A friend of mine hooked me up with the first 8 seasons of Stargate SG-1. I started watching Season 1 a few days ago. I’m enjoying it quite well thus far, except for one thing: the languages (or lack thereof).
Now, I know I’m picking nits. I really do. But I can’t help it. Why do all of the aliens in SG-1 speak English? Not just any English, either – modern English. As my SG-1 buddy noted, they say things like ‘Okay’. They might talk with an accent, but it’s still English.
I understand fully the out-of-plot reasons. I figure most people would be put off if one of the primary languages in SG-1 was ancient Egyptian with subtitles. In that case, the show probably would’ve tanked, and I wouldn’t be writing this now. 
My complaint is, they don’t even make an attempt to explain the communication barrier that the characters can instantly jump over. In the movie, Daniel (the geek) speaks various ancient languages. The people on the planet they go to are ancestors of ancient Egyptians. It turns out that they’re speaking a dialect of a dead language, which Daniel slowly starts to understand. The SG crew doesn’t appear on the planet and immediately start communicating with the inhabitants in English.
In the show, they pop through the gate andddd… woot! Everyone speaks modern English! How convenient.
I don’t expect all of the different peoples to speak a different language with subtitles. That’d be extreme, and would also kill the show. But couldn’t they have put something in the storyline somewhere that made at least an attempt to explain the communication? Maybe one of the advanced races they find early on gives them a generic Universal Translator or something. 
What prompted my nitpicking of this is the episode Emancipation. In it, the crew goes through the Stargate. They’re on a planet where the people are descendents of the medieval Mongols. Their culture is essentially the Mongol culture, preserved intact on this planet. Daniel himself commented, “These could be Ghengis Khan’s peoples!”
Okay. The Mongols did not speak modern English. Even with an Oriental accent.
Grrrr….
(/geekrant)
Addendum: While speaking to my SG-1 buddy and bitching about the fact that the Mongols speak English, he said:
I suppose there’s the off off off chance that SG-1 happened to randomly take a crash course in Mongolian, and it’s translated for the viewer’s benefit.
Har, har.
21 responses so far ↓
Max // August 17, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Word. As a an SG-1 fan, I’d have to say that the lack of language is annoying.
I’m currently in the second season, where they get better at languages, with alien languages and things.
DotBot // August 17, 2006 at 7:15 pm
I’m Stargate-obsessive and the lack of language has always made me want to scream loudly at the television. A few years ago, the FAQ on the Stargate website said something like this:
Q: Why does everyone in Stargate speak modern English?
A: They don’t.
Well, I suppose they don’t if you take *that* question in the absolute sense. Grr. Silly topic-avoiding FAQs.
Josh // August 17, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Max – I’m glad they get at least a bit more creative in Season 2. Thanks for the heads up.
DotBot – That’s a really dumb FAQ answer (and a cop out, heh). Thus far, just about all of the aliens have spoken English. Pretty good at it, too!
Andy Bell // August 18, 2006 at 12:40 am
Yeah, that is a big plot hole that my dad used to be a little annoyed about, but it’s a good thing they didn’t subtitle, because I like the show, and am glad it is lasting a long time!
Max // August 18, 2006 at 9:21 am
Whoever wrote that FAQ is my hero.
Shelli // August 19, 2006 at 6:11 am
This used to bug me but once I understood the behind the scenes reasoning, I got over it. I figure they know they are catering to a hardcore type of audience that would watch everything from the movie on and we know that Daniel speaks 8000 languages and that they are spending time dealing with that off screen. They do deal with the issue in the episode where they meet the Unas.
Irving // August 19, 2006 at 6:39 pm
A good point. When I was the publisher of Fantastic Films magazine 1978-1985, we had articles on alien languages that were big hits. For instance the musical language in Close encounters, the five notes, actually translated as HELLO.
The old mags are still available online.
