Do people from another universe or a fantasy land speak English?

Babel fish.

First of all, explain "universe."

If it's a parallel universe, then the aliens can be from "parallel earth" and speak our languages.

Otherwise, some kind of universal translator could be employed. Not unlike the babel fish that mirandashell mentioned.

They did in Star Wars (at least some of 'em did). It happens in movies and TV shows all the time. Star Trek took care of it by having a "universal translator" device, much the same way they took care of FTL travel by using "dilithium".

caw

If you don't want to get in to it, don't go in to it.

It's not realistic that two different and alien cultures can meet and immediately converse, but if they don't you risk becoming mired in the detail. I just wouldn't mention it, you wouldn't be the first.

Sci-fi readers and viewers are so used to everyone being able to speak English that it barely registers anymore. And one mention of some sort of tech used will do it. It's the one thing you can handwave with impunity, really.

The Doctor's TARDIS provides a radius of translation wherever (and whenever) it goes.

-RD

There are so many different ways to arrange a deck of cards that there has not been time in the 14-billion-year age of universe for a (immortal) person to have organized one (immortal) deck of cards into all its different configurations.

And that's just 52 cards.

What I'm saying is it's not reasonable to assume life on another world would look human, or that the other world wouldn't poison humans instantly the moment they arrived, or that there wouldn't be any number of other harsh, fiction-unfriendly realities to address. There are so many variables that went into us even existing that there cannot be any life in the universe that is too much like us, or worlds too much like ours.

We hand-wave the language thing, but really, it's the tip of the iceberg.

My take:

There are things we do or don't do that might not make complete, technical sense but, nonetheless, enable the story to be told. If we were completely realistic at every point in our story decisions and narration, we could risk making the story inaccessible to the reader. If the story is partly about learning to communicate, then the others not speaking English and how that's compensated for would be a story point worth mentioning. If the story has nothing to do with that, then forcing some kind of explanation or translation might actually get in the way of telling what is important.

crossword said:

How do I explain away the fact that the people from the other universe who come to earth are able to speak English?

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I mostly write secondary world fantasy that has no ostensible connection to our world or transfer of characters between, so I just assume their language has been translated to modern English sans obvious anachronisms.

I suppose it's different if the novel is taking place in a portal world or a SF setting. If aliens are visiting Earth for the first time, one could assume they've studied the culture and languages for a while and learned some of them first (or built some kind of translator device).

The novels I read where a human goes to another universe or a fantasy land never seem to explain how that human is able to speak the language of that land or how come everyone there speaks English.

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Portal fantasies are kind of odd that way. I haven't read any lately, but I'm sure I've read some where the person had to learn the local language or obtain some kind of magical translation. I suppose another option is to imply that there's been enough cultural cross-contamination via portals that the dialect is similar, at least, and not too hard to learn.

Can you think of any ways this has been satisfactorily explained in any novels, especially sci fi or novels set in different universes or fantasy lands?

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There is the Babel fish in Adams's work, though that was satirical. I'm re-reading a SF novel right now where the protagonist is an alien, and the "English" the book is written in represents her native language. The other aliens speak their own language at times (which she may or may not understand, depending), or they speak her language or a sort of pigeon (represented in the text) language.

The one human character is an outsider, and he only learns a few words of the MC's language directly. They mostly communicate, brokenly, via a very unreliable translator program they've created, and the human is illiterate in the aliens' language as well. The translator "tapes" are a specific plot element (this book was written in the 80s, and the writer failed to anticipate the obsolescence of tape as a recording media, though in her more recent works the term "tape" becomes metaphoric for any recording device), actually, and the human is something of a pawn in alien power plays.

So SF writers do deal with it. As for fantasy, there aren't that many portal fantasies I've read lately, so I don't remember all the ways they were dealt with. The character requiring time to learn the language first or some kind of magical translation are options (with SF, it could be mechanical translators). Sometimes an ongoing or magical connection between the fantasy worlds is assumed, so they simply speak the same language. Some, especially kid's books or lighthearted fantasies (think Narnia or The Dragon and the George) simply ignore the issue. Same for light SF stories like Star Wars. Perhaps a universal translator or some common trade tongue is assumed in that universe.

I think writers make decisions about these kinds of things with an understanding that readers will suspend disbelief when a speculative element is introduced, or something is not explained, if it's required to make the story proceed smoothly.

Assume that they aren't speaking English; everything is in translation.

