First appearance of Uhura's linguistic skills?

[F. King Daniel]

Okay so in 2009, Uhura canonically was given linguistic abilities to go with her communications role, akin to Hoshi Sato in Star Trek: Enterprise. Strange New Worlds' version of the character has these too. I'm curious where they came from.

In TOS, Uhura wasn't a linguist but a technician and switchboard operator. This came as a surprise to me after growing up reading novels where Uhura spoke several languages, I'd never realised they're not displayed in TOS/TAS until someone here pointed it out. I was told the linguistic part of Uhura's character was added for the unmade Phase II TV series at the behest of Nichelle Nichols (so Uhura would have more to do than open hailing frequencies) but having finally checked out the Writer/Directors guide in Phase II: The Lost Series, it's not there.

So I'm curious which novel (or comic book or whatever) first establishes Uhura as a multilingual communications expert rather than a technician/switchboard operator. Because I grew up reading books where she was, even if it's just referenced rather than featured. Where did it start?

 

[Christopher]

I've been wondering the same thing about when Uhura was first established in tie-ins as a linguist. I'm trying to think back to the earliest reference I can recall, and I think it might've been The Wounded Sky or My Enemy, My Ally. It wasn't the focus of the story or anything, but I seem to recall some casual depictions of Uhura being adept with alien languages.

 

[captainmkb]

all the way back to the first ever* Star Trek novel Spock Must Die! by the first ever Star Trek author James Blish - Uhura gives a short dissertation on synthetic languages, including Eurish, which she has worked with.

*besides the other first ever novel, which was for young readers

“There’s an alternative, Captain, though it’s risky; we can translate the clear into Eurish.”

“What’s that? I never heard of it.”

“It’s the synthetic language James Joyce invented for his last novel, over two hundred years ago. It contains forty or fifty other languages, including slang in all of them. Nobody but an Earthman could possibly make sense of it, and there are only a few hundred of them who are fluent in it. There’s the risk; it may take Starfleet Command some time to run down an expert in it — if they even recognize it for what it is.”

Being a communications officer, Kirk realized anew, involved a good many fields of knowledge besides subspace radio. “Can it handle scientific terms?”

“Indeed it can. You know the elementary particle called the quark; well, that’s a Eurish word. Joyce himself predicted nuclear fission in the novel I mentioned. I can’t quote it precisely, but roughly it goes, ‘The abniliilisation of the etym expolodotonates through Parsuralia with an ivanmorinthorrorumble fragoromboassity amidwhiches general uttermosts confussion are perceivable moletons skaping with mulicules.’ There’s more, but I can’t recall it — it has been a long time since I last read the book.”

“That’s more than enough,” Kirk said hastily. “Go ahead — just as long as you’re sure you can read the answer.”

“Nobody’s ever dead sure of what Eurish means,” Uhura said. “But I can probably read more of it than the Klingons could. To them, it’ll be pure gibberish.”

 

[F. King Daniel]

all the way back to the first ever* Star Trek novel Spock Must Die! by the first ever Star Trek author James Blish - Uhura gives a short dissertation on synthetic languages, including Eurish, which she has worked with.

*besides the other first ever novel, which was for young readers

I was not expecting it to go that far back!

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I remember the Eurish. I also remember Uhura repairing her console on at least one canonical occasion, so she's also a decent enough engineer.

 

[captainmkb]

I remember the Eurish. I also remember Uhura repairing her console on at least one canonical occasion, so she's also a decent enough engineer.

i think the technical equipment skills versus the data mgmt/linguistic skills might be the deciding factor as to which comm officers wear operations department colors (Uhura, other TOS comms) versus those in sciences blue (Sato, Aquiel, technically Uhura again in the TOS movies but that's a bit of a vague call as ops and sci shared the heather grey uniform turtlenecks)

of course those that optionally wear command colors do so bc they have boss credentials (Uhura again, Spock in WNMHGB, etc)

 

[dupersuper]

all the way back to the first ever* Star Trek novel Spock Must Die! by the first ever Star Trek author James Blish - Uhura gives a short dissertation on synthetic languages, including Eurish, which she has worked with.

*besides the other first ever novel, which was for young readers

Ok: Strange New Worlds tells us she speaks 27 (if I remember correctly) languages. most of which are dialects of Swahili. Assuming another is English/Standard, and - as seen in Star Trek VI - Klingonese isn't on the list, and - as seen in this novel - Eurish is, how many does that leave?

 

[Desert Kris]

I guess this has partly been answered, surprising me as well that it went back to the Bantam book.

The Wounded Sky came up, and I thought I remembered a scene where major characters reveal aspects of themselves to proto-gods, and Uhura shares the joy of the challenge she experiences learning a new language, and passing a threshold of learning where the language locks in for her. I remember it implying that she's experienced that a number of times.

