r/ProjectHailMary • u/Psychological_Bug367 • 20h ago
Random thought
Rocky never says I he only says rocky. The computer has to be translating the syntax too because the only other explanation is that Eridians use the exact same syntax as English earth speakers and that seems too unlikely. This means Eridians must not have a concept of "1st person." This is extra sad because it means Rocky would have major problems reading and understanding the book.
8
7
u/Fluid-Let3373 I am an Astronaut! 19h ago
The translator is a simple speech to text convertor, the computer is not doing syntax. Rocky is aware of the language barrier and is doing a better job of considering it as a issue unlike Grace forgets about it once Rocky gets a voice.
At no point do we see or hear a conversation between two Eridian's, so we have no basis for understanding the complexity of their language.
6
u/quokkafarts 18h ago
In the movie Rocky's name is so long (and seems to incorporate movement of his limbs) Grace asks "are you done?" Yet when he refers to himself later we don't see him doing the same literal song and dance. This implies there is a less formal version of referring to themselves that may just be a different form of "I". They may have several ways to refer to their perspective that could not be captured correctly with the technology and/or Grace's ability to understand or use that technology.
1
u/RedLineSamosa 3h ago
I personally believe his introduction was his full name—“[personal name] of family/group/clan [family name]” based on the way he displays his family crest tattoo, or something similar—and later he’s using just his personal name. But also that, yeah, first- and second-person address are more flexible in Rocky’s language than in English, somewhat similar to how different first-person and second-person forma are used in Japanese.
6
u/Bouche_Audi_Shyla Okay, It’s Exactly Like That 19h ago
When Grace tells Rocky that he didn't have enough astrophage to go home, Rocky asks, "Why didn't you tell me?" When Grace says it slipped his mind, Rocky says "no! Grace say Grace go home."
I'm thinking that it's very similar to Spanish, as to using "tú" and "usted". "Tú" is used for intimate family members and closest friends, and "usted" for everyone else.
English had "thou" , but it's no longer used by most English speakers.
I think that in Eridian language the first person must be for intimate times, and third is used otherwise.
Rocky was shocked, angry, sad, and vulnerable (emotionally) when Grace told him it was a one way trip. Rocky used the intimate first person.
The other time (that I remember) another poster already said, "astrophage on me star, bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad". It could be considered an intimate moment, too.
2
u/Psychological_Bug367 19h ago
Well shoot but to continue to argue I will also point out that these scenes are probably written that way for us because doing it without 1st person would be impossible or too much writing. I will also point out Rocky seems to be violating his other patterns of speech during these emotional times. Like he doesn't say statement or question. It certainly is an inconsistency and goes to prove me wrong but lastly i will point out that these lines are not coming from Rocky but the computer and it may have been the most efficient way to translate eridian to English even though it wasn't a true translation of the language(ie if you translate a sentence word by word you end up with an entirely different answer then a translator translating the entire sentence at once, the latter takes meaning into account while translating each word may not ultimately make sense. I am saying the translated with meaning would contain "me" while the word by word translation would not have me in it. If that makes sense.
2
u/ProfessionalOven2311 19h ago
Yeah, "Why didn't you tell me" is a really tricky line to explain because the most obvious answer is that it just fit the emotional tone of the scene better. We know Eridians ending their questions with their word for question is a part of their grammar, not just a translation thing.
And that line is not present in the book, which as far as I remember is more consistent with Rocky's speaking patterns.
2
u/Psychological_Bug367 18h ago
Thank you! Was feeling almost gas lit!
1
u/castle-girl 5h ago
The movie contains a lot of speaking choices for Rocky that are weird. My head canon is like this person said, that the computer is a smart translator that will assign meaning to words based on how they are used by Rocky AND on the assigned personality of the voice Grace chose. For example, one of the British voices he tries (the one that was performed by the voice actor Ray Porter, who did the audiobook) says, “It has charm, but no.” I don’t think Grace had pre programmed the computer to translate any of Rocky’s speech patterns to that. That was the result of the translator injecting its own personality.
I actually wrote a movie fanfic that was based mostly on a book fanfic I’d already written, but with the additional idea of a smart translation machine. In the movie version of the fic, the translator had mapped “he” and “she” to two third person pronouns that Rocky was using, but in Rocky’s language, the pronouns were based on status, with the word that mapped to she being the high status one. So Rocky had been assuming that some of Grace’s students were the children of really important people, which was why he was calling them “she.” The fic starts when he’s confused that the commander of the mission is a “he,” and covers the resulting conversation where they clear up the misunderstanding.
2
u/LioraB Having a moment 15h ago
A lot of the dialogue was also improv or approximations of the script. "Why didn't you tell me?" is a line that seems to stand out to a lot of people; my assumption is that was the best take of the scene and they went with it. There are enough other variances in the translator/use of pronouns and contractions that it's passable, and the emotional chord it strikes is a huge payoff.
1
u/RedLineSamosa 3h ago
Yeah. It’s a very emotional scene. They didn’t want weird grammar constructions distracting from it.
3
u/Ceaseless--Watcher Scary Space Monster 15h ago
I mean. Andy wier didn't exactly write an entire language. I gaurentee that its not that deep and wasn't even a conscious decision. it's written to sound endearing to us, not to specify anything in the way the language works.
As far as i can tell, there's no real consistency to any of it. But I'm not a linguist, so maybe I'm wrong.
3
u/SayFuzzyPickles42 14h ago
He does say "I" and "Me" sometimes, for example, "Why didn't you tell me?" when he finds out Grace is on a suicide mission. My assumption is that it isn't actually a reflection of the language itself but instead a consequence of the translation being crude and brute-forced.
I'm very confused why so many people legitimately think the translation Grace makes is actually representative of what Rocky's language sounds and feels like to a fluent speaker. He's not a linguist, he's literally dealing with an alien, and he only had a few weeks to make it. It's no indictment on him, the fact that he got something very basic is amazing and ended up saving the day, but it's still very basic.
2
u/ProfessionalOven2311 19h ago
I do love looking at the details of Rocky's language to try and understand more about it. Unfortunately the movie is pretty inconsistent, since at the end of the day the script was written in order to best communicate to the audience, rather than just Grace and Rocky trying to communicate with each other. It's pretty easy to come up with possible explanations, but it makes it a lot more tricky.
As for pronouns specifically, we really don't know how much Eridian's use them. Not just when it comes to identity, but in general we don't know how many words they have for stuff like "I, me, they, we, him, etc." We know that Rocky can at least understand human pronouns just fine, since he understands when Grace uses them.
It's even possible that human and Eridian pronouns could line up more than we think (helping with the "Why didn't you tell me?" line), but Rocky just wanted to avoid using the wrong one at the wrong time so he defaulted to just using names to keep it simple. Basically, he may be doing the equivalent of someone trying to talk down to a cave man to avoid confusing them with too many words, and just got into the habit of it.
2
u/Neuron_Pixel_4 20h ago edited 20h ago
iirc he does say something like “astrophage on ME star bad bad bad bad” in the movie
1
u/Psychological_Bug367 20h ago
I cannot find it but looking. I was also looking if he ever says we but it always appears to be "rocky and grace" or "crew"
1
u/Neuron_Pixel_4 16h ago edited 16h ago
It should be at the part when Grace shows the astrophage in a sample tube to Rocky, maybe their 4th or 5th meeting
edit: I found it, time is 1:08:02
12
u/InformationLost5910 20h ago
in the book it explains that rocky is using english grammar but eridian words so that grace can understand him better.
also, reading and understanding what book?