History Main / StarfishLanguage

* Klingon is modeled after Navajo, but adds a bunch of extra complications just to mess with you. The subject of a sentence always goes on the ''end'', for example.
** Spoken Klingon actually started out as gibberish--James Doohan was tasked with coming up with a few [[ForeignSoundingGibberish sufficiently alien-sounding syllables]] for the Klingons at the beginning of the first movie, which he did without any real regard for syntax or grammar. It was only later that linguist Marc Okrand took those sounds and expanded upon them to create a working Klingon language. Amusingly, ''written'' Klingon (i.e., the visuals of the supposedly native characters, NOT the Roman-alphabet transcriptions) is still very much a starfish language--there is absolutely no correlation between the written and spoken languages; indeed, the former is more or less a random collection of "letters," and attempting to translate them is impossible.

* If aliens try to contact us, they might avert this by [[FirstContactMath using a mathematical sequence to communicate]], or show that they're intelligent. We have done that too: the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Message Arecibo Message]] beamed into space by SETI is in binary.
** [[ExaggeratedTrope But even human astronomers have trouble understanding what the Arecibo Message is supposed to mean]].

* The Basque language of the Pyrenees is unrelated to any other language on Earth, and notoriously hard to learn. According to the Basques, who take great pride in its near-Starfish qualities, the Devil himself once tried to learn the language and mastered only three words, presumably the words needed to express his opinion of the effort.
** One account holds that the three words were "Amore ematen dut"--I give up.

* In [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Moffitt Donald Moffitt's]] ''The Jupiter Theft'', the Cygnans speak a complex musical language based on absolute pitch of a tone instead of the relative pitch.

* In Karl Schroeder's *Permanence*, aliens can only communicate with humans *and other alien species* with the assistance of artificial intelligence. This is a major plot point, as it's one reason different species cannot get along and are destined to war with each other. [[spoiler: Except for a few exceptions, hidden by the powers that be.]]

* In Creator/RobinMcKinley's 2010 novel ''Pegasus'', Pegasus' language consists of much whuffling, tilting of heads and/or ears, body language/limb placement and gesturing with 'alula-hands' (tiny vestigial "fingers" at the joint of the wing) as well as a modified form of telepathy with certain humans. Humans, leave us say, are not... terribly good at learning it, though it is required for certain ceremonial occasions involving royalty.

* The Chur, from Katherine Kerr's ''Snare'', typically speak at a frequency so low humans cannot hear it, and also have their own well-defined body language.

* The Vhlani in ''Tangled Strings of The Marionettes'' "speak" via dancing. Humans, lacking tentacles, have considerable difficulty understanding them.

* The amphibious Betans in Creator/PoulAnderson's ''The Avatar'' have two different languages, a musical one spoken underwater and another spoken on land. The Betan the crew take back to Earth with them learns Spanish, but not English.

* In ''Lovely Assistant'' by Geoph Essex, Jenny experiences [[spoiler:non-linguistic sensory signals that help her "appointments" (she's a newly minted [[TheGrimReaper Grim Reaper]]) decide which path to take [[AfterlifeAntechamber through the afterlife]]]]. This comes in handy later, when it turns out that [[spoiler:the not-actually-Cthulhu creature goaded into destroying the world communicates using the same language of mental concepts]].

* [[http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=993 Ants talk by releasing pheromones into the air. I will leap to say it's like if we farted to each other to speak!]]

** They're also implied to use extra dimensions (both in space and time) to communicate with each other over great distances; one apologises for using this method in front of humans, claiming "''It is rude of us to commune by flux shifting in front of those whose vortal inputs are impaired.''"

-->'''The All-Knowing Vortigaunt''': "What seems to you a sacrifice is merely, to us, an oscillation. We do not fear the interval of darkness".

* ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'':
** [[StarfishAliens Starfish Non-Corporeal Thought Entity]] "Data Overmind" does not communicate through language. Since humans do, it created the interfaces who basically act as mediums for it.
** The Sky Canopy Domain is even worse. At least the Overmind figured out a pretty reliable method to talk to humans. This one? Its spokesman saying "You... have... pretty... eyes..." over a period of about 20 seconds is considered a remarkable advance for it. Their interface gets better at talking in the novel 10 teaser though. The reason they were unable to talk very well with humans initially is explained mostly due to the fact that they're StarfishAliens to the Overmind itself. The respective interfaces of the two meeting briefly [[spoiler: when the Canopy Domain tries to (kill?) Kyon.]] and talking for a few minutes is considered an amazing leap forward.

