Thomas' Dog

Visiting Thomas was such a hassle. First I had to go into a decontamination room were everything I had on me would be disinfected, which seemed pointless really because I had to take off those clothes anyway, put them in a plastic bag, and put on some sterile scrubs. Then I had to go through several layers of identification: my retina would be scanned, along with my finger prints, blood samples would be taken, and I would have to put a series of codes into different machines at every stage.

But as much as I hated it, I had to admit it was necessary, we couldn't risk anything hurting Thomas.

Thomas was an alien, of course, although these days he preferred to be called a "non-human person" when his species was relevant and simply "a person" any other time. He had been chosen by the bureaucracy of his species to be a sort of ambassador to humanity, a situation which had presented many challenges.

For one, his species just announced he was coming one day, giving the human bureaucracy little time to prepare. Of course some people wanted to tell the aliens that we should negotiate, that they should at least give us time to make arrangements... But we simply had to accept.

This was another civilization with completely different understandings of diplomacy, negotiation, and peace. It was a miracle they had had the initiative to send us an ambassador in the first place. We simply could not waste this opportunity.

We hurried to prepare for his arrival, there had been so many things to consider: the gravity, the food, the atmosphere, and the communication...

Up to that point and since first contact both of our species, homosapiens and terosapiens, had communicated through a complex system of calling things by their molecular compositions and shapes. Even more complex, the shapes themselves were communicated through mathematical functions in three dimensions. This way we were able to talk about mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology fairly well.

To communicate more complex ideas like desires or fears we had to rely on biological features both of our species shared. For example, in this "language" the word for "need" was the same as "hunger" since the need for sustenance was the most basic need that both species could understand from each other.

"The state humans share is hungry to hold the one you give to us". This is what we finally decided to reply when we knew about the incoming ambassador. For contrast, the original phrase given to the translation engineers had been: "We want to receive your ambassador."

As you can imagine, there were Terosapien scientists who would receive this message and translate it into their own language so that the rest of the Terosapiens would understand it. With any luck, both sides would know what to do and what to expect from the other. 

As effective as this method of communication was, it was simply not an option for Thomas. It did not matter how much experience he had with the new Shared Language, it was so complex and confusing that in some cases it could take hours, and several tries, to communicate a simple thought.

For that reason I was chosen to learn the terosapien language, because I am a linguist, and I'm trying to say this as humbly as I can, but I am expert in isolated languages.

Now, what is an isolated language?, well, if you lower your guard I can go on and on about language families, classifications, language evolution, and what even IS a language?... but the short version I use with the friends of my wife is this: