#xenolinguistics

I see your “humans are incapable of pronouncing my very alien name” and raise you- humans are actually incredible vocal mimics with uncanny knack for xenolanguage.

In Star Trek and a lot of other franchises that deal with aliens, the aliens are pretty much homogeneous. Same language, culture, whatever. A lot of the time they look like clones of each other.

But humans maintain their diversity. I think it’s more likely that two alien species would have trouble talking to each other, but a human would be able to pick up on both languages relatively easily.

I also think that, since languages also use different rules and sounds, people who know certain human languages do better with certain alien languages.

I saw a headcannon here that people who speak Hebrew would be able to pronounce Vulcan names- but imagine how funny it would be if Vulcan was an easier leap from Hebrew than English is.

Ever since that post about Cybertronian proboscises by… @thunderpounce-inc was the right blog yes? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about buggy biology for bots. And that, combined with @emperor-kumquat ‘s recent video about Cybertronians being real bad aliens on purpose- I’ve gone ahead and turned them far more butterfly than I expected and so-

Have some thoughts about funky Cybertronian communication methods and also some ideas about a two-stage development cycle.

Going in order of topic, let’s talk about the sounds a bot can make. This is less about actual comms - which may or may not be a separate language to ‘vocal’ communication - and more so about the types of noises a Cybertronian can make that correlate to language spoken between two bots facing one another.

I’m not so sure if it’s actually canonical or not, a lot of the Transformers content I’ve consumed don’t particularly focus on that, but it’s become a widely accepted consensus that Cybertronians have a rather open ‘respiratory’ system with many vent openings that cycle air mostly to cool their engines and less for breathing. A form of communication that occurs in caterpillars (see where I’m getting butterfly?) is essentially whistling; they have 8 pairs of openings called spiracles and, noticed through experimenting, the 8th pair is responsible for the whistling noise.

Cybertronians are rather more uh… in control of most of their body, a consequence of being able to transform and needing to get the parts to move right even if it’s more instinctual, so I believe that a need little thing they can do is control individual vents to open and/or close to expel air through and make certain notes. Smaller bots will always whistle at a higher pitch than a larger bot, who plays a deeper melody, but that does not indicate the sound, pitch or tone of their greater ‘voice’. I’m of the opinion that - regardless of frame type - there is an equivalent number of vent openings across most mecha, and even the bots that have a differing number would only have a pair or two more or less than average. I also think that it’d be funny if their intake (mouth) isn’t connected to the vent system, but that’s just a sneak peak to what happens later.

Before we get to that, however, let’s get to the next noise they can make- buzzing. Bumblebee is a very prevalent example of this, but how do I explain it for Cybertronian biology across the board? Well-

The buzzing - inspired by cicadas in biology specifically, who use a specialised organ - actually occurs with the revving of an engine or the spooling of a turbine (and which other vehicle specific engine for other less common frames) as well as being the controlled vibration of transformation seams. A bot without an alt-mode or without the ability to transform relies simply on the voicebox as a last resort, which occurs in all frame-types naturally.

This is typically more a tone-indicator to match with the tonal whistling of a mecha, but it holds more meaning than a contemplative hum or an exasperated sigh might in a more human language. For example, a harsher rev may genuinely and directly translate to ‘go away’ and a whining spool could literally mean ‘get this over with’ in actual dictionary terms. It also a language method that is really insightful to reading someone’s character as a whole as, in general, one does not come into existence with the base knowledge to hide their intentions; a lot of mecha in the war have trained themselves not to give themselves away by controlling a lot of their natural reactions.

Between the main frame-types, of grounders and fliers, there is also a language difference in buzzing. Flight-frames - in addition to their turbines and seams - also buzz with their flight muscles and wings, where fixed-wings (referred to as Seekers as their frames are best suited to the position), rotaries and shuttles are akin to flies and bees alongside a cicada influence. Grounders with kibble or door-wings can also buzz with their ‘wings’, but they do not have any flight muscles to further speak flight-frame languages, and fliers without wing-kibble are able to still buzz with their flight muscles, but cannot convey any specific wing buzzing.

This is the origin of ‘Seeker Cant’, where flight-frames communicate in flight muscle and wing buzzing only between each other on mission or about specifics beholden to only one another, and though it’s specifically named after the fixed-wing framed Seeker division and classification within the Decepticon forces, all flight-frames with corresponding wing-kibble and flight-muscles can learn to speak this cant.

