up vote 20 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

If anything Spock appears to be speaking a Tolkeinesque Elvish language.

Were Vulcans intended to be space elves or logical beings? It isn't reflected in their current language.

Is canon too well established for future writers to fix this logical gap in the description of the Star Trek universe?

link|improve this question
60% accept rate
7  
Well, they both have pointed ears... – Michael Jan 22 '11 at 0:08
feedback

6 Answers

up vote 26 down vote

The hyper-logical aspects of Vulcan society are recent (on their time scale) and their language still bears many of the same characteristics as the Romulan language. Both their peoples and their languages share a common ancestry.

link|improve this answer
7  
Indeed, just before rebel Vulcans left for Romulus, Vulcans were a very passionate people. Violently so. Only through the teachings of the philosopher Surak did their society become peaceful by repressing emotion (those who disagreed left). Converting an entire world's language would have been an even grater task, one with many impracticalities. – MPelletier Jan 22 '11 at 5:01
5  
That or the writers just didn't think about it. – MPelletier Jan 22 '11 at 5:01
Also, the language that appears on the Kir'Shara, which predates Vulcan logic, appears to be the same as the one that T'Pol is seen frequently reading in Enterprise. – HNL Dec 7 '11 at 10:32
feedback
up vote 6 down vote

The fact that the Vulcans speak this language proves that it is logical (as well as any marriage, or anything that a Vulcan does).

Jokes aside:

  1. Natural languages tend to be optimal in many ways - e.g. they provide both compression (frequently used words are shorter - say I, he, she, do, am...) and enough redundancy to be understood.
  2. Vulcans are not logical beings (at least under my interpretation). They are highly emotional beings (proven in various points in series), which try to hide it partially with discipline and partially with a façade. I would suspect a Vulcan to behave in highly illogical manner if it looked like more logical (hence their preference for longer words). Maybe they think such form of language makes them look smarter?
link|improve this answer
Natural languages have this enormous "convention over everything" thing going on. Opaque, unparsable, contradictory phrases persist not because they are optimal but because it is cheaper to follow the convention that to be logical and speak differently from the others. A hyperlogical species wouldn't be swayed by a "convention is better than logic" argument, imho. – MatthewMartin Jan 21 '11 at 19:59
@MatthewMartin, it is illogical to consider logic superior to convention. Convention is the only thing that allows communication to exist in the first place. – JSBᾶngs Jan 21 '11 at 22:56
2  
If we neglect the cost of co-ordination, we could all switch to a regular verb for "to be" in English, which would be more logical. In the real world, co-ordination is expensive. Vulcans presumably would be willing to pay the costs necessary to get everyone using the new logical way of doing things, as opposed to just using I am, you are, he is, etc. Maybe, "tradition and the accidental conventions accumulated over time" might be a better way to express what a vulcan would probably oppose. Neither tradition nor accidental conventions are required for communication. – MatthewMartin Jan 21 '11 at 23:04
If you look at the way they train their young, I am sure they'd gladly pay the cost, if the cost were justified. The cost of retrofitting their entire culture might be a problem. It might also be a religious problem (as Vulcans have religion), or a race-relations problem, as other cultures also may have adopted communication with them via their language (pulling this one out of thin air - wouldn't be surprised if there were no proof of this, though). – Merlyn Morgan-Graham Dec 7 '11 at 12:05
feedback
up vote 3 down vote

I am only aware of one Vulcan language that is fully fleshed out with a full grammar and vocabulary — Golic Vulcan from Mark R. Gardner and the now defunct VLI (not Marc Okrand; though some of his “gobbledygook” has been assigned discrete, concrete meaning in the Golic Vulcan lexicon). It is rife with features of organic human languages like archaic forms, irregular verb/noun pairs, nominalizing suffixes, adverbial clitics. It’s in no way designed to be unambiguously logical, but is quite pragmatically logical in that it easily supports a great deal of efficiency and aesthetic restraint. It is pro-drop so that unnecessary pronouns (and even the copula) are omitted when they are understood from context. Pervasive compounding via a head-final noun complex makes it extremely productive for incorporating new ideas and a similar function supports the verbalization of nouns via -tor. Plurals are not used if they don't add value in the relevant context. Nouns and verbs don't agree because they don't need to in order to convey sufficient meaning.

Fictional Vulcan civilization is full of art and culture with logic applied as an important layer in the overall mix, but logic is not the end-all-be-all. It is an idea and an ideal — one that helps very much with social justice (shila-kro’es), equality (ka’es), harmony (kril’es), and their sense of peace (sochya). Novel words that are relevant to technology and modern life are quite logically constructed as innovations. The main root in “computer” (tum-vel) is tum. It means “count”. Vel is a physical “thing”. A computer is a “counting thing”. The word for “abacus” is tum-nentu. There is tum again. Words like “garbage” (guhsh) and “fairy” (pu’a) have presumably been around for a very long time in their civilization, which has been literate for thousands of years. Those words don’t actually require the application of much logic to be useful or valid. Vulcans probably need to talk about garbage about as much as we do. But unless a member of Vulcan society is a researcher in ancient or alien cultures, fairies?, not so much. There is no reason for perfectly valid words to be abandoned or reinvented just for the sake of forced uniformity. Is it logical as a function of language to call a fairy a mapi’zaipos-glenon-ralasu (“tiny magical imaginary winged person”) just because you can if you already have pu’a as an option? Not really.

There is a lot of information on the Golic Vulcan language for those interested at http://korsaya.org.

Dif-tor heh smusma. Live long and prosper.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

How would they be able to keep pace with the lesser, illogical races of the universe if they did?

The Sapir-Whorf (not that Worf) hypothesis states that ability to think certain thoughts may be limited by one's language. Vulcans may be logical enough to comprehend that, paradoxically, a too logical language could curtail their ability to keep up with the vigorous, passionate expressive power of their fellow races. As such, retaining mastery of their ancestors' less structured mode of speech and thinking, while of course raising a sardonic eyebrow at the quirks of said language, may keep the Vulcans on their toes...

link|improve this answer
They use the universal translator and Spock speaks excellent English, although, I assume he probably would find the illogical parts quite grating on his nerves. Amongst themselves, Vulcan's don't care how illogical other people's languages are. – MatthewMartin Jan 21 '11 at 20:11
Re: your edit- I vaguely remember that Leonard Nimoy had to constantly fight with script writers because the scripts writers just knew that it's better to be emotional instead of rational and logical, which is out of character for what is supposed to be the epitomy of a logical and rational character. What good is a "logical" character if the first order of the day is to get rid of the math, logic, reason in favor of something with a vigorous and passionate expressive power, like natural languages? – MatthewMartin Jan 21 '11 at 21:24
Spock was half human, so there is potentially some controversy to that. Even if they revealed that info, who knows how on-narrative their direction and Nimoy's wishes were at all times... – Merlyn Morgan-Graham Dec 7 '11 at 12:09
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

Mathematics is a very logical langage and the Vulcans speak it all the time.

It is perfectly logical to retain the ability to communicate on a more primitive level.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

It would limit his conversational options too much.

Also, given the prevalence of Universal Translators, who says he isn't?

link|improve this answer
Marc Okrand Vulcan is "gobbldygook" online.wsj.com/article/SB124224759995316587.html Most of the other attempts to create vulcan, canonical or otherwise, are JRR Tolkien style naturalistic languages, eg. stogeek.com/wiki/Category:Vulcan_Language_Institute – MatthewMartin Feb 7 '11 at 15:19
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.