#a universal translator isn't going to translate onomatopoeia quite like that?

[kingofthewilderwest]

Voltron Paladins’ Native Languages

So, I’m not like 100% sold on the idea, but I guess it would make most sense that Earth has developed a full-blown universal translator by the time VLD events transpire? Not going to get into the linguistics of where universal translators are problematic, but it’s still the most plausible thing I think could be going on in Voltron.

The Galaxy Garrison is likely an international organization. Now, the global lingua franca (ex: English) could be the official language of the school, and the students they accept might have to pass language proficiency tests. That’s a possibility. But it’s sort of odd that all the Voltron characters have American English accents despite their diverse origins. The United States of course does have people of all backgrounds in the country, but I always felt that the writers were intentionally diversifying the Voltron characters to represent the world... and thus they’d actually be BORN in Cuba, BORN in Samoa, BORN in Japan, BORN in Italy. And yet not a single human has a hint of a non-native American English speaker accent on the Voltron team... not even an American dialect with stigmatized regional features can be heard.

Then there’s the talking-to-aliens aspect we need to consider. The Alteans are capable of visually modifying themselves to help interact with different species, but I don’t think that includes suddenly being able to speak other languages. Not to mention every species that the Voltron team meets can be immediately understood. How are they understanding the Galra or the Balmerans? A universal translator again, avoiding scientific problems of this device would be the trick.

It also explains why Pidge can understand anything Allura says but cannot read Altean. It explains why the only words that don’t translate from Coran or Allura are the words which have no direct translation. So. It could be the case that there’s something like a universal translator each Voltron character has that analyzes audio of a species and translates the audio to the Voltron characters. Why they’re always wearing it and why it’s not seen... uh... let’s not get into it.

But anyway! What’s so great about the universal translator idea is that it opens up a world of amusing speculations. There are all sorts of fun headcanon questions to answer like what languages are the Voltron team actually speaking?

My headcanons, more or less:

(I don’t like the idea of everyone having this much English exposure, but the language is currently a global lingua franca and is an L1 or L2 of 20% of the world’s current population. So I did have to rationalize the language into this).

Lance is a full-blown bilingual. He knows English and Spanish completely fluently, grew up speaking both languages, and prattles in both of them with ease. He’d be great at picking up more languages if he had the motivation to do so - he’s a natural!

When he’s hanging out with the Voltron crew, he’s usually speaking English because English was the accepted international language used in the Garrison’s written reports. So since he first meets Keith, Pidge, Lance, and Shiro at the Garrison, that’s the language Lance defaults on with them. Hearing Allura speak in something that sounds like a British dialect is going to subconsciously keep Lance using English too while they’re in space. But there are times he’s switching between both languages. He definitely speaks both around the crew.

Pidge is somewhat monolingual with decent exposure to several other languages. My emotional heart says that Pidge speaks only Italian I really don’t like the idea of the Voltron crew having a common language and I want that to be my headcanon, but I realize that’s not realistic at all. 

She lives close to the Garrison, obvious in that she’s able to just hop in and break their security. Since the Holts live close to the Garrison, this means that the Garrison is either in Italy or she knows the local language where the Garrison is located. Between those two scenarios I’d say it’s more likely the Garrison is not in Italy... especially given as the news report for the Kerberos’ failed mission is in English. And I would imagine her father has been working with the Garrison for a while, so that disproves the idea of her growing up mostly in Italy and then moving close to the Garrison only within the last few years.

So Pidge knows Italian and whatever-local-language-is-around, and if the local language isn’t English, then also a decent amount of English. English would be useful for programming languages, after all! So she’s got no problem programming and reading in English. However, since her exposure to English is mostly text, she’s not competent at all in a conversation, either listening or speaking in English.