* Angelic language in ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex''. Since angels carry some concepts which can't be expressed in human language, angels and angel-like beings such as Aiwass, ArchangelGabriel, and [[spoiler:Accelerator]] express these concepts through this language, which is seen as a bunch of gibberish letters surrounding the kanji of the word closest to what the being means (like this: ihq'''DIE'''vbt). Even when speaking in a human language, they default to the angelic form when trying to say something human language cannot express:
-->"Although, 'born' is not quite the right word. It would be more correct to say wgk'''APPEAR'''skr... hmmm, the language cannot keep up."

** Luckily, the language is being updated to make it a bit easier to learn with each revision. The 2011 revision of Ithkuil has 45 consonants and 13 vowels, which is in between the 2004 version and Ilaksh. And as of 2023, the new revision -- called "[[http://www.ithkuil.net/ New Ithkuil]]" -- has 32 consonants and 9 vowels[[note]]actually 15 vowels, but most of them are now merged into pairs of allophones[[/note]], making the vowel inventory on par with Ilaksh. Not only that, its rules are more systematic and regularized, so that you can learn the language much potentially easier. {{NOT}}

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithkuil Ithkuil]] is an (in)famous artificial language first published in 2004 designed to "express deeper levels of human cognition overtly and clearly, particularly in regard to human categorization, yet briefly". In order to achieve this, its initial incarnation featured a phonological system of 65 consonants, 17 vowels and a god-awfully complex grammar designed to pack as much information, meaning and tone as possible in as little space as possible while removing any ambiguity as to what any given statement means or how it relates to anything else. Even its own designer wasn't a fluent speaker of the language. To quote a troper's thoughts on the original:

** Its later derivative, Ilàksh, was somewhat easier, but that wasn't saying much. The phonology was cut down to 30 consonants and 10 vowels, but there were new grammatical functions to consider that replaced old ones, and apparently all urges to be needlessly obtuse were funneled into [[http://web.archive.org/web/20090312010536/http://ithkuil.net/ilaksh/Chapter_11.htm the writing system.]] The current (and final) version isn't much bigger in terms of phonology, and its grammar has been subtly streamlined, with evocative visual aids and explanations. Still, good luck learning to form even the simplest sentences in this beast. [[http://ithkuil.net/00_intro.html Check it out... if you dare.]]
** The 2011 newly revised version of Ithkuil has 45 consonants and 13 vowels, which is in between the 2004 version and Ilaksh.

* One episode of ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' reveals that [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Whitelighters]] have their own clicking language. [[NegativeContinuity This is never referenced again]], and another episode shows them as [[{{Omniglot}} fluent in whatever language(s) their charges speak]].

'''[[Creator/RowanAtkinson The Doctor]]:''' Yes. I can communicate with the Master by carefully controlled breaking of wind.\\
'''Emma:''' ... could I be tied to a different chair?
-->-- ''Recap/DoctorWhoTheCurseOfFatalDeath''

* In the second installment of Garth Nix's ''Literature/KeysToTheKingdom'' --([[DayOfTheWeekName Grim Tuesday]])--[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner the Mariner,]] Captain Tom Shelvocke refers to the starship Helios as having probably been copied from "๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑ or [=Æ=]Ω∂∞ƒ‡." The human [[spoiler: (for now)]] hero, Arthur, is unsure whether these are the names of worlds, countries, or beings.

* Several from the Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse. The Vahni Vahltupali communicate visually, flashing patterns across their skin. They can even "sing". The Citoac, meanwhile, communicate by using sounds of a pitch that stimulates the brain of another being, directly influencing their neurology. Efrosian language is music-based, and they can describe complex equations, schematics and diagrams by humming. The languages of several aquatic races such as the Alonis are also musical.
* In the [[TabletopGame/{{Eberron}} Dragon Below Trilogy]], the [[StarfishAliens Daelkyr]] with no mouth communicates using telepathy, but it happens to be completely incomprehensible to people who are not stark raving mad ([[TheDragon Dah'mir]], [[BigBadFriend Vennet]], and [[BlackMagicianGirl Medala]] are the only ones who ever actually manage to understand what he is saying), and listening to it for too long is probably going to drive you stark raving mad anyway.
* In Robert Jordan's ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', wolves communicate in howls and telepathy and primarily deal with smells and images. According to Perrin, human tongues just can't compare. For instance, his name to them is given as "Young Bull", but it's actually an image of a huge bull with the blade of the axe that he uses for much of the series in place of its horns, as well as a series of smells, and the wolf "Hopper"'s actual name is a memory of a wolf pup jumping and snapping at birds, trying to learn to fly.

* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxyTrilogy'', dolphins' warnings of the earth's impending destruction were mistaken for their trying to perform tricks.

* [[http://jbr.me.uk/lingo.html This article]] includes some interesting notes on very foreign languages and an index of science fiction stories that have tackled the idea of alien languages.
* The language of the Knnn race in ''[[Literature/ChanurNovels The Chanur Saga]]'', which consists of whale song-like vocalizations. Their language is so alien as to be completely incomprehensible to oxygen breathers, and even the methane-breathing T'ca and Chi have trouble with it. The T'ca and Chi are ''themselves'' only half comprehensible in turn -- the T'ca, most comprehensible and friendly of them and unofficial go-betweens for Oxy and Methane, speak in "matrix sentences" of words arranged two-dimensionally with no particular reading order or discernable grammar.
** In ''Literature/FortyThousandInGehenna'', set elsewhere in the same universe, the native inhabitants of the world humans call Gehenna [[spoiler: communicate using patterns made by arranging the ground itself, both small stacked pebbles and massive earthworks.]]

* The Octospiders from the [[Literature/RamaII sequels]] to ''Literature/RendezvousWithRama''. Not only are they actual starfish (well, starfish-like) but they speak with colors that come out of their 'heads' in a little fountain, and working out a way to translate them into speech is a major plot point -- and turns out to be both very difficult and remarkably ineffective, due to the fact that they not only use a number of colors that people cannot see but also have a number of terminologies that simply do not translate at all.
** Also seen in ''{{VideoGame/Rama}}'', though only used as a puzzle element.

* The languages of Tlon described by Creator/JorgeLuisBorges in "Literature/TlonUqbarOrbisTertius" have no nouns but only verbs or adjectives, reflecting the philosophy of its speakers (they see the world not as a set of objects with continuity in time, but a succession of events and transitory qualities). To speakers of these languages, a story about one man losing some coins and another finding them becomes a paradoxical MindScrew.
** For instance: one Tlonese language would translate "the moon rose above the river" as "upward behind the onstreaming it enmooned" while another would come up with something like "silver-bright-high cold-wet-flowing-low."
* The linguist protagonist of Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life", studying an alien language, gets a clue from the writing system that is large pictures: the structure isn't linear, the whole structure is simultaneous. Learning it properly means reorienting your own psychology in such a way that you experience your entire life at once. Interestingly, their spoken language is far simpler but doesn't provide nearly as much insight into their worldview. The short story has been adapted into a film called ''Film/{{Arrival}}''.

* In Orson Scott Card's ''Literature/ChildrenOfTheMind'', the protagonists encounter an alien species that communicates at least partially via neurotransmitters: the first radio message they get from the aliens are instructions for an opiate. Nobody's sure whether it's meant to be debilitating or pacifying.
* The entire reason for the war with the Buggers in ''Literature/EndersGame'' was (1) our radically different conceptions of individual personhood and (2) our inability to communicate that prevented the Buggers from apologizing and trying to make peace once they realized the mistake they had made -- a rather dark take on this trope.
** To be sure, the higher-ups in the International Fleet suspected that the Buggers may be trying to communicate, but without an ability to understand them, they have to proceed as if they're not.
* In the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse, we find that Twi'leks -- the humanlike aliens with twin [[BizarreAlienBiology braintails]] on their heads in place of hair -- use their braintails in conversation much the same way humans use our hands, though they have a vocal language and can speak Basic (English) quite well. In "[[Literature/XWingSeries X-Wing: The Krytos Trap]]" Wedge is taught to use his hands to make specific gestures while trying to bargain with a [[ProudWarriorRace Proud Warrior Race Twi'lek]]. There is actually a language of braintail signals which apparently makes a running commentary, which comes up rarely. Oola was surprised to find that C-3PO understood it, and during the Clone Wars Aayla Secura tried to conceal her attraction to Kit Fisto by claiming it was just that he was one of the few people who bothered to learn braintail -- and since he had his own sensory tentacles on his head, he could even speak it.

