Translating the Untranslatable - What Meaning Survives Across Worlds
Essay 7 - Crafting the Whale's Tongue series
When I conducted interviews to obtain critical information, the most challenging successes were those that required translators. Not all translators translate equally. Many can deliver accurate words, but translating meaning is something else entirely.
Over the course of the Crafting the Whale’s Tongue series, we have discussed that meanings stem from more than words. There’s a dance that involves context, gesture, tone and all manner of microexpressions that communicate what someone is really saying. Add to that rhythmic pulses and color flashes … well, you get the gist.
Two native English-speakers have challenge enough in conveying messages between each other. Imagine what might be lost during translation between different languages.
When I knew I needed a translator to interpret and translate for an important criminal investigation, I was … persnickety. I had to ensure that the translator was not going to just repeat my words in a foreign tongue, but rather mimic my tone and gestures, including my facial expressions—everything possible so the interpretation of my meaning was conveyed.
I’m guessing that there were occasions when I reached out for a translator and they drew straws to see who would respond … knowing what I would ask of them. But lives were at stake, wasn’t that my duty?
Translation … of meaning … is not easy.
The frog jumped into the water and made a splash. But is that what Bashō meant when he wrote his haiku?
Matsuo Bashō remains one of Japan’s most famous poets and perhaps the greatest master of haiku. Haiku—simple—elegant—17 syllables.
Furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto.
Just looking at the words, it’s beautiful; the pattern is elegant. Even though I cannot read or speak Japanese, I sense the flow and sonic pattern of 5-7-5. But I have no idea what it truly says or means.
Translated to English: Old pond / a frog jumps in / the sound of water. The flow and elegance vanish; the meaning, too, shifts in the translation.
I can read Bashō all day—in Japanese—and sense the flow, the elegance. But the true meaning will elude me.
How then—if Threlraan is living, multimodal, and context-bound—will Jayla ever truly know the meaning of the message? She may break the code and translate word for word, but what will the Biet Lagos really be asking for?
Jayla’s Challenge
Jayla has a tattoo (not her first) that is written in cuneiform and roughly means “Speak to Me.” As a xenolinguist, cuneiform became her foundation for understanding language. The evolution of cuneiform to Akkadian symbols was a childhood fascination. A strong foundation for how language develops. Something to work backwards toward.
Her foundation may ease, but never circumvent, the struggle to decode a message written in alien glyphs, heard in rhythmic repetitions, or seen in flashes of color. Each element can be mapped, but the living meaning resists capture.
The SETI researchers who listened to Twain, the humpback whale ‘speak’, knew she was saying something, but what that something truly meant … we may never truly know. Best guesses will come from having been there and witnessed the “conversation.”
For Jayla, “presence” cannot be carried through a wormhole signal.
Decoding the signal will become both her scientific task and her personal crucible. She must be fully present to make the best guesses.
Sacred Whisps, Whispers Below, and the Kidnap
Sacred Whisps, the ancient tome of Biet Lagos history, is not literally a book of sacred records or ‘whispers’. It is a living recall holding full cultural resonance, law and memory of a species since its beginnings. It is the embodiment of resonance, law and memory, and it is often read as ritual song and dance.
When Jayla ever meets the Biet Lagos in person, she will learn that her name, to them, means “Whispers Below.” But that translation hangs on more than trying to ascribe English to Threlraan. It will come from a feeling about who she is and what she represents.
Jayla can present her name written in Threlraan glyphs as she understands them, but the Biet Lagos will not interpret the glyphs alone. They will hear her voice, her heartbeats, her breaths. They will study her eyes, her hands, how she moves. They will feel “Whispers Below.”
If Jayla, for example, would meet the Biet Lagos before her personal transformation by the end of World Beyond the Song, her name might translate to something far different. Something like “Silent Loss.”
Translating Sacred Whisps into English or Jayla into Threlraan cannot be done quid pro quo or per se. Invariably, something will be lost; something will be gained.
Let’s look at this in a more familiar context. Let’s return to the investigative interview analogy. The following is a real-life experience that has been fictionalized—all to my point of the potential pitfalls of translation.
Scenario: An investigator needs to interview a potential witness in the abduction of a child. The person of interest speaks Spanish only, no English. An interpreter is required. Hint: there are numerous dialects of Spanish. Hint hint: the person of interest is Salvadoran.
