DISCUSSION: Language in a Pokemon journey fic

[Greninjaman]

Hi there guys! I am currently reworking my journey fic series, and would like your opinions on this matter.

As we know, in the anime, Pokemon speak by saying there name (Pikachu goes "Pika, Pika, Pikachu" for example). What should I do about the language? I do want to develop the Pokemon as characters.

 

[Gama]

@unrepentantAuthor has a very interesting take on this in his fic Different Eyes: a simple kind of sign language called Pokésign.

Personally I am not a fan of Pokémon making any intelligible speech as such (and have always found them saying their own name weird) so would develop their character around their behaviours and how they interact with the humans around them, especially their trainer. I think a lot can be done without any speech at all.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I think I've touched on this before in a review, but I can't remember, so. I have used PokéSpeak sparingly in my stories. I tend to use it somewhat less than describing their cries as animal noises (i.e: Magnemite whined listlessly). I would never put a translation in brackets - reason being that PokéSpeak is in itself more or less meaningless, so it just becomes a bunch of extraneous words the reader will skip over anyway.

For speech that can be understood by the viewpoint character, I place them within square brackets instead of speech marks. That's my way of hitting a compromise, marking it out as a "translation". Sometimes I wish I'd gone more down the route Gama mentioned, of using more body language and behaviour to do the work

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Lots of authors transcribe pokémon speaking their names and it drives me absolutely bonkers. It's the most daft and most embarrassing thing about the franchise, and it's not even present in the games or even in all animated content (see B&W trailers, Origins and Generations). Lots of authors transcribe translations of pokémon speech as if it were an entire language, which also feels absurd since there cannot possibly be a single pokémon language composed entirely of vocal inflections that they all understand. I know we see 'conversations' between pokémon with meowth translating, that sort of thing, but it's just utterly uncompelling for me and loses me instantly.

I advocate descriptions of body language and the use of animal-like vocalisations. Growls, roars, purrs, whines, yelps. There's a lot you can do with that. As Gama mentioned, I use simple sign language in my stories, and that's for a few reasons. I thought of it when I saw a gif of a cat that had learned to sign 'food' to get the attention of their deaf human carer, and thought 'why shouldn't the same be true for pokémon'? It's nonverbal, and while still limited, aids unambiguous communication of very simple concepts. It also raises the profile of sign language, which I think needs to be more visible. I want to learn it some day after I'm fluent in Esperanto. Al la fina venko, amikoj!

 

[Iggy]

Right now I'm combining the Pokémon uttering their names in various ways with body language and animal noises (like in the anime). I don't translate their speech because you can distill a lot from the context, body language and manner of speech. Here's an example;

“Piiiiii...” Pikachu sobbed, pushing her face into Nogal’s midnight blue t-shirt. He could feel her body quivering.

Yeah, I don't think that requires any translation. Now that I think of it, it maybe better to think of a Pokémon uttering its own name as a (primitive) sound produced by the Pokémon to voice its thoughts and emotions, like the different barks of a dog, rather than actual language.

 

[Beth Pavell]

It ought to be remembered that unrealistic though PokéSpeak is, so too is the idea of a pokémon instantly knowing what a human means by "Vine Whip attack". Not that I'm accusing anyone here of doing so, but it's possible to get too militant about the subject in that context

 

[lucarioknight56]

In my mind, standard Pokemon are more like pets; they're trained, fed, and treated like we would treat dogs, cats, birds--anything we might own. Our animals don't really have any language between them outside of making known their emotions, and even that's rather limited. Sure, you can teach animals some level of language, like teaching a dog to sit at a command. But it's more of a stimulus-response sort of thing; you say a command, and the dog learned that there's a reward for doing a certain action in exchange. They don't really understand it.

That said, I believe some Pokemon are more capable than others of speech. Alakazam and Slowking, for example. They're smarter and have structures relatively similar to humans. Now, Caterpie, on the other hand, would find it very difficult to learn or understand any speech. It's a case-by-case basis really.

 

[Misfit Angel]

If fanfiction didn't have to worry about time-consuming bloat, I would have the training aspect of pokemon training be about getting across language barriers, not powering up attacks. as Pav said above, "Use Vine Whip!" would probably be useless to a freshly caught Bellsprout because it probably doesn't understand human language. The training aspect would be more about reinforcing what words mean what so that pokemon and trainer can actually work together. After that would come the part about improving tactics and learning new ways to improve on old abilities.

Myself, I don't actually have the pokemon speak their names. They either make the noises their animal counterpart would make (such as a Skitty meowing), or noises that would fit their form (such as a Blastoise making deep bellowing noises with a commanding voice). The trainer might not be able to linguistically understand what their pokemon are responding with, but with enough time and practice having conversations, as well as reading body language, they could probably hold a decent conversation. My character Kimberly regularly speaks with her Blastoise and she rarely misunderstands him; she sometimes has to ask for confirmation about what he is trying to respond with, but they've been together long enough that they can communicate effectively.

In some cases, I go a little crazy with the abilities of certain species, such as Murkrow being about to parrot speech back to the trainer, despite this never being shown anywhere else in the franchise. I'd even have certain pokemon able to physically speak human language, such as the Machop family. Others would use their psychic abilities to communicate flawlessly via telepathy, such as Alakazam or Mewtwo.

"Pi-pikachu" just looks so juvenile and silly to me, personally. I can't stand it.