** Muun supposedly consists entirely of two sounds, "um" and "eh," said at various pitches to create compound words. It's similar to droid Binary and Muuns consider it to be "mathematically perfect." It [[ConLang didn't evolve naturally]] even InUniverse, though, and most Muuns are also fluent in [[CommonTongue Basic]].

** ''Literature/LittleFuzzy'' (now available in a free ebook from Project Gutenberg) hinges on whether the title species possesses language. As it turns out, [[spoiler:they do, but it's at a frequency level out of the range of human hearing.]]
** The short story "Naudsonce" hinged on trying to make sense of a new alien race's speech. [[spoiler: It's based on the tactile sensations of specific frequencies -- in essence, they ''feel'' speech rather than hearing it.]]
* H.G. Wells' lunar-dwelling, insectoid Selenites communicate through piping whistles and cricket-like chirps in ''Literature/TheFirstMenInTheMoon'', along with hints of telepathy. Their language is impossible for their human prisoner Cavor to understand or even mimic, but the Selenites themselves quickly decipher English and devote two specialized members to speaking to and understanding Cavor, respectively.
* A species of LittleGreenMen from Dan Simmon's ''Literature/{{Illium}}'' and ''Olympos'' communicate by a sort of biological telepathy with the side effect that when they're done they shrivel up and die, much to the horror of the man who discovers them. Presumably they were created artificially.

* The Mother Thing from Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/HaveSpacesuitWillTravel'' sings when she speaks, and only the person she is speaking to can understand what she's saying.
--> '''Kip''': I called [another alien] Joe and he called me the leitmotif that meant "Clifford Russell, the monster with the frostbite."

* A partial example: ''The Widget, the Wadget, and Boff'' is written as if partially translated from an alien language. The occasional word or phrase appears surrounded by double square brackets, intended to convey that it represents the closest approximation to the (literally untranslatable, referring to objects, situations, or actions completely outside our frame of reference) original.
* Creator/BruceCoville's ''Literature/MyTeacherIsAnAlien'' series has fun with this -- many could speak audibly, but some communicated in weird ways like reflecting light off of their bodies. In addition the stories point out that even vocal languages use gestures, which their UniversalTranslator was also able to work with.
** Other examples from this series include communicating with tinkling music, armpit farts, extremely loud screeching, waving or tugging on your nose, and rearranging (or popping) large boils.
* The Yilané in Creator/HarryHarrison's ''Literature/WestOfEden'' trilogy have such a complex language, incorporating sounds, body language, and skin color, that even many Yilané never manage to learn it. Mastery of the language is a factor in social status. The one human who has learned the language is only able to speak a pidgin version of it, lacking a tail which is required to get certain ideas across.
* The Rambosians from Jasper Fforde's ''Literature/NurseryCrime'' books speak in Binary. While they helpfully render it as 0s and 1s for humans, full-speed binary sounds like cloth tearing, and humanity's foremost expert converses as well as a programmable toaster.

** A major plot point in ''Literature/{{Embassytown}}''. The resident [[StarfishAliens Ariekei]] have two mouths, and speak different streams of language out of both at once--every word consists of two sounds overlapping. On top of this, if the words do not have a conscious intent behind them, the Ariekei perceive them as meaningless noise, so they are unable to understand computer-generated speech or recordings. The only way humans can successfully communicate with them is via pairs of psychically linked clones, each speaking one of the two layers of dialogue at the same time.

* In ''Literature/PandorasStar'' and ''Literature/JudasUnchained'', Ozzie meets a {{Starfish Alien|s}} that is thought to be mute by all the people caring for it. [[spoiler: He discovers that it actually communicates by projecting UV shapes that form a pictographic language.]]

* The Graycaps in Jeff [=VanderMeer's=] ''Literature/{{Ambergris}}''-books speak mostly in rapid clicks and whistles that sound vaguely insectoid to human listeners, who have mostly concluded that their language must be too degenerate to properly deserve the title -- as it turns out, it's in fact far more complex than any human language and utterly impossible to translate accurately. They understand human speech perfectly, but only begin to use themselves it in the third book, ''Finch''. They are also implied to communicate by breathing spores of their symbiotic fungi on each other.
* The aliens in the Creator/IsaacAsimov short story ''Playboy and the Slime God'' (a.k.a. ''[[WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove What is This Thing Called Love?]]'') communicate by changing their color.