But pre-war days, this difference between buzzing types was mainly specific to regions with more or less grounders or fliers. Flier majority cities spoke in flight-frame specific languages - like Vosian to Vos - where a lot of buzzing cannot be translated into grounder language and tonal complexity is spread out between the body and the wings. Grounder majority cities spoke in ground-frame friendly languages - like Iaconian to Iacon - where though there is less physical tools to convey language, there are more grammatical tonal changes than any flier language. Praxus, with a lot of door-winged grounders, speaks a peculiar combination between grounder languages and wing specific buzzing. Cities with wingless fliers would speak in another differing combination, and cities with a balance of flight-frames and ground-frames would have both languages, which types depending on which city the mecha are a majority of.

However, a lot of these languages are inaccessible to monoformers and Cybertronians unable to or actively prevented from transformers, mecha that specifically do not have any feasible way to change form even to the basics such as servos to tools or weapons. They rely on their own voicebox, an organ that all mecha have, and many of the natural language carries over from stridulation, a language that mimics the sounds produced by carer mecha and sparklings without a voicebox. Cybertronian language, through only a voicebox, is filled with clicks and plosives (/t/, /d/, /k/, /g/ and even perhaps the odd /q/ and /G/) but not much in the way of retroflexes (the Hindustani / ʈ / and / ɖ /) or any particular Earth sounds that rely heavily on the flexibility of the tongue, as Cybertronians do not have a tongue but rather a proboscis. There’s not a whole lot else to say other than they echo that noise through their intakes and modify the sound of the voicebox much in the same way that they manipulate their vents to control their whistling.

And speaking of, Cybertronian language as a whole is a compilation of all of these specifics into one communication method. The language of most mecha is a combination of all three of these noises, from whistling to buzzing to even their use of voiceboxes. It’s a VERY overwhelming sounding language to those who cannot understand it, but it’s also unwelcoming (unfortunately) to monoformers and mecha unable to transform because of how they can only really express themselves two thirds of the way to other mecha. But, in a rather particular case, some mature mecha actually have a fourth part to the Cybertronian language, and it relates to the brief glimpse of a certain detail in the previous paragraph.

You may have caught the mention of sparklings and a thing called ‘carer mecha’, and how voicebox communications is meant to be a replacement for stridulation. This here is where the butterfly comparison pulls to ahead and how sparklings are very different to an mature Cybertronian.

Sparklings, unlike a fully upgraded bot, have an intake designed for the consumption of metals, minerals and solid energon crystals, and have pedipalps around an open intake to help break it’s food down into easily digestible parts. I am not fully sure of their physical description beyond the fact that they have essentially more limbs in this ‘larval’ state than a full formed ‘adult’, but alongside eating they are one of two forms of communication that sparklings possess. A lot of these limbs - regardless if they are also used to eat - are indeed capable of stridulating and are responsible for creating chirps, pops and whirrs indicative of Earth insects. Alongside this, they can also whistle with the prototype vent openings, the number of which remains consistent before and after upgrading.

These disappear and rearrange to the more closed intake of an ‘adult’ Cybertronian’s through the process of upgrading (which can very well be directly a metamorphosis or simply a procedure transition determined based on a certain age), but in certain mecha, the remnants of those pedipalps form a retractable mask. However, a very specific type of bot maintains the primary communication pedipalps (where feeding specific pedipalps form a closed intake), and they are considered ‘carer mecha’, the type of bot to look after newly forged from the Well or recently sparked protoform sparklings.

Carer mecha have extra limbs that frame their helm and rest beside their intake, perhaps act in place of an intake, and are assigned upon upgrade to teach and care for other new sparks with the knowledge that the carer mecha before them had done so. But- as I consider the details of these mecha, I begin to realise that this is reminding me of the TFP Insecticons and even Sunder’s whole ‘opening face’ gimmick, but since I know nothing about Sunder outside of Kumquat’s Mercy project, I will say that Insecticons (even if they hold more individuality than whatever TFP had going for them) have a majority of their own specific frame-type as carer mecha and are known to take care of Insecticon newsparks in whichever hotspot they gather around.

And with that… I think I’ve gotten through a whole lot of headcanons. This is probably equally as overwhelming as I see raw Cybertronian to Cybertronian language to be, and that’s just with the noises that they make, not even what rules of linguistics they may follow or break.

I’m going to take a rest after this- this is now actually beginning to hurt my head and I don’t think it’s the noodle’s that are rapidly cooling next to me to blame.