 

[Greninjaman]

So instead of interpreting what the Pokemon is saying, I should use vocalizations and body language? That seems to be what you guys are all saying.

 

[Misfit Angel]

You're always welcome to do it the way you feel most comfortable with, the most we can offer is our own insight and preferences.

 

[Greninjaman]

I think I'll do a combination of the translation, vocals, and body language. I think that'll work.

 

[LightningTopaz]

In my anime remix series, [anything like this] is translated Poke-speak. The characters are still hearing "Pika pika torchic tor" in universe, but any dialogue is just translated for the audience.

 

[CrystaI]

Asking this question now seems like archaeological inspection of ancient history, but hence that is why, it arouse my doubt seeing the majority deemed this as a "tradition" and apply it in writing without questioning its route, purpose, narrative functionality and effectivity. The question of concern: Where does this concept of "PokeSpeak" came from? More correctly speaking, Why did some even think the not-very-animalistic-broke-down-their-name-into-syllables unique squeaks/growl/roar/**whatever onomatopoeia** utter from the mouth of pokemons is a kind of "language" translatable into human language? Even if not translatable, why did writers think it is necessary to address it out and quote them in quotation marks in the same way like any other dialogues spoken by human characters when writing one's fic?

I do understand in the anime, pokemons "talk" to each other by voicing out their broken-down-their-name sound to each other (FYI, Real-Life animal never communicates to animal of other species through their physical voice, to be fair many animals don't even communicate with their own species via voice). There is also this TRio Meowth who can understands pokemon's voice, and often from time to time he act as a translator between the pokemons and human. And for Ash's Pikachu, we can see quite often it wanted to communicate with Ash, and the first thing it does is voice out a sound, instead of via body language like Real-Life animal. I'm not sure how many people had familiarity with the Pocket Monster manga (the slapstick gag one whom the author is Kousaku Anakubo), but in this manga pokemon can speaks normal human language like any human characters (bar the Pikachu possess by Red).
So if looking at the portrayal issue of pokemon communication depicted by official canon, it is 100% understandable people will get this illusion of pokemons speak an unique "language" of their own. Despite we hear them as simply just repetition of syllables of their name, there may be some kind of systematic semantics and grammars and glossaries hidden inside that makes PokeSpeak a linguistically comprehensible language specific to pokemons, if such linguistic system even existed.

But, whether that is true or false, the next concern of mine is rather the most important point. From the eyes of human being, whether it is the readers reading your fic or human characters in-universe (bar a few selective ones with special ability), is this so-called "PokeSpeak" comprehensible? Obviously, NO.
If it is incomprehensible, then whether "PokeSpeak" is a language or not becomes an utterly unimportant matter to concern about. Because at the end of the day, no one can understands it, so write out something that possibly not even the author him/herself could understand is just meaningless, and a waste of page space and energy to read through it.

There is a reason why within novels written by professional authors, you don't see any sentences written in foreign language, even there exists a foreigner characters clearly speaking foreign language in a scene. If this novel is written in English, and within the story there are German, French, Arabian, Thailander, Chinese, Japanese characters, should the author then write out the dialogues in German, French, Arabic, Thai, Traditional/Simplified Chinese, Japanese when each respective characters speak during their conversation? If you do so, this novel will simply be a linguistic monster comprehensible only by the hyper-multilinguists that is less than 1% of the world population. That's why it is a common practice that in any written story, foreign languages are all translated to the target language of the novel, because you don't expect every readers are multilinguists. I don't know German, so if I'm reading an English novel, and a German character speaks his/her dialogue in pure authentic German, I won't understand a damn thing of what that character had said.

Of course, the difference between the above listed languages and PokeSpeak is they are truly existed Real-Life languages with systematic approach hence learnable. But, from the viewpoint of a reader that doesn't understand the respective language, it doesn't make a difference. I don't know PokeSpeak, so if I'm reading an fanfic written in English, and a pokemon characters speaks its dialogue in Pikapikapiiiiiiiii~, I won't understand a damn thing of what it had said.
And hence, you either do an internal translation, meaning in the fic the respective sentence is written in comprehensible English but story-wise you clearly stated that character is speaking a foreign language; or the character is as ignorant as the reader, hence there is no need to write out fully what the character had just said, where then the focus shall goes to other things such as body languages and tone of voice and attitude and any other non-verbal expressions that helps one to guess what the pokemon was trying to tell.

Whether one treat the PokeSpeak as a foreign language with regulated linguistic system or animalistic sound without meaning, the essential problem is still the same: Reader doesn't understand it, and possibly not even the in-universe characters.
And because of this, I never ever quoted any "speeches" of any pokemon characters in my works in the same way as how dialogues should be written for human characters, because they are simply just existentially meaningless.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Now, Caterpie, on the other hand, would find it very difficult to learn or understand any speech. It's a case-by-case basis really.

Reminds me of that scene in the anime where Caterpie explains its life cycle to Pikachu.

Murkrow being about to parrot speech back to the trainer, despite this never being shown anywhere else in the franchise.

Actually, in Gold and Silver, you learn some password from a Murkrow. Real crows can parrot sounds, too.

Once I read this fanfic where the Pokémon use their anime voices. While translation convention kicks in pretty quickly, there's this Porygon-Z whose dialogue never gets translated, and is written as a bunch of "Z"s in a row. Porygon-Z actually sounds like "eh... eh eh." Do your homework!