First contact between the humans and the Victims occurs in a prison cell on the Antagonists' spacecraft. I need a viable way for the humans and victims to communicate.

This is hard SF, so I need concrete ideas.

actually, what i actually mean is that they would translate first into Antagonist, and then into English, from Victim, or from English into Antagonist, and then into Victim.

there is absolutely no reason for a translation system to be incapable of working this way. however, since this is hard SF, and translation is a lossy process, the loss from English to Victim should be pretty extreme. same with Victim to English.

I'm not buying this scenario. Why can't it translate? If they have the technology to do one translation, then it's a relatively simple thing (in my mind) to do the others.

What might happen is a several second delay to allow for the translation subroutines to work it out as it is translated twice.

I recall reading that in the United Nations, some of the speeches are translated through several different languages before finally arriving at a final translation. I don't know exactly which, but it might go something like:

Russian > English > French > Swahili

That said, you are writing a book. Non-verbal, non-written communication is not easy to describe.

How much time do you have to work with? If it's only days, the level of communication will probably not rise much above what can be communicated with gestures. If it's years, then I could believe reasonably fluent dialogue between the two species.

Worse: A smile could be taken as an agressive move. Heck, just picking your nose might have unintended consequences. It could be a mating signal.

If the psychology is anywhere nearly similar (as in, they don't like death and they do like eating and they can form alliance relationships), some communication could be as easy as putting food in front of the other, as a way of saying, "Have this." It's conventional to try math, which would work if the alien is a mathematician.

Various ideas:
* vervets, which use sign language. See Mike Pinker's work
* a minor alien character in Calculating God, Robert Sawyer. Its thoughts were alien enough than even after magic translation they were hard to follow
* The Mote in God's Eye, Niven & Pournelle. They were great communicators. (Also a comment on using math: a scientist is trying to do this with an Engineer; members of that subspecies don't talk much. It couldn't care less about his diagram of the Pythagorean theorem, but it took the computer apart and put it back together. I think it was Kate Wilhelm (?) who pointed out what would happen if a big many-legged monster appeared downtown and tried to interest people in the Pythagorean theorem.

* Startide Rising, the language Trinary. Statements must rhyme to be grammatical, and have 3 levels of meaning.

High five, man!

Lot of good ideas here.

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First contact between the humans and the Victims occurs in a prison cell on the Antagonists' spacecraft.

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I'm going to make some assumptions based on this. First, even if you don't mean they were literally being kept in the same cell, they were in the same cell block, and both can survive in the same environment. Second, the Antags have a distinct prison environment, so it wouldn't be hard for humans (or the Vics) to figure out that both species were being held captive. Third, this first contact becomes known, which means that at least some of the humans or Vics involved eventually escaped.

+ On the antagonist translation device...neither humans nor victims have access to the device.

+ The antagonists throw both species into what is basically just a secure room. They don't generally keep prisoners, they prefer to dismember their captives bit by bit until they give up information or die. In this instance, they don't know which species has the information, and torture hasn't worked on the first victim captive. They attempt trickery instead.

+ The humans have the information, the action occurs at the home planet of the Victims (orbiting Alpha Centauri A). The Antagonists believe the information is here, not on Earth. (They tortured an alien from a fourth race to learn the information exists, but did not get all the facts). The humans are desperate not to allow the Antagonists to discover where they are from.

+ Earth and Charold's Planet (home planet of the Victims) are very similar. The Victims look something like humanoid giraffes. That's about all the humans know upon first contact.

+ The humans and Victims must work together to win the scenerio, and no antagonist will change sides.

+ Just FYI, it is essential to the next book that these humans are stranded on Charold's Planet, unable to communicate back to earth.

+ And, of course, the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.

I have a sneaky suspicion that this important information is going to turn out to be some common bit of knowledge on Earth. Fairly antique knowledge, at that. I can see a couple of possible directions. One involves Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Atlantis, or something like that. The other involves one (or more) well established Earth religions having been founded by aliens.

On the other hand, maybe you just mean that humans have invented a fabulous new technology that the Antags are dying (or killing, anyway) to get.

Either way, the story is potentially interesting, but full of risk because there are so many borderline cliche elements.

More relevant to the immediate question, you haven't given us information we requested. First, how long do they have to figure out a means of communication, and how much communication do they need?

I'm thinking that, initially, they only need enough to communicate "we're all friends here" and "look at this". After they escape, they have plenty of time to figure out more.

