during
First Contact was a survey vessel. The Vulcans had been surveying the humans for over a hundred years, when first contact actually occurred to T'Pol's great-grandmother, T'mir, in the episode "
Carbon Creek"; however, in ''Star Trek First Contact'' it is implied that they learned English by surveying the planets in the Solar System.
Deanna Troi mentions the Vulcans have no interest in Earth as it is "too primitive", but the
Prime Directive states not to interfere with pre-Warp species. The Vulcans only noticed the warp trail and came to investigate.
Improbably, the universal translator has been successfully used to interpret non-biological lifeform communication (in the ''Original Series'' episode "
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth transformation or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and different ...
"). In the ''
Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (''TNG'') episode "
The Ensigns of Command", the translator proved ineffective with the language of the
Sheliaks, so the
Federation
A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...
had to depend on the aliens' interpretation of Earth languages. The ''TNG'' episode "
Darmok" also illustrates another instance where the universal translator proves ineffective and unintelligible, because the Tamarian language is too deeply rooted in local
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...
.
Unlike virtually every other form of Federation technology, universal translators almost never break down. A notable exception is in the ''
Star Trek: Discovery'' episode "An Obol for Charon", where alien interference causes the translator to malfunction and translate crew speech and computer text into multiple languages at random, requiring
Commander
Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank as well as a job title in many army, armies. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countri ...
Saru's fluency in nearly one hundred languages to repair the problem. Although universal translators were clearly in widespread use during this era and
Captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...
Kirk
Kirk is a Scottish and former Northern English word meaning 'church'. The term ''the Kirk'' is often used informally to refer specifically to the Church of Scotland, the Scottish national church that developed from the 16th-century Reformation ...
's time (inasmuch as the crew regularly communicated with species who could not conceivably have knowledge of Standard English), it is unclear where they were carried on personnel of that era.
The episode "
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth transformation or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and different ...
" was the only time in which the device was actually seen; Spock removes the device that had been installed in a shuttlecraft, modifies so that they can communicate with a non-corporeal alien, using the translator as a hand-held device. In the episode "
Arena
An arena is a large enclosed venue, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, Music, musical performances or Sport, sporting events. It comprises a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for specta ...
" the Metrons supply Captain Kirk and the Gorn commander with a Translator-Communicator, allowing conversation between them to be possible. During Kirk's era, they were also apparently less perfect in their translations into
Klingon
The Klingons ( ; Klingon language, Klingon: ''tlhIngan'' ) are a humanoid species of aliens in the science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''.
Developed by screenwriter Gene L. Coon in 1967 for the Star Trek: The Original Series, original ''Star T ...
. In the
sixth ''Star Trek'' film, the characters are seen relying on print books in order to communicate with a Klingon military ship, since
Chekov said that the Klingons would recognize the use of a Translator. Actress
Nichelle Nichols
Nichelle Nichols ( ; born Grace Dell Nichols; December 28, 1932 – July 30, 2022) was an American actress, singer and dancer whose portrayal of Uhura in ''Star Trek'' and its film sequels was groundbreaking for African American actresses on A ...
reportedly protested this scene, as she felt that
Uhura
Nyota Uhura (), or simply Uhura, is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. In the Star Trek: The Original Series, original television series, the character was portrayed by Nichelle Nichols, who reprised the role for the first six L ...
, as communications officer during what was effectively a cold war, would be trained in
fluent Klingon to aid in such situations. The novelization of that movie provided a different reason for the use of books: the translator had been sabotaged by somebody working on the Starfleet side of the conspiracy in the story, but the novelization is not part of the
''Star Trek'' canon. In that same movie, during the trial scene of Kirk and McCoy before a Klingon judiciary, the Captain and the Doctor are holding communication devices while a Klingon (played by Todd Bryant) translates for them.
By the 24th century, universal translators are built into the communicator pins worn by
Starfleet
Starfleet is a fictional organization in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. Within this fictional universe, Starfleet is a uniformed space force maintained by the United Federation of Planets ("the Federation") as the principal means for conduct ...
personnel, although there were instances when crew members (such as
Riker in the ''
Next Generation'' episode "
First Contact") spoke to newly encountered aliens even when deprived of their communicators. In the ''
Star Trek: Voyager'' episode "
The 37's" the device apparently works among intra-species languages as well; after the ''Voyager'' crew discovers and revives eight humans abducted in 1937 (including
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart ( ; July 24, 1897 – January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer. On July 2, 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world. During her li ...
and
Fred Noonan) and held in
stasis since then, a Japanese Army officer expresses surprise that an Ohio farmer is apparently speaking Japanese, while the farmer is equally surprised to hear the soldier speaking English (the audience hears them all speaking English only, however). Certain Starfleet programs, such as the Emergency Medical Hologram, have universal translators encoded into the programming.
