Let Me Explain the Language Barrier (Patreon)

(Making this a free/public post because I foresee linking back to it at some point.)

I know there’s a lot of confusion about the language barrier between some animals (largely predator and prey) so let me try to answer it!

THE WHY

It was a really early story decision to have a language barrier for the narrative purpose of predator animals having the cognitive dissidence to eat other sentient things. It’s harder to eat someone if they are begging or cursing in your native language. That’s my narrative reason for ‘why.’

The language barrier was also a nice way to introduce Egg as a go-between, and she serves as an example of where the Hollow is at with predators (knocking out teeth.)

But then I was also bored stiff of the idea of Rask learning a spoken language. There’s a limited amount of time I can spend on pages (or that you, dear reader, can spending waiting on pages,) and I just didn’t want to waste it on something that slowed down getting to the actual meat of the story I wanted to tell.

So, I adjusted my own idea of their ‘language’ but I failed to really convey the exact flavor of handwavium I was going for in the text of the story. (I say failed but I didn't really try to. This is a longer side-story but suffice to say, around page 80 when Rask meets the Hollow animals, I was at a major crossroads. I wasn't sure if I wanted to make Oren's Forge a 'real' story or just end it/quit [this was before Patreon and working on the comic was putting me pretty deep into debt]. I decided to keep going though, and part of that decision was getting to the story I really wanted to tell as quickly as I could. That did not involve Rask sitting around learning a language.)

The species language divide is wide and deep. Most humans go their whole lives only talking to other humans! *joke*

But for real, interspecies communication exists - you can slow blink at a cat and have them slow blink back (which means, ‘we are both relaxed,’) or you can play-bow at a dog and have them rocket off into hyperspace. It’s less about learning specific words and more about creating common ground/shared meaning. A dog will learn words, don’t get me wrong, but a dog is never going to learn grammar. Which brings me to…

TL;DR

I think that the animals are communicating through a mixture of spoken language, body language and scent/pheromones. I chose ‘speed’ as a metric in the comic because fluid body language and scent are hard (for me) to portray coherently on a static page. They “speak too fast” is a quick, easy way to convey “they can’t understand each other super well.”

So, a wolf could learn to talk to a rabbit, if they cared enough to try. Would it look like English words? No, but I want to tell you a story so I am translating all the smelly, wiggly, croaking, growling head tilts for you into English.

SPECIFICALLY, BY CHARACTER…

- Sibyl and Hemlock understand predators because they’ve been around them/made a study of their natures.

- Oren has his own reasons for why he simply does not engage with wolves (you can read Oren and the One-Eyed Wolf if you wanna know more.) He is much more open to Rask and Egg given their situation, and is willing to listen/approach.

- The Zenith wolves and bison understand each other because they spend their whole lives in close proximity to one another.

- Rask can speak readily to other predators because on a behavioral level, they share a lot in common. I also think since he’s lower on the food chain, paying attention to other predators when they speak becomes a survival strategy.

(I’d liken it to how in parts of Europe, you are just expected to learn English as a second language. For example, Rask’s native tongue is 'French' but he also fluently speaks 'English' to increase his opportunities out in the wider world.)

- I’d say it’s pretty common for small/mid sized predators and omnivores to be able to at least roughly understand one another, as well as understand larger predators. Conversely, apex predators (bears, wolves, cougars) have very little conversational interaction with other species and have zero experience trying to communicate beyond “go away” or whatever (which is easy to convey with body language). They only rarely communicate with any species other than their own.

- Like apex predators, most prey animals (rabbits, mice, hares) are also insular and typically only hang around others of their same species. I think a rabbit can talk to a hare without much trouble, but a rabbit might have to spend time around squirrels/mice before they are fluent with one anothers’ (spoken-, body-, chemical-) language.

BUT WHAT DO THE COLORS MEAN?

- Green bubble means prey animals can understand.

- Red bubble means predators can understand.

- White bubble means everyone in the conversation can understand.

So that’s how I think about the language barrier(s). I hope that helps!

(If you are still confused, that’s okay. It’s less narratively important than I had originally planned 10+ years ago, but I’m here and working with what I got.)