All very scientific sounding
Oh, and if you are a book person, check out my book Master of the Jinn at http://www.masterofthejinn.com
System 13 » Life in the universe, and the killer virus // August 21, 2006 at 10:12 pm
[...] I finished watching Emancipation the other day, the episode of Stargate SG-1 that was bugging me. I bitched about it already here. After finishing Emancipation, I moved on to the next episode, the Broca Divide. [...]
Hasitha // August 24, 2006 at 6:36 am
well, apophis speaks to his jafas in a egyptian-sounding langauge. and in one episode, jack says “daniel, find a language to tell these guys that we’re not goulds” and the attackers answer in english “why should we believe you?”. well, at least the show’s makers make an attempt to show that they’re not completely unaware of the issue…
Enrico // August 27, 2006 at 6:18 am
Finally someone noticed it…
Enrico // August 27, 2006 at 6:21 am
Anyway, just 20 years ago a man called Douglas Noel Adams has found the solution to all those apparently insurmountable problems: the babel fish!
Laura // September 17, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Perhaps the local stargate of the world they are visiting embeds the language of that world they visting in their minds as cross through it?
Josh // September 17, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Laura: Hmm, that’s doable. That would be an explanation that could be applied to all past episodes without going back and editing them to insert the universal translator.
Matt // November 1, 2006 at 9:35 pm
I guess it shouldn’t other me, but language always seems to irritate me. I am now in the process of watching Emancipation, and it seems this is where everyone begins to really notice it. I recently finsihed watching Farscape recently, and was on the warpath because Aeryn was trying to learn English, which is a problem on the other end of the spectrum, because the translator microbes they threw in on the very first episode and made frequent reference to would not have allowed such a thing, as it would translate all of it. I guess I should just accept “it’s in the script”
Some search strings that have led people here. « System 13 // November 24, 2006 at 8:45 am
[...] stargate everyone speaks english (and many, many variations thereof) – This one makes me smile solely because I now know that I’m not the only one who is bugged by this. There are, apparently, a large number of people who wonder, “Why does everyone on Stargate SG-1 speak English?” [...]
Josh // January 30, 2007 at 5:07 pm
well…in the show it does say that the ancients that were in earth scatered around the galaxy using the stargate and seteled in other planets. maybe when they had children and all that, the ancients taught them english
Grant // February 19, 2007 at 11:44 am
“…was on the warpath because Aeryn was trying to learn English…”
Matt: Bit off the original topic, but Aeryn was trying to learn to Talk english in Farscape. The translator microbes allow one to understand any language, but they all still spoke in there native tongue, this would be a problem if you wanted to visit Earth where everyone clearly does not have access to translator microbes, hence learning to speak english.
SG-1 is annoyingly wishy washy about the language question, constantly switching between alien and english depending on individual scripts. Even more so since they are excellent at explaining any other potential anomalies.
Josh // February 19, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I never did finish watching the Farscape stuff. I recall being bitter when it was cancelled, and then I never did watch any of the other stuff that was aired, like the mini series. They shouldn’t have cancelled it.
D.P. Roberts // March 3, 2007 at 5:31 am
One possible answer that I have read in many places, is that the aliens are not speaking English, they are speaking Goa’uldish, which SG1 also speaks. The viewer just hears it as English for obvious reasons. When alien languages are used, it is because they do not speak Goa’uldish.
Josh // March 3, 2007 at 11:39 am
D.P. Roberts:
That’s a plausible explanation, but I still find it a bit of a cop out on the part of the makers of the show.
D.P. Roberts // March 3, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I did some more searching and apparently Laura is right. According to one of the writers on the show, the Goa’uld predicted this problem with languages, so they made the Stargates embed translation nanites (or something like that) into users of the Stargates.
I went back and watched Emancipation, the first episode that dealt with this, and the SG1 team does seem surprised that the Mongols can understand them. I wonder why they didn’t explore this?
Without an onscreen explanation, it does seem like a kluge, and I agree with Josh that it is not very satisfying. But, then again if I can get passed the constant insubordination in a military command that occurs in SG1, among other things, I guess I can accept the explanation of the language issue.