Van Rijn:
"'Get them on the telecom and develop a common language. Fast! Then explain we mean no harm but want just a lift to Valhalla.'" (p. 569)
How fast? Torrance reflects that:
"If the parleying with these strangers took unduly long - more that a week, at best -" (ibid.)
- then there would be problems. A week max to develop a common language with a newly encountered spacefaring species? Yes. There are so many species with so much interaction on such urgent matters - in this case, survival - that developing a common language, with computer assistance, must by now be a routine procedure for the crews of Polesotechnic League spaceships. The immediate problem is to locate the cleverly concealed aliens. Then, communication will be established. Their planet will be named after van Rijn.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I can't help but think that, even granting experience and assistance from advanced computer technology, it would be harder and take longer than a week to develop working communication with these hidden aliens.
I remember an interesting bit from THE REBEL WORLDS, centuries later, about how the Imperial Intelligence academy drilled into cadets like Flandry methods on now to learn non-human languages/pidgins as quickly as possible. But I think it still took Flandry several weeks to develop working communications with the Didonians he met.
Ad astra! Sean
It would help that the species in question were both scientific/technological. That would give them common vocabulary very quickly, because things like the periodic table would be 'visible' even when using an alternative symbology.
H. Beam Piper did a story that used that as a plot point -- "Omniligual".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True, things like the periodic table, would be a means of quickly working out some common understanding by two different races. And I think I read Piper's "Omnilingual" somewhere.
Ad astra! Sean
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