The ''
Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual'' says that the universal translator is an "extremely sophisticated computer program" which functions by "analyzing the patterns" of an unknown foreign language, starting from a speech sample of two or more speakers in conversation. The more extensive the conversational sample, the more accurate and reliable is the "translation matrix", enabling instantaneous conversion of verbal utterances or written text between the alien language and American English / Federation Standard.
In some episodes of ''
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'', we see a
Cardassian
The Cardassians () are a fictional Extraterrestrial life in popular culture, extraterrestrial species in the American science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''. They were devised in 1991 for the series ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' before b ...
universal translator at work. It takes some time to process an alien language, whose speakers are initially not understandable but as they continue speaking, the computer gradually learns their language and renders it into Standard English (also known as Federation Standard).
Ferengi customarily wear their universal translators as an implant in their ears. In the ''
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (''DS9'') episode "
Little Green Men", in which the show's regular Ferengi accidentally become the
three aliens in Roswell, the humans without translators are unable to understand the Ferengi (who likewise can not understand the English spoken by the human observers) until the Ferengi get their own translators working. Similarly, throughout all ''Trek'' series, a universal translator possessed by only one party can audibly broadcast the results within a limited range, enabling communication between two or more parties, all speaking different languages. The devices appear to be standard equipment on starships and space stations, where a communicator pin would therefore presumably not be strictly necessary.
Since the Universal Translator presumably does not physically affect the process by which the user's vocal cords (or alien equivalent) forms audible speech (i.e. the user is nonetheless speaking in his/her/its own language regardless of the listener's language), the listener apparently hears only the speaker's translated words and not the alien language that the speaker is actually, physically articulating; the unfamiliar oratory is therefore not only translated but somehow replaced. The universal translator is often used in cases of contact with pre-warp societies such as in the ''
Star Trek: The Next Generation'' episode "
Who Watches the Watchers", and its detection could conceivably lead to a violation of the Prime Directive. Therefore, logically there must be some mechanism by which the lips of the speaker are perceived to be in sync with the words spoken. No explanation of the mechanics of this function appears to have been provided; the viewer is required to suspend disbelief enough to overcome the apparent limitation.
Non-fictional translators
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
is developing its own translation technology, for incorporation into many of their software products and services. Most notably this includes real-time translation of video calls with
Skype Translator. As of July 2019,
Microsoft Translator
Microsoft Translator or Bing Translator is a multilingual machine translation cloud service provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Translator is a part of Microsoft Cognitive Services and integrated across multiple consumer, developer, and enterprise pro ...
supports over 65 languages and can translate video calls between English, French, German, Chinese (Mandarin), Italian, and Spanish.
In 2010,
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
announced that it was developing a translator. Using a voice recognition system and a database, a robotic voice will recite the translation in the desired language.
Google's stated aim is to translate the entire world's information. Roya Soleimani, a spokesperson for Google, said during a 2013 interview demonstrating the translation app on a smartphone, "You can have access to the world's languages right in your pocket... The goal is to become that ultimate Star Trek computer."
The
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
has also developed a two-way translator for use in Iraq. TRANSTAC (Spoken Language Communication and Translation System for Tactical Use), though, only focuses on Arabic-English translation.
The United States Army has scrapped the TRANSTAC Program and is developing in conjunction with DARPA, the BOLT (Broad Operational Language Translation) in its place.
In February 2010, a communications software called VoxOx launched a two-way translator service for instant messaging, SMS, email and social media titled the VoxOx Universal Translator.
It enables two people to communicate instantly with each other while both typing in their native languages.
See also
*
Interlingual machine translation
*
List of language interpreters in fiction
*
Mobile translation
*
Pivot language
*
Phraselator
The Phraselator is a weatherproof handheld language translation device developed by Applied Data Systems and VoxTec, a former division of the military contractor Marine Acoustics, located in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. It was designed to serve as a h ...
*
Speech translation
Speech translation is the process by which conversational spoken phrases are instantly translated and spoken aloud in a second language. This differs from phrase translation, which is where the system only translates a fixed and finite set of phr ...
*
Universal language
Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's people. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all humans. It may be the idea o ...
* See
speech recognition
Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers. It is also ...
,
machine translation
Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages.
Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...
and
speech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal langua ...
for discussions of real-world
natural language processing
Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of computer science and especially artificial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with providing computers with the ability to process data encoded in natural language and is thus closely related ...
technologies.
References
External links
* {{Memory Alpha, Universal translator
Reverse-engineering the universal translator
Fictional technology
Fiction about interpreting and translation
Science fiction themes
Star Trek devices
Machine translation
Fictional alien languages