* In ''Literature/StrangerInAStrangeLand'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein, Martians speak in a "throat-scratching" language with many concepts that can only be expressed within it. A phonetic script devised for it has over eighty characters. Humans can, in fact, speak and learn it; it's the key to enlightenment.

* Inverted in [[Creator/TerryPratchett The Bromeliad Trilogy]], in which the tiny nomes can't understand humans because our speech is too slow and deep for these fast-living creatures' miniscule inner ears to make out. They refer to the sounds made by humans as "mooing".

* In Creator/JohnScalzi's ''The Android's Dream'', the race of aliens who have [[SarcasmMode benignly]] colonized Earth ''can'' speak English but their primary form of communication is through pheremonal mixtures far too subtle for humans to pick up. [[PlayingWithATrope In an interesting take on this,]] at the start of the novel, a politician who has been gravely insulted by the primary alien diplomat figures out how to speak this language himself so he can insult the alien in an important meeting without being detected. [[RuleOfFunny He does this with a device that alters the chemical composition of his farts.]] It helps that the alien diplomat in question is known for frequently attacking humans, whose scents he misinterprets as insults, refusing to believe that humans ''can't'' modulate their smells (all human diplomats are instructed to shower and scrub themselves before meeting these aliens and to avoid using deodorant).
-->''Dirk Moeller didn't know if he could fart his way into a major diplomatic incident. But he was ready to find out.''
** This seems to be a thing for the author, as the [[BlobMonster Yherajk]] in his ''Literature/AgentToTheStars'' novel communicate exclusively through ''very'' strong odors, although some have learned to produce sound with their gelatinous bodies and speak English. They are considerate enough to make noseplugs for any human who visits their ship, and even those can be overwhelmed by "loud" conversations of thousands of crewmembers. They also have something called "tivis", which are "smell paintings" of sorts, and are designed to trigger certain emotions in all those who sniff them. Surprisingly, they also work on humans despite our completely different biology.

* In ''Lovely Assistant'' (by Geoph Essex), Jenny experiences [[spoiler: non-linguistic sensory signals that help her "appointments" (she's a newly minted GrimReaper) decide which path to take [[AfterlifeAntechamber through the afterlife]].]] This comes in handy later, when it turns out [[spoiler: the [[OurMonstersAreDifferent not-actually-Cthulhu creature]] goaded into destroying the world communicates using the same language of mental concepts.]]
* Played with in "Aftermath", a short story from ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' told from Murphy's POV. In it, Murphy repeatedly points out her fluency in Martian ... which is merely the "language" of grunts, mumbles, snorts, postures, and facial expressions used by human males to communicate unspoken, manly messages to one another. Without even realizing they're using a Starfish Language while doing so.
* The Etiquette section of ''[[Literature/{{Discworld}} Nanny Ogg's Cookbook]]'' includes some information on Literature/{{Discworld}}'s version of the "language of flowers" tradition. Being written by Nanny Ogg, it not only explains that flowers could once be used, like navy signal flags, to say all sorts of things, but goes on to describe some [=NSFW=] gardens.

* In the Literature/DoctorDolittle books, it is explained that animals communicate not only by sound, but by movements of noses, ears, tails etc. The film adaptation sadly shied away from showing us the good doctor faithfully reproducing animal-speak in this fashion.

