posted
I got an interesting comment about part of my novel from my dad yesterday. Just in general, I have a story completely from an alien's pint of view, no one from earth is in this story and they don't even know or care who we are.
So, of course, the entire story is translated into english. What my dad picked up on was the part where the narrator referred to himself and his kind as "people" and as "human." I did not think much of the terms as I wrote them, since I was translating the story into english and those are the words we basically use when we're talking about ourselves, but is that a good way of looking at it?
quote: I did not think much of the terms as I wrote them, since I was translating the story into english and those are the words we basically use when we're talking about ourselves, but is that a good way of looking at it?
I guess it would be important if, in your story, you make it a point they are not human. If you have set it up so the reader could see the aliens as human then it should be fine. If not then replace "human" with whatever they consider themselves.
"People" should be fine since it implies a group of individuals. The fact that they are aliens instead of humans is irrelevant.
posted
If you use the word "human," I’m going to associate that with humans and not aliens. Unless the alien thinks he’s human, or somehow the story sets it up that the alien associates his sense of self as a human, it wouldn’t set right with me. We are humans, so we say "human." Some other noun defines your aliens. Think about it this way. If you had written the story from the POV of a bunch of cats, the story still would be translated into English, but "human" wouldn’t be appropriate for referring to the cats. I would think you would use something more, well, cat-like.
"People" isn’t so bad. It is more general, and if phrased right with the context, could just indicate a group. But if you couple the use of "people" with "human," it also starts picking up the problems "human" has.
I’ve not read them, but the Redwall Series of books is all written from animal POV’s. That might be a place to look to see how another writer handled the problem.
posted
'Human' does tend to specify the human race rather than refer generically to sentient beings. 'People', on the other hand, should be just fine.
You could make a big deal out of having the aliens think of themselves as 'human', but this would require them to be using the term to clearly distinguish between themselves and some other people that are--from their perspective--not human. Classically, this would be homo sapiens humans which the aliens encounter but do not consider human...and since you're not having any humans in your story this wouldn't work for you.
Avoid the term 'human' for this story, just as you would avoid the term 'computer' in writing a medival fantasy (sure, it could refer to a person that specialized in performing calculations...but it is an unnecessary distraction to the reader).
posted
Humanoid should work, but it will place emphisis on the fact they are not human. If that works for you then I don't see any problem.
Posts: 807 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
More importantly, in addition to not being species specific, 'humanoid' doesn't signify intelligence or personality either. It refers only to the general morphology of an organism or even shape of inanimate objects.
I would completely avoid it unless there is a non-'human' species for comparison, particularly if you are already going to avoid using the term 'human'.
posted
I agree with Survivor. Why would the term "humanoid" even be in the aliens' vocabulary if they haven't ever met humans before? Even if they had prior contact with humanity, they still probably wouldn't think of themselves or refer to themselves as "humanoid" anymore than we would refer to ourselves as "alienoid" after we had met them. If you're trying to tell the story from the aliens perspective, the term humanoid doesn't really work in my opinion.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Why not avoid the issue and give them a name for their race? Say the name of their planet is Grape, they could refer to themselves or others as Grapeans or some such. Or it might just be a random word from their dialect. You could break it down further in the way that Floridians and New Yorkers are Americans, and all are humans, if you wanted to create a race and then categories within that race.
I think you might keep some of the 'alien' flavor to your story if you maintain some of the sayings or dialects of their original flavor, so to speak, even though it is translated to English. And I agree with what's been said above. Human is more of a specific title whereas people or persons is more generic.
As for humanoid, I wonder if you're missing the point. It's not THEIR term. They have no terms in this book because the entire thing is being translated into english. The question is, when referring to a creature that is alien but similiar to themselves, is humanoid a good translation? I suppose I could call them Semnesianoid, but that seems a little obnoxious. Also, we don't call ourselves Erthlings, that is what we think aliens would call us, and we do not call human like aliens Earthoids.
As for dialect, I completely disagree that it should ever have a place ina book that is translated into modern enlish. Especially since these are well educated aliens, their language should translate fairly cleanly into well educated english. Trying to show something is aline through dialect is, in my opinion, one of the most annoying ways to write. Contact with humans and attempts to learn english aside, their conversations would not sound that way to them. (Saying are a pretty good idea, but for various reasons don't work in my story at all.)
You cannot use the term 'humanoid' to mean 'similar in form to these aliens' unless you specifically use 'human' to refer to the aliens. And there is no reason to use 'human' to refer to the aliens except to allow them to distinguish between themselves and some other people that are not 'human' in their view.
Use the term 'anthropomorphic' rather than 'humanoid'. I know that this seems a bit silly, but the fact is that you must have 'human' in your language for 'humanoid' to make sense, whereas we use 'anthropomorphic' but do not use 'anthropos'.
As for dialect and selected use of idiom to convey a sense for the culture and perspective of these people, I think that you're missing a bet by not wanting to use either. Clearly accents would make little sense for a race that communicates telepathically, but differences in culture will inevitably give rise to different notions as to what sorts of analogies are common, rare, or taboo. Within the limits of propriety on this forum I would be hard pressed to give really good examples, but the use of euphemisms are a sufficient example in and of themselves. What words are generally replaced by euphemisms and which words replace them are very much reflections of the culture of the speaker.
And consider for a moment how much more necessary to a telepathic race euphemism would become. Imagine trying to tell a person that a loved one had been murdered. Would you really want to project the literal image of the mangled corpse, just as you saw it? How about telling a man that his wife was cheating on him? I think that would be a bad thing to send graphically.
