The universal translator, or at least the Earth’s version of it, was invented sometime just before the year 2151, as a technology to help translate any desired language into whatever the native language of the user was. The year is vague, as all that is officially known about its invention was that it was used first aboard the Enterprise NX-01, the first of its name and the main vessel captained by Captain Johnathan Archer during Star Trek: Enterprise. At this time the device was still fairly experimental, and not as polished or downright invisible during the chronologically later seasons of Star Trek. It took the form of a handheld device wielded by a skilled linguist who was still needed to decipher the sometimes complex and vague translations provided. In Enterprise this linguist was the wonderful Hoshi Sato (played by Linda Park) who by herself knew and spoke around 40 languages.
RELATED: Star Trek: Who Are The Betazoids?
This early version worked by having one party speak their unknown language into the device, until it gathered enough information to build what is known as a translation matrix. The translation matrix serves as a was like a Rosetta Stone of sorts, allowing for all received communications to be translated in relative real time. Sato was involved in improving the technology in the Enterprise episode “In a Mirror, Darkly” where she created the ‘linguacode translation matrix,’ allowing for the device to anticipate the vocabulary and alien words in order to speed up the whole process. At this time, the standard Starfleet communicators were all preprogrammed with the entire database of known languages. They could thus translate languages such as Akkali without the need for the linguist or Universal Translator device.
Up until the 2230s, the universal translator was a fairly experimental device, and felt quite rudimentary in comparison to what audiences had seen during shows like The Next Generation. At this point, however, universal translators were fully functional within communicators. Rather than translating the language into text, they were able to directly translate whatever was being spoken, in the speaker’s own voice. They were also built into the framework of most Federation starships being built at this time, allowing for most incoming communications to be translated live upon reception. By the 24th century however, the Universal Translator had become such an integrated part of the lives of Federation member, that they had all but become invisible. The translators were advanced enough to be included as part of each and every Starfleet combadge. This allowed for almost any language, known or unknown, to be translated wherever it was spoken using the voice of whoever spoke it.
At this time, the Universal Translator did not seem to have many limitations. It could even successfully translate the binary language of some sentient nanites in The Next Generation episode “Evolution.” However, it did struggle from time to time. The advanced Universal Translator worked by interpreting various brain patterns and waves present within most humanoid life forms.
Luckily for Starfleet (as well as the budget department), most life in the Star Trek universe is humanoid, so it was not much of an issue. However, as became apparent during the Voyager episode “Nothing Human,” the translator was completely useless in translating cytoplasmic life forms. It also apparently left a watermark of sorts, detectable to those who knew what they were looking for. Because of this, when the groundbreaking character Commander Uhura was trying to sneak past a Klingon bird of prey, she has to use a dictionary to translate her words, as the Klingons would have detected the use of a translator.
While the history of the Universal Translator is fairly well known, how exactly it works is a bit less straightforward (even less so in the Kelvin timeline). The early iterations could be explained fairly easily: how it records a bunch of unknown language, and then analyzes it until it’s able to work out what it means. Later iterations, however, work more and more like magic, with much less consistency as to their mechanics. There is one episode from The Next Generation called “Darmok’’ which suggests the later versions work in much the same way; however, how they are able to instantly translate unknown languages in an instant, as well as magically lip sync perfect English into the mouths of these aliens is never explained.
At the end of the day the universal translator is not only a fantastic piece of kit that shows how advanced humanity has become, but it’s a bit of a necessity for storytelling. Its existence is a way to streamline interspecies communication without suggesting everyone somehow speaks English, or that everyone is fluent in thousands of languages.
MORE: Star Trek: The Story Behind The Enterprise’s Iconic Design