If my heartcanon for Pidge being a monolingual Italian speaker had made sense, then I’d love for there to be this moment that her universal translator glitches maybe the idea still slightly works if the Garrison isn’t in an English speaking nation. Suddenly she can’t understand anybody except for sort-of Lance when he speaks Spanish. The two languages are borderline mutually intelligible, after all. So Lance tries to help her out with Spanish while she’s speaking Italian, they’re somewhat making it halfway function (Lance’s slang is not helping), but she breathes this enormous sigh of relief when she gets the tech fixed.

Keith is monolingual. He knows American English and that’s it. Given as his father seems to speak in one of the Southern United States English dialects, I like to headcanon that little boy Keith lived in the South for about eight years and spoke a Southern dialect. Then he and his father moved northwest, Keith dropped that dialect through lack of exposure before adolescence, and picked up an Upper Midwestern American English accent in place (what we hear him speak on screen). Keith could still speak in a Southern accent if he wanted to, but no one’s ever heard him do it. And no one ever will.

Shiro is essentially monolingual. He’s only fluent in Japanese. He was taught Mandarin Chinese and English in school for many years, but despite being a good student, he was always bad at foreign language. The result is he’s highly limited in both. He’s more than alright reading Mandarin but not so good in conversation. Regarding English, Shiro can understand the language just fine when he hears it (since he’s heard it spoken enough), but he’s never been good at returning a response. If Shiro tries to talk in English, he’s got noticeably slow, broken, ungrammatical English and a reaaaally thick Japanese accent. He demonstrates his limited Chinese and English speaking abilities to the team at one time. They think it’s adorable.

Hunk knows Samoan. Again my heartcanon says it’s Samoan alone, but my head points out that Samoan + English makes sense (depending on where he grew up). Those are the two official languages in the country (with more L2 Samoan speakers than L1), and other Samoan populations are in English-speaking countries like New Zealand and Australia. So it’s just likely Hunk has been heavily exposed to both languages since he was young. But! That said... he’s terrible at English spelling. Downright terrible.

As for Allura and Coran... we don’t know anything about Altean languages and dialects outside of the few words Pidge hears in the training (the Alteans have clicks! woot!). My headcanon says that Allura and Coran don’t speak the same dialect (since the voice actors don’t speak the same English dialect) but they do speak the same language. Allura speaks the most sociolinguistically prestigious dialect of Altea. Coran’s dialect is noticeably different but doesn’t have too much negative sociolinguistic status to it. His speech sounds just as ridiculous to Allura as it does to the Paladins because he uses a lot of his regional slang.

So if everyone’s universal translators broke at once... Hunk, Lance, and and Keith would be able to converse just fine. Coran and Allura are able to talk to each other. Lance and Pidge could get some things to work if they speak slowly and avoid slang. With everyone else Pidge would be shrugging. And there’d be poor Shiro stuck, capable of communicating with absolutely no one beyond gestures, pained facial expressions, and the occasional grammatically incorrect English sentence.

And during the event of a Lion/Voltron fight with said translator glitch:

Shiro: Make... [forgets word for “sword” in English] ...stick???

Pidge: Che palle! Merda! Lance: Con esa boca comes? Keith: Wait, what are you saying? Lance: I didn’t catch it all, but I’m not translating! Hunk: Whoa. You saying Pidge has a potty mouth?

Keith: They’ve got the tactical advantage here. If we’re not careful, they’re going to outflank us. We’ve got to outmaneuver them before they outmaneuver us. Pidge: I don’t understand. Can you explain me in simple English? Lance: Explain me? No, no, Pidge, you mean “Explain to me.” Keith: Fewer grammar lessons, more fighting!

Shiro: Etou... robotto? Make-oo? Keith: What?!?!? Lance: Hey Shiro, we need that in English! Shiro: Ro... no... make-oo robotto. Lance: English! Shiro: Make-oo robotto! Pidge: That is his English! Hunk: What is he saying? Keith: “Make... robot?” Everyone else: Ohhhh! “Form Voltron!”

(P.S. I checked with a friend who speaks Italian for Pidge, and I speak a decent amount of Spanish, but I am only a native speaker of English so I apologize if I made mistakes!)