The important bit of information is, in fact, of great strategic importance. There has been an interstellar war raging between the Antagonists and another race (the previously mentioned fourth race) for millions of years...all of it in sublight spacecraft. The humans have a theory and a prototype that could change everything. (In fact, it is the main thread connecting this story with my previous novel.) In fact, the prototype is only large enough for a mouse and it doesn't work properly.

The time span for the humans and victims to learn to communicate is minimal. I can think of two options, gesturing or stealing one of the translation devices. The problem with the latter option is that it might get all the protagonists killed before they escape. Then again, there's a lot of tension built into that option by default.............The more I think about it, the better that might work.

meaning dependent on highly contextual religious/cultural information or caste status. (the culture one was done on star wars, and the religious one recalls the Klingon biblical translation conundrum.)

We can't speak with whales or dolphins, though many people believe they have language.

Perhaps your hero that figures out the language has a touch of telepathy. Or is an idio savant.

It is entirely possible for a computer to translate one language and another because some languages just have more in common than others.

Maybe the language is a series of colors and patterns displayed on the face and they never developed writing.

Generally, I don't think that you could rely on something like that for two species that evolved on different planets, even if there are commonalities of body form. But complex communication of semi-abstract modes isn't necessary.

All you need to share basic information and get some working level of cooperation between two intelligent entities is "we're friendly" and "look at this". I can say that much to a snake or lizard, and reptiles fall well outside the mammal commonality (whether they believe me is another matter ).

In fact, communication at that level might be better than more complex communication, because it seems likely that the Antags are monitering the cell in the hope of overhearing something. If they've jury rigged a cell and monitering equipment (including translators), then it seems that escaping and stealing a set of translation machines shouldn't be impossible, particularly since you say the Antags aren't usually in the business of keeping live captives.

P.S. Are you species names inspire at all by the "Persecutor, Victim, Rescuer" triangle model of dysfunctional relationships? It's a pattern that causes people to mess up their present relationships based on past abuse. Relationship addicts often have this, where as soon as they get married to someone the spouse becomes the tormentor and they start looking for a rescuer.

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Did you know that signers who read and write have to be bilingual because there is no way to write sign practically?

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I don't know about other areas, but in North America that would actually depend on which sign language they are using. Signed Exact English (SEE) is pretty much just like it sounds. This is most often used for deaf children of hearing adults. American Sign Language (ASL) has a completely different syntax and is most often considered part of a different culture. ASL users would be bilingual, but not SEE.

Still, even with different sign languages you would run the risk of stepping on toes culturally. I know that the signed letter 't' in North America actually means the equivalent of something like 'Your wife fornicates with the goats when you're not home' in certain South American countries.

A lot would depend on the giraffe culture's taboos and body language. I can easily see a human's gestural representation of eating being considered vulgar by a group of long-necked aliens, if not done specifically.

"Your offer is too low!" Translation: "Look up!"

"Is it a quality item?" Translation: "What do you see?"

"Everyone owns one on my planet." Translation: "We're being watched."

Simple counting (shown representationally) would probably be understood by most sentient races. For example, if I started making marks as follows, you would probably understand what I was doing:
|
||
|||
||||
|||||
||||||
|||||||

From there, it's probably possible to come up with common symbols for numbers and mathematical operations.

| = 1
|| = 2
||| = 3
|||| = 4

1 + 1 = 2
2 - 1 = 1
1 - 1 = 0

Gestures such as pointing at an object to indicate the object are probably about as close to universally understood as gestures can be. Other concepts can be developed from there.

Using representational drawings may also be a method for initial communication.

If I've got the gist of that correct, wouldn't be in the best interest of the Antags to make the translators available to the Humans and the Victims?

They wouldn't have to do it at first, but perhaps have one of the Antags realize that the two species they have captive can't communicate. They could then provide translation devices to each of the prisoners.

Or, since manipulation is the goal, the Anatags could let the captives have the translation devices, but in such a way that the captives think they have secretly got a hold of them. They only use it when the guards aren't around and say things that they believe are private, not knowing that the Antags have the place bugged.

That's why I said "some form", not to imply that I would expect them to actually use Morse Code. Morse code spells out letter-by-letter a word or acronym of a known language, so that would be pointless (unless the Vics learn English or something), but there are other means to formulate a tapping code, even something as simple as once for "yes", twice for "no" (sorry, my Trekieness is showing). As you said, "...---..." would be meaningless if it was intended to mean S-O-S, but you could create some how a common bond between the two subjects to make such a thing come out as words or phrases, similar to the whole "Father tongue" concept.
I was leaning away from the universal languages of pointing, etc. because I think that it would make it hard to believe that someone couldn't figure out the meaning of those.
If you want to really hurt your brain, you could even develop a tapping language by using any computer language, binomial, hex, etc (that hurts my brain just thinking about it).

