Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

I nodded. "Yes, we’re with the circus." I turned to Fish Face. "Stretch Dirak and the advance have done quite a job." I turned hack. "Do you speak English?"

The mouth went big again as the eyes squinted. "English spoke hear."

"What’s your name!"

"Name are Doccor-thut, well, sirs." Doccor-thut dipped forward in the good egg’s version of a bow.

I smiled. "We need an interpreter."

"English spoke hear."

"Yes, can you come with us? We want to go to the police station."

Doccor-thut rotated a bit, went down behind the counter and came up again carrying a book. He held it up to one eye and began paging through it. "Police… police… hmmmm. Regulation of community affairs… community… community, ah… hmmmm… station… hmmm." Doccor-thut put the hook down and faced an eye toward me. "You want to operate a radio?"

Fish Face placed a hand on my shoulder. "Let me give it a try." He wiggled a finger at Doccor-thut. "Come with me."

Doccor-thut pressed a button, part of the countertop slid open, and he walked through the opening. He followed Fish Face to the door, and I brought up the rear. Out in the mall, Fish Face pointed at the traffic cop. "Police."

Doccor-thut aimed an eye at Fish Face. "You want police radio?"

Fish Face shook his head. "Take us to the police’s boss."

Doccor-thut went back to the book. "Boss… circular protuberance or knoblike swelling—"

Fish Face took the book. "Allow me!" He found the definition he wanted, faced the book at Doccor-thut, then pointed with his finger. "Boss. Supervisor, employer."

And so on.

These kinds of translation misunderstandings provided the foundation for such exchanges in "Enemy Mine" as the following:

…Any minute we could be washed off that sandbar. "Jerry, you’re being silly about that rod. You know that."

"Surda." The Drac sounded contrite if not altogether miserable.

"Ess?"

"Ess eh surda ?"

Jerry remained silent for a moment. "Davidge, gavey not certain not is?"

I sorted out the negatives. "You mean possible, maybe, perhaps ?"

"Ae, possiblemaybeperhaps. Dracon fleet Irkmaan ships have. Before war buy; after war capture. Rod possiblemaybeperhaps Dracon is."

"So, if there’s a secret base on the big island, surda it’s a Dracon base?"

"Possiblemaybeperhaps, Davidge."

What follows are some notes I made on another story idea flop that contributed to the form "Enemy Mine" took. At this point, though. I feel obligated to point out that I never condemn any idea, no matter how badly it smells. This is how I keep in check this overly developed critical faculty of mine that tends to dry up everything that comes within its range. The advantage is that parts and pieces are saved, allowing such things as "Enemy Mine" to come into being. The disadvantage is that my files are crammed with a whole lot of crap that is going to be very embarrassing if someone should wade through them after my mortal exit for the purpose of writing the definitive Barry B. Longyear biography. Chances are, the work will be titled: I Can’t Believe He Wrote All This Crap!

Again, I digress.

Here are my notes on the other story language idea:

Begin a story in English, dropping in alien language words and phrases along the way, until the reader is sufficiently familiar with the alien language that the last paragraph of the story can be written entirely in the alien tongue.

The first step is to invent the alien language. It has to be alien, but still easily learned if the reader is going to be able to make it through the last paragraph without a fight. [I worked up the grammar, spelling, pronunciation, and a vocabulary of about three hundred words. The end result was a cross between Spanish, Japanese, Hebrew, and pig Latin.]

Invent a situation that would justify the language exercise. One character must learn the language from another, or at least the reader has to learn it.

General semantics teaches that certain terms (called semantic blanks) are regarded as representing some aspect of reality (have meaning) but, instead, are meaningless (have no corresponding referent in reality); "justice," "fair," "socialism," "reasonable," and "rights" being among the many. The theory is that if two persons, each speaking a different language and understanding none of the other’s language, and each one refusing to learn the other’s language, invented a third language for purposes of communication, they would not be able to talk about "justice," or "socialism."

One can point at a rock and call it a "blug." The second person agrees, and from then on when the word "blug" is used, each party will know what is being referred to. But what do you point at to arrive at an agreement on a term for "justice"?

What if negotiators representing different political powers (human and alien) were cut off from any means of translating their words and had to invent a language of their own? Why invent a language of their own? They could sit out the technical difficulty and continue as before unless the difficulty were one that, first, caused an immediate danger, and second, could not be cured in time. Put them in space. The negotiators must be separated from the translators (either mechanical or human) for some credible reason.

Let’s say that all sides to this negotiation are highly suspicious of each other, and that the ground rules limit just the chiefs of each negotiating team into a self-contained vessel such as a shuttle. The translators (human and alien) do their work by remote means from the parent ship. Slam! Sabotage. The parent ship explodes, blowing the shuttle clear. The tiny craft with its limited range and supplies is stranded in space. The only ones aboard are the negotiation team chiefs: three different kinds of aliens and an English-speaking human. They must work together to have a chance at surviving, but before that they must be able to communicate. They begin trying.

Now, to back up some and stick in some characters. First, the human negotiator. The experience is going to have to teach him something, so make him a hidebound, ding-word happy diplomatic type. What is he going to learn? The brotherhood of creatures, we’re all in this together, stuff is too old [which is interesting, since that’s the main theme of "Enemy Mine."]. What about the theory itself? Ninety-nine percent of all religions, codes of ethics, ideologies, moralities, concepts of right and wrong are founded on ding-words; semantic blanks; if it doesn’t, have an existing-in-reality, mutually agreed-upon referent, the term is meaningless. That would be something to learn.

How is our diplomat going to get the lesson along with the reader? The premise of semantic blanks must be explained. Another character: the human negotiator’s translator. A cynical fellow who has spent his life studying languages, and seeing them used and abused through negotiations of various kinds. The diplomat and the translator are having a talk prior to the negotiators boarding the shuttle. The diplomat makes campaign noises about "serving the good of humanity," and the translator tells him he’s full of bull, then why. Diplomat disagrees, then boards shuttle.

What are these characters negotiating about? The first round opens making clear to the reader what the issue is. A territorial thing: war, economics, something like that, replete with fine, high-sounding phrases signifying nothing. It has to be done in English, and the human diplomat is the only one getting the conversation in English. Diplomat is viewpoint character.

Blam! The parent ship goes up, the shuttle is blown clear, and our cast is stranded without a common word between them. Now what? They are diplomats, not pulp SF geniuses who can take bobby pins and wads of bubble gum and rig a faster-than-light drive or universal translator. They are all word mechanics, ding-word mechanics at that. They hate each other’s guts. The long-arm-of-coincidence rule prevents the Seventh Cavalry from riding in and saving them; they have to work their own way out. First, a little trust. Then they begin pointing at various things and naming them.