* In [[Creator/StanislawLem Stanislaw Lem's]] ''Eden'' the aliens communicate in frequency-modulated acoustic noises and write in static electric charges (which also allows them to animate their drawings). Crash-landed humans manage to jury-rig a "navigation [[TechnologyMarchesOn calculator]]" to translate their speech. While they have no problems with mathematical concepts, linguistics, or other natural sciences (and use them to teach the calculator), when they start talking about the alien society, the calculator keeps saying "no term" for half the words. Humans set the calculator to create new words as needed (one character says "talk like a schizophrenic"), and it invents words like "selfpres" for self preservation instinct or "procrustics" (from Procrustes) for science of controlling society with careful dosage of information, which forces citizens to form isolated groups and enforce strict conformism within groups. As it turned out, this all was a fairly recent invention, result of several decades of planet-wide dictatorial rule.
** Earlier in the same novel humans at one point mused that [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall if they were in an SF novel]] they were in a perfect place to meet an alien with a UniversalTranslator, or better yet, a telepath.
* In Joe Haldeman's short story "A !Tangled Web," the alien !tang (who look like "ambulatory haystacks") speak in a language that consists mostly of glottal clicks, and their native tongue is a thicket of convoluted metaphors and nonhuman concepts. Their equivalent of "I'm sorry" is especially amusing.
* ''Literature/Babel17'' by Creator/SamuelRDelany is built around the idea [[LanguageEqualsThought how language affects thoughts and perception]]. The eponymous Babel-17 is a language without 1st person pronouns ("I", "me", "my"...) and turns out to be [[spoiler:used for programming humans]]. It has a side effect of improving mental capabilities of people using the language. But despite its oddities it isn't truly alien; it was probably created by humans. The alien languages are mentioned in passing and described as very hard to comprehend. For example: an alien saw a power plant, liked the idea (they never had anything like them) and described it to another alien in 5 words. The other alien built a working power plant. On the other hand, they need tens of words to translate the English word "home" (temperature is mentioned several times). And that is the easiest to understand species.
* The ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series has twelve different Galactic languages to accomodate the wide variety in vocal apparati, humans can only speak Gal 7.
** And then there's Trinary, which is spoken by uplifted dolphins and translated as haiku. Though many of the human characters understand the clicks and whistles.
** On the other hand Aliens tend to see Anglic as either a horrifically messy primitive language, or charmingly ambiguous.
* The language of the [[InsectoidAliens insectoid Thranx]] in {{Creator/Alan Dean Foster}}'s Literature/HumanxCommonwealth books is based on clicks, whistles, and hand gestures. Humans can speak it passably, though not having spiracles, mandibles, or four arms makes it difficult; Thranx have similar difficulties speaking human languages without lips or lungs. Eventually a common language is developed that both species can pronounce.
* The Jan in ''Literature/AlienInASmallTown'' have a natural sonar sense, and communicate by projecting a rough approximation of the echoes that different objects would give off. The author acknowledges that the idea first appeared in the novel ''A Deeper Sea'' by Alexander Jablokov--a novel in which this is how whales and dolphins communicate.

* The language developed in [[Creator/JanuszZajdel Janusz Zajdel's story "Paradyzja"]] is a heavily bastardized language spoken on a [[spoiler: supposed]] space station. Due to the place being wired with an all-seeing, all-hearing AI which filters "disloyal" words, residents cobble together something known as "koalang" (associative-allusive language). The words have no inherent meaning, and everything is based on loose associations: for example, the sentence "I dreamt about blue angels last night carelessly" means "Police tried to search my place last night, but they were careless and woke me up". As one of the characters says, "everyone becomes an abstract poet by neccesity".
* ''Literature/CakesInSpace'' Astra notes that the Poglites' language, when she turns her translator off, sounds like belching.

* Played with in the ''Literature/{{Lensmen}}'' series. The Lens is the perfect translator, especially when dealing with those races which are exclusively telepathic and have no spoken language at all, but sometimes it comes across a ''concept'' that simply doesn't translate between two species and then it will form a neologism which is forever after associated with that concept.
** Played more straight in ''Triplanetary'', in which the Nevians finally realize why their attempts to communicate with their human prisoners are getting nowhere and build a frequency changer to make each side's speech audible to the other. For his part, Costigan dips out on trying to teach the Nevians "the senseless intricacies of English", settling for the common constructed Triplanetarian language already agreed between humans, Venusians and Martians.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Young Justice|2010}} Invasion'' the Kroloteans own language are screeching noises, and the Reach's own language are clicking noises. Miss Martian notes that the Kroloteans are "too alien" for her to have any easy time reading their minds without effort.

** Pierson's Puppeteers have a highly complex musical language [[note]]Note that musical does not necessarily mean pleasant to listen to, as it has been described as sounding like "an exploding steam calliope" or "a church choir being burnt alive"[[/note]].

* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'' setting contains several examples. The Outsiders communicate with colored light, and the Pierson's Puppeteers have a highly complex musical language [[note]]Note that musical does not necessarily mean pleasant to listen to, as it has been described as sounding like "an exploding steam calliope" or "a church choir being burnt alive"[[/note]].

* ''Toys/{{BIONICLE}}: The Search for the Mask of Light'' depicts the Matoran language as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNF4p5CmUiI&t=2m12s a deep and distorted, mechanical rumbling]]. Appropriate, considering all the Matoran Universe residents are biomechanical.