I could be mis-remembering, though.

 

[captainmkb]

- as seen in Star Trek VI - Klingonese isn't on the list

the tlhIngan Hol variant of Klingonese isn't on the list. she could still know other dialects

 

[Christopher]

Ok: Strange New Worlds tells us she speaks 27 (if I remember correctly) languages. most of which are dialects of Swahili.

Not quite. She said she speaks 37 languages, and that Kenya has 22 languages. In fact, there are 68 different languages spoken in Kenya, and they're not dialects of Swahili. Rather, Swahili is one of the multiple Bantu-family languages spoken in Kenya, along with Nilotic and Cushitic languages, Arabic, English, Hindustani, etc.

To quote Wikipedia, "Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in four African Great Lakes countries (Kenya, DRC, Uganda, and Tanzania), where it is an official or national language, while being the first language for many people in Tanzania especially in the coastal regions.... In the inner regions of Tanzania, Swahili is spoken with an accent influenced by local languages and dialects, and as a first language for most people born in the cities, whilst being spoken as a second language in rural areas."

As I understand it, Kiswahili is a relatively young language that evolved on the East African coast when it was dominated by the Arab trade network, so it's something of a hybrid that evolved out of that cross-cultural interaction among numerous East African peoples and Arab and other traders. That's why it became a lingua franca and official national language in East Africa despite not being a native language for that many people. (It's a first language for about 16 million people and a second language for over 55 million. A lot like English, which is a first language for about 373 million people and a second language for over a billion.)

 

[Markonian]

I looked online but James Joyce's Eurish does not appear to exist in real life?

 

[captainmkb]

I guess this has partly been answered, surprising me as well that it went back to the Bantam book.

The Wounded Sky came up, and I thought I remembered a scene where major characters reveal aspects of themselves to proto-gods, and Uhura shares the joy of the challenge she experiences learning a new language, and passing a threshold of learning where the language locks in for her. I remember it implying that she's experienced that a number of times.

I could be mis-remembering, though.

i need to brush up on my Duane as well. i think my faded memory has her buying something possibly language releated on the ships bulletin board? and explaining it to Kirk. i think that would be Spock's World which i havent read in 20yrs

BTW --- the depiction of the ship having a BBS - how quaint! we're seeing that 80s-90s style BBSes are already very old fashioned by the 2010s-2020s

 

[Christopher]

BTW --- the depiction of the ship having a BBS - how quaint! we're seeing that 80s-90s style BBSes are already very old fashioned by the 2010s-2020s

Which I think is a shame. It's vastly easier to follow and participate in an ongoing discussion on a BBS like this one than it is on Facebook, where everything keeps changing around, there's no index, and even notifications don't always take you to the specific comment you're looking for. I will never understand why that's considered remotely preferable.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Which I think is a shame. It's vastly easier to follow and participate in an ongoing discussion on a BBS like this one than it is on Facebook, where everything keeps changing around, there's no index, and even notifications don't always take you to the specific comment you're looking for. I will never understand why that's considered remotely preferable.

CLB and I are in complete agreement once again. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Boards and list-servers = good.
Facebook and Twitter (and LinkedIn, for that matter) = bad.
Reddit and Discord = barely tolerable.

And I will note that on any piece of hardware under my direct control, that has a user-modifiable host table, I've added entries to redirect Facebook Twitter, and LinkedIn to the bit-bucket (and on those without user-modifiable host tables, like the Chrome side of my Chromebook, I found other ways to block those domains).

And I was once asked by my boss to be the company's Facebook presence. I flat-out told him, in so many words, that if he made it a direct order, he'd have my zero-notice resignation before the echo died. He didn't call my bluff. Which is good, because I wasn't bluffing.

 

[dupersuper]

Not quite. She said she speaks 37 languages, and that Kenya has 22 languages.

Cool, thanks. So that's 13 after the Kenyan dialects, English/standard and Eurish.

 

[Christopher]

Cool, thanks. So that's 13 after the Kenyan dialects, English/standard and Eurish.

Again, not "dialects," but actual distinct languages.

And Spock Must Die! hasn't been compatible with screen canon since the Klingons appeared in TMP, so Eurish probably doesn't count.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I guess this has partly been answered, surprising me as well that it went back to the Bantam book.

IIRC, also explored in fan-written essays in "The Best of Trek", some of which formalised panel discussions at the early Trek conventions with Doohan, Takei, Nichols, Koenig, Fontana and Gerrold. Exploring the backgrounds of "the gang of four" was a popular panel topic. Some of this then filtered through to the novels.