OK. I'm an alien completely unfamiliar with human lanuages. You decide that you will communicate with me by teaching me a tapping code. Please explain how you would use tapping to explain to me the concept that a certain number of taps means yes, and a different number of taps means no. Even if I somehow instinctively knew once was yes and twice was no, the tapping code isn't very useful unless you can ask me a yes-or-no question, which means you somehow need to build up tapping codes sufficient to ask a question.

By the time the humans arrive, the antags probably know the Chirafes don't have the information, but they won't admit a mistake, and a politician is too big a prize to simply release.

There are a lot of details yet to be worked out on the final relationship between all the different species. My first novel was laid out in my head for several years before it was written. It started as a short story (that was, unfortunatly, published). The sequel to this novel is also completely laid out in my head. This novel is different. I've been actively creating it as I go along. I have the major plot points, but the details are very sketchy.

I'm starting to understand what the veteran pros mean when they say that writing doesn't get any easier, it's just hard in different ways.

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It started as a short story (that was, unfortunatly, published).

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As writers we grow and mature. I'm sure that most look back at some of their work and say, "Boy, that was crap." But hey, if someone bought it off you, who cares how bad you think it is. Just use it as experience to write better.

For one, they'd be mutually teaching each other (that does make a difference).

"It's actually possible to build a tapping code for simple math"

Exactly why I brought up the concept of computer codes... computers only speak in math and math is universal, but not universally understood (hence two people with some level of mutual understanding can find a common bond to comprehend the tapping, flashing, etc., but an outside party may not be so likely):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexidecimal

If I was Spaceman, I of'course would actually approach this by only revealing the basic concept (like OSC did for Father Tongue, etc), rather than explaining it in detail... because detail is accentually pointless, you don't need to be able to do it yourself to understand that someone else is doing it.

Spaceman:
Do you at least get the basis of what I’m saying? Or even agree enough for me to even bother trying to figure out a further means to explain it (I choose not to develop your code for you, I am only willing to come up with the very basic ideas).
If you do agree a bit, I can easily give you way more ideas on the concept, my entire mind does nothing but develop and figure out patterns constantly throughout my day (wake or sleep)… I could simply give you a small taste of some of the insanity that goes through my head. Although I’m not going t bother with more than that because as I’ve said before, you really couldn’t understand it without actually being in my head.
For me… every day, number, letter, word, etc. has its own shape color and sound (completely separate from the sounds and shapes that they’d normally have when normally spoken or written). So… yea… that’s just the top of the surface…

> For one, they'd be mutually teaching each
> other (that does make a difference).

Not enough of one.

My point is that with tapping codes alone, you can't get beyond math. For "some form of Morse Code," as you originally suggested, you'd need to build an alphabet, and words to be spelled with the alphabet, and those words are meaningless unless both you and the alien agree on their meaning -- which is going to be extremely difficult if you have no way of communicating other than tapping codes. Thagt's true even if you skip the alphabet step and just give each word its own pattern.

Tapping codes are useful as a method of communication between people who already have a method of communication in common. (That's why they will work for simple math, because both humans and sentient aliens would already share that foundation.)

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I myself have figured out many languages without any visual references (gestures, pictures, English comparisons, etc)... I simply figure out the patterns (that's the harder part to explain without you being in my head).

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Also, I'd like to point out that if you have both sides trying to teach the other how to communicate, that actually makes it far more difficult to develop high level communication. This has been experimentally proven in case after case. The same is true if you have both sides trying to learn communication, though the results are somewhat less hilarious.

Even so, the theoretical difficulty Eric mentions really is insurmountable. Patterns of taps can never inherently communicate anything other than patterns of taps. Thus, it can not communicate anything beyond "I think that tapping in this manner forms a meaningful pattern". Even this message is quite fragile, it is very easy for the recipient to exclude the idea that the tapping is supposed to be a message.

You should research the condition sometime; it's actually more common than you'd think. If I can come across any articles about it, I'll pass them along to you, if you'd like...

Spaceman:
"RavenStarr: I'm going to defer the decision until I get further along in the manuscript. I'll probably let the alien take the initiative because, being one myself, I know how humans will react."

That works...