I done live in New Orleans, oh, mebbe four, tree years, doncha know, back a whiles ago, an many people dere, none o' dem dey don' speak English so good, I garontee. But dey can make some dam fine red bean an' rice, you bet, ain' no lie.

caw

When I was a child, I read a portal fantasy that explained it thus: passing through the portal changed the person passing so that they were able to comprehend the language spoken in the immediate neighbourhood of the portal. (ie, not every language spoken in every place in the new world, but enough that the character didn't even realize they were speaking 'foriegn'.) This seemed reasonable enough to me that I've used it as the default explanation ever since. I wish I could remember the book. It was some pretty basic middle-grade fantasy. '10 year olds and magic' kind of thing.

A lot of this gets swept under the "translation convention" rug - the reader accepts that the author is acting as translator when recording the story. If an Earth visitor is communicating with locals from another world easily, it kinda fits under a corner of that admittedly-lumpy rug, as something the reader will accept to facilitate enjoyment of the story. (And if your reader's picking at that rug and poking at the lumps, then that's a problem with the story not being engaging and shiny enough to distract them - or a reader who just plain doesn't want to be distracted and enjoys picking at things. But that's another issue...)

I have read a few cases where the visitor had to learn the language, which only works if they're staying for a while and you're willing to jump ahead a bit to where they at least have a general grasp of the local dialect. In fantasies, there are sometimes spells that do the job. In sci-fi, there are convenient Maguffins, an implant or "universal translator" or some such thing (the TV series Farscape had "translator microbes" that colonized the "base of the brain", which took care of most - but not all - spoken communication issues) that amount to the same handwave. As frimble3 mentioned, the portal itself sometimes takes care of translation with a simple tweak of the visitor's mind. Generally, it isn't mentioned, except for maybe the first time the visitor encounters someone. "You speak English!" "No, you're speaking Reticulan.", or "How do you know Earth languages?" "I don't - you're just hearing it that way.", etc. No reason it couldn't work the other way, with visitors from There coming Here.

Unless it's a plot point, it's one of those things it doesn't pay to overthink... and if you do overthink it, maybe portal fantasies just aren't something you want to write.

Even in the Roman Empire, which comprised thousands of miles of land, hundreds of cultures, and even more different pantheons of gods, there was a common language used for just about everything: Greek. Since English is the main language of the world at this time, yeah, it's reasonable to assume aliens would adopt it after forming diplomatic relations with us. But if you're writing a first contact story, then a different approach might be needed.

If the language thing really bugs you, you could always incorporate translation problems into the story itself.

Someone already mentioned Star Trek and their "universal translators." There's one episode of The Next Generation called "Darmok" where they encounter a species even the UT technology can't decipher. It's so cleverly constructed that at the beginning of the episode, you listen to the "alien language" and hear utter jibberish, while by the end you can perfectly understand an entire dialogue in the same language.

It's one of my favorite episodes and worth a watch, even if you're not a Trekkie (I wasn't one myself until I married into the fandom and we agreed to watch entire series of each others' favorite shows). The series is available on Netflix.

Let us say that you have devised some way for everyone to speak English. Does the explanation for how they do it reveal character, support the theme, or advance the plot? If not, then cut the explanation.

I've addressed this in two different ways in my own stories:

In the first, emissaries at an international summit meeting are all given implants that allow them to instantly learn the language the summit will be conducted in. Kind of like Matrix-style knowledge injection. This only allows them to speak that one language; there's no translation going on, so they can't talk to one another using their languages of origin. I did show my MC experiencing a brief period of mental disorientation after getting the implant, but it was mostly a "these people can all talk to each other now, okay?' hand wave.

In the second, it was a "translation implant" that would allow the implantee to learn any language they were exposed to for a reasonable length of time. But it didn't work instantly-- in the beginning, it was so garbled it was hardly better than not being able to speak at all. But fluency increased over a period of days, until the character was able to hear and speak the language adequately (though still not perfectly-- that would have taken another week), with the exception of one un-translatable word that appeared in italics. Basically, it was accelerating the language-learning process.

I think a lot depends on how thoroughly your characters need to be able to understand each other-- and how quickly that needs to happen-- for your plot to work.

There are really 3 options:

1. Ignore. It might be odd that people from an alternate universe speak English, but if we can have Mirror Spock, why not Mirror English?

2. Technobabble a solution. Something something converts brainwaves to something something, resulting in mutual understanding.

3. The hard route. People actually study and learn each others' language.

Each of these have their roles, depending on what you need for the story. Yes, it's "unrealistic" if another species shows up and starts to speak perfect English, but if the story is good, do you want to slow down for five chapters of "Here's how we learned to communicate"? All but the most snarky readers will accept it if there's at least something that addresses it, even if in no significant detail.

We can travel faster than light in many stories. We can communicate with an infinite number of cultures. Yes, it's unlikely, but if the story demands it, why be held back by current reality?

The aliens have had spies on Earth for centuries. Of course they had to learn English. They taught it to their own people. You know, just like in real life.