Language

I was thinking earlier today about Battlestar Galactica, that favorite sci-fi show of mine that won’t be back until January. (Can you tell that I’m bitter?) I was thinking specifically about language in the show. It occurred to me that the Colonial Fleet is attempting to find Earth, where the Lost Thirteenth Tribe settled, right? Before I go any further, take a look at this, from Wikipedia:

Perhaps the most prominent religious component is the series’ overarching theme: the human survivors’ search for Earth. That search is motivated by ancient religious texts’ references to a 13th tribe of humans that established a civilization on a distant planet called Earth. Various religious relics and ruins, both on the 12 colonies and elsewhere in the galaxy, provide clues to Earth’s location.

This is what I’m getting at: I assume that, at some point or another in the series, the Colonial Fleet will reach Earth. If the 13th Tribe made it to Earth and then proceeded to live their lives for a few thousand years, the language they used would have developed, changed, evolved. Even if the 13 Tribes had all originally spoken the exact same language, by the time the Colonial Fleet arrives at Earth, the language should have diverged, following different developmental paths. Take the Scandinavian countries, for example. Norway, Denmark and Sweden are practically on top of each other, and look how Old Norse developed into the similar but different languages of Norwegian, Danish and Swedish However, it’s not even made clear as to whether or not the 13th Tribe was ever with the other 12 Tribes, so we don’t even know if they spoke the same language.

When the Colonial Fleet reaches Earth, if the 13th Tribe is still there, living out their lives, how will the communication between them be portrayed? Will the 13th Tribe speak the same language as the Colonial Fleet, just with different idioms and perhaps a slightly different vocabulary? Will they speak exactly the same way as the members of the Fleet speak? Will they speak some foreign language, which must be translated before the Fleet members can understand?

I suppose I could be considered a nitpicker, but this really does bug me. Obviously, since the show was made by English speakers with an English-speaking cast, the language that the people of the fleet speak is English. But are we to assume that it’s really “English”, or a different language altogether? Considering England is on the planet Earth, which is what the fleet is trying to find, how could the language the fleet speaks be called English? You have to have an England before you have an English language. So, let’s assume that really, the fleet isn’t speaking English. They’re speaking, let’s say, Caprican. It wouldn’t make any sense for the fleet to arrive at Earth, only to find that the inhabitants speak Caprican instead of English (or French, or German, or… you get the idea).

There’s one last facet of this that I see. One could argue that all 13 Tribes spoke the same language originally, and that the language – whatever it may be – hasn’t changed at all. That argument, however, kind of slaps one of the major themes of the show right in the face: evolution, namely, the evolution of the Cylons. If the show is based on robots evolving to look and behave exactly like humans, how could the makers of the show even entertain the idea of saying that the original language of the Tribes hasn’t evolved at all?

Any ideas on this? How could the makers explain this in a respectable way? And by “respectable way”, I don’t mean by essentially ignoring the issue, like they did in Stargate SG-1.