Three Thargles and a Norg

And if you have any idea what that means then you're one up on me! The last three books, which haven't come out yet, made this a particularly insistent problem. Basically aliens are, well alien. They come from a different world that is not Earth, they speak a language that is not used on Earth. The referents in that language are not those that we use in our speech. And they have no use or knowledge of our systems of measurement. Not of distance, nor volume, nor time.

One way this gets tackled in SF is to invent the language, invent the units of measurement, and have your reader fumbling for a conversion table in order to read it. Since I lack the linguistic skills to create a language as well as the inclination, I didn't. That seems a fairly common approach. We assume that the aliens are speaking their own language and I am writing it in English because otherwise it wouldn't be readable. Where multiple languages are in play I try to indicate which is being used (and remember who amongst the characters listening will understand and who will not).

Where I have done the alien word thing is where they are talking about something tangibly different from the Earth equivalent. So Mike drinks tea, Corin, who is not from Earth, drinks gleva, her people's drink for equivalent usage. It isn't tea and it would be misleading to call it that (as well as offensive to tea drinkers - and probably to gleva drinkers). Currency is the same. Different worlds have different currencies. I'm not going to impose a universal currency because the galaxy isn't like that. So they have their own names too.

But I've also taken the step of translating their use of most units of measure (except time) into our metric equivalents. Were we to find one that measured distance in Thargles (roughly 3.2km if you didn't already know) and Norgs (7 to a thargle), does it help the narrative to say that? To my mind, except for emphasis, it is just an impediment to the story. I believe that for every reader pining for the thargles, there are six just happy to read on and not even beginning to wonder why the alien is talking about kilometres. I could be wrong. It happens quite often (according to my wife). If so let me know. I appreciate that probably won't happen until the books in question get published.

And remember, all our units are Earth-centric. A light year is not a universal measure because it is based on the Earth year. A Parsec is not universal because it is based on the distance of the Earth from the sun (an AU or Astronomical Unit). There are universal constants like atomic measurements as used in the famous Pioneer Plaque. But frankly they don't make easy reading and none of the aliens that I have met use them.

Anyway, before you judge me, walk a Thargle in my shoes!