I'll send you $100 if you can give me a translation of any five consecutive lines from the play on this page, without using outside reference materials: http://www.ericjamesstone.com/weird_stuff/translation.php

True, that doesn't come very close to being a translation, but since it's a play there's a fair chance of simply recognizing it after you get the sentance structure worked out.

I hope we are, otherwise it would take me about 2 months (probably more because I'd start getting bored after about a week).

"We can figure out that some of the more frequent words are articles, and from that we can deduce that words following them are nouns or adjectives, sort those out according to order, and eventually figure out the verbs as well."

You're actually grasping the idea of figuring out the basic patterns to all languages... except, not every language puts adjectives and nouns in the same order, so that's what would cause most of the problems if it was something other than English.

"but since it's a play there's a fair chance of simply recognizing it after you get the sentence structure worked out."

Assuming I've read/saw it, or at least heard of it enough to have some reason to recognize it.

"but this is very different from the scenario you were talking about before"

http://www.planetmag.com/pm27/neandert.html

I should point out, however, that the novel is very, very different from this short story, though the core idea is the same.

This link was a side-conversation about fifteen posts ago, where I mentioned that there were some threads linking my first noved with the novel we've been discussing. In the course of that side discussion, I mentioned that the first novel was originally a short story that I considered to be "crap." The link is to the short story.

The general flow of the Neanderthal's life is similar in short story and the novel, but much of the detail is expanded upon, names are changed, and I think the novel is much more believable (in a willing suspension of disbelief kind of way). Many things also are different. The short story was written maybe nine or ten years ago, when I first started writing seriously.

So, there are four main hanging threads available from the first novel. The first will ruin the novel if you ever read it, and it is irrelevent to the second novel, so I won't discuss it. The second is that one of the Neanderthal's professors in Tokyo is a world authority in cryogenics (about 80 years in our future). He is named to the planning team for the Deep Space mission to Proxima Centauri. First connection.

The Neanderthal is not a stereotypical caveman. He is very intelligent, and a great mathematician and physicist. He invents a theory for faster than light travel. The Antags want that theory because war is space is a chess game, and whoever can move the chessmen first, win. Second Connection.

In the novel, it is implied that the Neanderthal has an offspring--half Neanderthal, half Japanese. We learn somewhere in the current novel that he had a son named Kinji Kitamura. Kinji picked up where his father left off, developing a prototype. Third connection.

On the planet Labrynth, orbiting Proxima Centauri, the two humans that survive an enormous stellar flare make humanity's first contact with an alien race. They meet a Betel Seer inside Labrynth, a mined-out world converted to Betel outpost. A very limited number of Betels exist in four dimensions rather than three (ignoring time). The few humans extend into this fourth dimension have what we call ESP. The Betels with this ESP are called Seers, and they have the gift of clairvoyance. They post Seers in strategic locations. The Betels have humanity selected as the race to which they plan to pass the torch of freedom, defending against the Antags.

The Betels are, unfortunately, wimps when it comes to torture. The Antags found the Betel first and tortured until he spilled everything he knew about the theory, though he was able deceive the Antags enough that they don't know where to look for it. So they look everywhere.

Meanwhile, Dr. D.F. Chareld discovers an earth-sized planet circling Rigel Kentaurus (Alpha Centauri A) about the same time that Kinji completes the first FTL prototype with the range to get out of the solar system.

Earth instructs Deep Space to divert to Chareld's Planet to look for life and to retrieve and return the FTL prototype and it's mouse passenger.

Unfortunately, the Antags get there first and confiscate the prototype after torturing the Chirafe president and nuking several of his cities. When the humans arrive, the Antags deduce they are there to retrieve the prototype and beging to try extracting the information from the humans.

I already answered that: "not every language puts adjectives and nouns in the same order, so that's what would cause most of the problems if it was something other than English"
I'd be able to figure it out still (the "2 months" was mostly an exaggeration... although the getting bored after a week was right... that's why whenever I agree to look at anybody's work on here, they know that it can't be something that will take more than a week), It'd just slow me down because no matter what language it is, I'd always be referencing English, since that is my first language...
If you really believe that this cannot be done, then it must be astonishing to you that language even exists to begin with.
Besides... as we said, it doesn't really get into the whole point with tapping codes... not talking about have a full conversational dialog between people, we're talking about getting basic concepts across. Even Morse only does that (it can do more, but it's not intended for that purpose). "SOS" doesn't actually mean anything other than "help"... and that's a universal concept...

Spaceman:
Um... interesting... if you get a publisher, they'd very likely latch on...