Or perhaps it would be considered perfectly acceptable in the culture that you're creating...which says things about the culture, and you will strengthen that by having other concepts be euphemized.
And just think, that's only the tip of the iceberg we're dealing with in terms of using dialect and idiom to convey an alien culture and mindset.
If not so, then just have your story be about humans with high quality radios, for crying out loud.
posted
If I may suggest a possible example: metaphors.
When some people talk about using a phone, they might say "dial the number" even though phones rarely ever have dials any more.
People in American culture use military metaphors, sports metaphors, technology metaphors, and so on.
If I say "I wish I could rewind my day," or "I wish she had a mute button," I think you'd know what I meant--unless you've never used a VCR or a TV remote.
We use metaphors in our speech all the time, without really thinking about them. You can make your aliens seem alien by having them use metaphor as well--different ones from those we use.
posted
I'm sorry I even commented about the dialect thing, it really wasn't in the scope of my current questin and I answered the question quite conclusively for myself a long time ago in the creation of this work. The only "dialect" I use is the occassional break from translation into english to describe a scene being shown in images rather than words. All messages are actually sent this way, but I also need the work to be readable, so I just do it occassionally to remind the reader it's happening.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
"As for dialect, I completely disagree that it should ever have a place ina book that is translated into modern enlish. Especially since these are well educated aliens, their language should translate fairly cleanly into well educated english."
As anyone who has ever become fluent in a second language will tell you, one language does not translate neatly into another language. My second language is German, and there is a lot that connot really be translated accurately into English. It's not just limited to idioms, either, there are words and phrases for which we simply have no concept in English, and there is no way to really translate them. Now, if that is the case with German, the language that very well may be the most closely related to English on the whole planet Earth, how often would we expect that to happen with a totally alien language?
As far as the term humanoid is concerned, I think you just have to weigh the benefits and choose the lesser of two evils. On the one hand, in my opinion it doesn't really make much sense to use the term unless you somehow make the specific point to the reader that you're only using the term because the story was originally in Semnesian and humanoid is the best translation we have into English for the original Semnesian term. On the other hand, humanoid is probably the simplest term to use. I think most of your other options are probably going to feel pretty bulky when you use them and detract a lot more from the language flow in your story. As you pointed out, Semnasianoid would be horrible, and most of your other options that I can think of are equally painful.
I guess it's just a question of what's more important: smooth language or scientific accuracy. (I use the word "scientific" very loosely here, since the "science" of it is only based on the assumptions of a bunch of people who have no experience with what aliens call themselves.)
My personal opinion is go with humanoid. If I were reading the story, the bulky language convolutions you would have to use to get around using the word would bother me a lot more than the inaccuracy of aliens calling themselves humanoids. I'm not really a big science-fiction reader though, so the sci-fi community may not agree.
posted
If I was literally translating, then you would be absolutely correct. The phrase "Bienvenue a chez moi." in french (pardon me for not using the correct accents but they are not on my keyboard) doe snot translate into english. Chez moi is a foriegn concept. However, if I were translating this to english I would simply say, "Welcome to my house." I know it's not right, but the point is to get the idea across rather than to translate exactly.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Since there are continued references to this being a translation…
If the story is an actual translation of a part of these alien’s history, with the translating done by a human, then the aliens could be referred to as humanoid. A human is making the translation, and as he would have a understanding of humanoid as in how this relates the aliens to humans, as will his presumably human readers, then it makes sense. Its still a rather loaded choice since the there are so many connotations of meaning associated with human and humanoid with regards to intelligence, biology, philosophy, and religion. You are making a statement about the society in which the aliens story has been translated, on that may reflect how the story is percieved.
If the story is translated in the sense that the writer is using words, English in this case, as the only tool she has to tell the story of an inherently wordless group of aliens (If I understand the mind-picture telepathy correctly), then humanoid doesn’t make sense. The POV of the alien can make no reference to the idea of humanoid because the aliens don’t know what a human is since they haven’t seen them. It’s not an issue of words vs. no words. Its a matter of experience and POV violation. If I’ve never seen an insect, it would be impossible for me to use the word insectoid to describe a metal encased, multi-legged machine’s structure. I would use a word, or associate with a picture, of something that is in my experience.
posted
I'll stick with my contention that if you aren't going to use 'human', then you cannot use 'humanoid' (and if you do use 'human', you can only use 'humanoid' as it would make sense in the context of how you've used 'human').
I have to say that the dialect thing almost certainly is in the scope of your current question, or rather, your current question is a subset of the issue of dialect and idiom. And I have to wonder why you're having the aliens have telepathy if you aren't going to explore how their mode of communication affects their culture and mindset.
And what the hell do you mean that 'chez moi' is a foreign concept?
posted
OK, enough with uman and humanoid...you're right and I've taken them out....my last comment referred to something else entierly.
Ana maybe you're right, and maybe the question of human and humanoid is at it's core related to dialect, but frankly it is none of your business. If you'd like to go on and have a discussion about dialect, then go ahead, but stop attacking my work as if you think you know what it's about. You haven't read it, or even a passage from it. You've heard a little bit of what I've described and have gone off asuming that there's not culture or appropriate use of the telepathic language I've created. If I'd shown you some of my work and asked for feedback that would be one thing, but I did not and have not except to ask a simple question, a one word translation problem that was nagging me.
As far as I'm concerned, this topic is closed.
[This message has been edited by Christine (edited December 15, 2003).]
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