Language LOL: Translator Malfunction

[rumham]

You know what's cool? Chatting with your pals. Reading the Internet. Navigating the roads because you can understand the Gods-damned street signs. You know what's not cool? Not being able to do any of that. By that metric, one might describe today in the Nexus decidedly uncool.

It's utterly without warning that the multiversal hub goes from automatic to manual translation. Shop signs, radio and television broadcasts, conversations on the streets between vendors and friends and businesspeople are suddenly a jarring cacophony of dissonant languages. Then there's the silence. Then there's the shouting. Turns out people get pissed off when nobody understands them!

Momentary chaos dies down as the average people of the Nexus come to grips with their new situation. Shopkeepers wait outside their stores and stands with expectant expressions, impatiently waiting for the translator to pull itself together and start working again.

Except...

It sort of doesn't.

No, it super doesn't.

Citizens of the Nexus, it would appear you're going to have to adjust...

((The temporary LANGUAGE LOL is now underway! It's freeform fun until you're done and participation is completely optional. Don't feel like this event should stop you from making threads which are unaffected by the LOL in the mean time. If you want your Language LOL'd character to interact with a non-LOL thread, please ask the OP if they want to play that dynamic first. For the OOC and organization post, GO HERE. ))

Comments

[red_room]

"If English is the language that the Federation recognized as Earth's primary language, it makes sense that one would be the most changed of all the native tongues." Natasha gives a shrug of her shoulders.

"I gotta wonder how that ever happened without starting a war though. It's definitely not percentage wise the most common language on Earth in my time."

[boldygoing]

Her guess is a damn reasonable one, and Jim nods in response. "Yeah, that's pretty much it. There's been talk of classifying it as its own creole but it's just semantics at this point."

Her second comment makes him shrug. "Was a combo of a bunch of stuff, really. Earth was just coming out of World War Three and English had been nabbing vocab for centuries already. The Vulcans first landed in Montana, so they learned English first, and things kinda snowballed from there. Add most major Earth languages, a dash of xenolinguistics, mix well."

[losthunter]

"I would have not know any of this... if it wasn't for the Nexus translation malfunction." Hunter chuckles.

[red_room]

"Learn something new every day. I'll have to keep my eye on Montana as the state to find alien life on though. Wouldn't have pegged that to be the place for first contact."

The spy turns away from the windows then and offers a smile to Jim and Hunter.

"I'm glad I got to help, anyway. Maybe you should teach each other some of your respective tongues sometime." The thing with Natasha is you can never be sure which innuendo she's meant to insert into a conversation and which is just how the conversation turns. She keeps a remarkably straight face through most anything she says.

"But not too quickly, or this lady's out of a convenient friend job."

[boldygoing]

"Honestly, I'm so used to this thing these days that I forgot it might ever be a problem," Jim admits to Hunter, gesturing to that spot behind his ear.

He gives Natasha a grateful grin, taking the innuendo in stride. "I tried suggesting we do charades, but Hunter thought finding an intermediary would be better. Thanks for all this; it sure as hell made it easier for me."

[losthunter]

"It was difficult to understand what you were suggesting..." Hunter noted.

"Just be glad I didn't take liberties."