Here’s an example of the exchange, with notes on the perceived meaning:
Investigator (English)
“Do you know who took the girl?”
Intended meaning:
“Do you know who kidnapped or abducted the child?”
Interpreter (Standard Spanish)
“¿Usted sabe quién se llevó a la niña?”
Interpreter’s intention:
Correct, formal Spanish rendering: “Do you know who took the little girl (away)?”
Problem: “Se llevó” is ambiguous—could mean took, picked up, or escorted.
Witness (Rural Salvadoran dialect)
“Sí, la llevó el primo.”
Literal English back-translation:
“Yes, her cousin took her.”
What the witness means:
“Her cousin came to pick her up / took her home.” (normal event)Interpreter (back to English)
“He says the cousin took her.”
What the investigator hears:
“The cousin kidnapped her.”
Resulting Misinterpretation
Investigator’s understanding:
The witness just identified the kidnapper.Witness’s intended meaning:
The suspect is describing a routine family action.
If the investigator presses further—“So you knew she was taken?” the witness may answer “Sí, claro” (“Yes, of course”)—confirming, in the investigator’s view, knowledge of a crime, when in reality they’re affirming awareness of a family errand.
Knowing the witness spoke a rural Salvadoran dialect would have likely averted a potentially devastating misinterpretation. The savvy investigator may have instead initially asked through a dialect-aware interpreter:
“¿Usted vio quién se la llevó sin permiso?”
(Did you see who took her without permission?)
This adds contextual intent (“without permission”), forcing a distinction between kidnapping and ordinary transport.
It’s a small leap from this kind of human misinterpretation to the stakes of first contact. Imagine GAP receiving a pulse meant as invitation and reading it as warning.
Whew! So now we know how GAP, the ‘bad guys’, may have understood the Biet Lagos to be a threat or warning, rather than Jayla’s more amicable interpretation … war vs welcome. (oops—is that a spoiler?)
Even when a text is readable,
interpretation is often negotiated, not fixed.
Real-World Parallels
Not all translations lead to such egregious misinterpretations, but misinterpretations nonetheless.
We discussed Bashō and saw how in poetry that meter, sound, and cultural layers rarely cross over intact.
The Japanese expression mono no aware is often oversimplified as a sadness or acceptance of death, but it describes a much more complex feeling—”the deep, bittersweet awareness of the transient beauty of things, encompassing joy, wistfulness, and quiet acceptance rather than despair.” In other words, it’s not just a simple emotion of loss, but a profound appreciation for the ephemeral nature of life.
The Yup’ik are an indigenous group of people found in Alaska and Siberia. They have a word—tagneghneq—which means “dark, dense ice.” If we were to translate tagneghneq as simply “ice” we would lose important ecological clues that suggest the stability and safety of crossing that ice.
Each of these examples shows that translation is never just about words; it’s about worlds of experience.
Our heroine, Jayla, will have learned from these missteps and oversimplifications in language interpretation and translation. It may give her a slight edge, but in no way will make her plight easy.
But think about it—the term “translation” itself is ambiguous. Do we mean a full, confident, scholarly translation, or a rough translation, or a partial translation (some lines)?
Akkadian provides us with a proper lens to view the problem: Translation reliability in Akkadian and other cuneiform languages, studied for thousands of years is not absolute—even today. Even when a text is readable, interpretation is often negotiated, not fixed.
Translation as Transformation
What if we saw translation not as duplication, but as transformation? True translation isn’t a swap of words; it’s the re-creation of meaning across cultures.
Jayla will never ‘speak’ Threlraan as the Biet Lagos do, but she can carry its resonance—enough to build connection. She might not replicate the language perfectly, but she can forge a new, meaningful way to communicate with a new group of people.
Closing Reflection—Translation as Imperfect Bridge
For the Biet Lagos, language is untranslatable in full. For us, translation is always approximation. Yet the act of trying—of reaching across difference—creates intimacy.
Next time, I’ll step back from worldbuilding inside the story to show you the messy notebooks behind it.
These essays continue to fascinate me. Communication is such a deep subject and you're taking such care to explore it in its full, messy glory. I have no doubt this passion and thoroughness will be reflected in the fiction, and I'm eager to read it!