*** Deep Space Nine had the Breen. Their speech sounded like digital nonsense and static but was easily understood by their Collective allies. They are a mysterious species who wear refrigeration suits despite living on a planet with a mild temperature.

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'':

* Angelic language in ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex''. Since angels carry some concepts which can't be expressed in human language, angels and angel-like beings such as Aiwass, ArchangelGabriel, and [[spoiler:Accelerator]] express these concepts through this language, which is seen as a bunch of gibberish letters surrounding the kanji of the word closest to what the being means (like this: ihq'''DIE'''vbt). Even when speaking in a human language, they default to the angelic form when trying to say something human language cannot express:

* Parts of ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'' are narrated by [[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya Kuyou]], one of the [[StarfishAliens Sky Canopy's interfaces]] mentioned above. At first, her narration is barely English, peppered with astronomical references/analogies and a few words standing in for some apparently untranslatable concepts ("spin", "string", "song", "chorus", etc.) and plain confusion with humanity's culture (for example, she considers the simple act of ''[[MundaneMadeAwesome cooking]]'' a magnificent, awe-inspiring process). Over chapters, her inner dialogue becomes more understandable as she learns more about humanity and her character develops.

** [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy The movie]] tones down Groot's intelligence, but he still can communicate a lot through the simple sentence "I am Groot" [[spoiler:(and even more so with "''[[HeroicSacrifice We...]]'' [[HeroicSacrifice are... Groot]]")]]. Initially, only Rocket is able to make out what he's saying but by the second film all the Guardians understand him without issue.

* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', dolphins' warnings of the earth's impending destruction were mistaken for their trying to perform tricks.

* ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' ''Invasion'' the Kroloteans own language are screeching noises, and the Reach's own language are clicking noises. Miss Martian notes that the Kroloteans are "too alien" for her to have any easy time reading their minds without effort.

* ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'': The weird noises that baby Sunny makes are treated like this, with her siblings understanding her perfectly.

* The Rambosians from Jasper Fforde's ''Literature/NurseryCrime'' books speak in Binary. While they helpfully render it as 0's and 1's for humans, full-speed binary sounds like cloth tearing, and humanity's foremost expert converses as well as a programmable toaster.

* [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings The Ents]] speak an incredibly complex language that is entirely incomprehensible to all other creatures (with even the Wizards and the wisest Elves being unable to make any headway with it). This is partly due to the tonal nature of the language (it appears to consist not of words, but of extended fluctuating sound), partly because of cultural conventions (there is no such thing as a simple statement; even something as simple as a negative answer includes the entire reasoning and thought process behind the Ent's position) and partly because the language possesses no common nouns (every individual thing is given a unique name that consists of a description of its entire history). Ents acknowledge that their language is impractical for casual conversation, typically adopting a variation using the syntax and grammar of Elvish languages (while still using their own vocabulary, meaning the language is still incomprehensible). They are also reasonably fluent in most other languages.

* ''Webcomic/DriveDaveKellet'':
** The Fillipod language is an extremely complicated, musical tongue that most other species can’t physically speak, since their mouths can’t make the “[[http://www.drivecomic.com/archive/151222.html wild undulations]]” that the Fillipod language relies on.
** The Nyx language is even worse. It appears to use future tenses that incorporate quantum uncertainty, meaning that normally binary states like on/off and alive/dead are understood as existing on gradients of possibility. Further, the exact meaning of a statement can change seemingly arbitrarily between sentences or even as it is being spoken. Finally, though their language is constantly changing, the Nyx understand everything they say as being the only thing that could possibly have been true at that moment -- and if you ask the same question a moment later, they’ll give a completely different answer that they’ll see as self-evidently the only thing that could have been spoken in ''that'' moment. The Nyx find navigating this language as easy as breathing, but other species find it literally impossible to understand it. Even when they speak other languages, they have a strange way to use tenses, often using the future perfect tense at all times, that makes them difficult to understand.
** The Makers on the other hand seem to speak a language that should be pronouncable to most species, but has so many subtleties and context-specific nuances that most Imperial translator implants can only make out one word in ten at best. Even a Fillipod scientist who'd previously shown fluency in several different languages had a MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels result when he [[http://www.drivecomic.com/archive/180222.html tried to speak it]].