One of the trademarks of "Aeon Flux" is gibberish-sounding speech that is often heard from the breen soldiers and also from the reporter in the first season. I always assumed that Chung was just reducing the speech to something unintelligible so that the viewer would focus on the physical actions taking place between the characters, rendering what the reporter was saying as uninportant. But I've heard speculation from Philip that this is another language, maybe the language that Una is translating in "Isthmus Crypticus". Plus there's Scaphandra with her foreign accent... Is Monica/Bregna a multilingual population?

-- Mat Rebholz (mer5@dana.ucc.nau.edu), July 09, 1998

Answers

Undoubtedly, the speech was originally intended to be unfocused. Remember, direct speech was not allowed in the first seasons. But later, I think Chung tried to explain yet another of the oddities of Aeon Flux by continuing it's use and declaring it a language. As to its origins, assuming Berognicans spoke the same language, its probably some sort of Breen military code that was adopted by the soldiers since their lives would revolve around it. While it is not entirely consistant, Una's reference to "skolati-middle/high-breen", the fact that Aeon (supposedly very knowledgeable) cannot interpret it, and the several documents written in this almost hieroglyphic language are evidence of it's implimented use, if not popularity. Remembering also the IQ limit imposed upon Breens, perhaps it is a far more basic, and intentionally unintelligable method of communication.

-- Philip Mills (philip.mills@cableinet.co.uk), July 09, 1998.

From what I gather, "Middle-high" is an actual linguistics term, though I'm still looking into it. I've heard real life referrences to a distinction between "high German" and "low German".

-- Mat Rebholz (mer5@dana.ucc.nau.edu), July 09, 1998.

Una says, "This appears to be in... skolati(sp) middle-high Breen... huh. Somebody didn't want someone to read this..." That last part seems to suggest that this language is uncommon or difficult. But who says that the mumbling speech has to be linked with the cryptic documents Una translates? They could be different languages. Perhaps the language the documents are in has no spoken usage, it could be just a code language.

-- Mat Rebholz (mer5@dana.ucc.nau.edu), July 10, 1998.

Absolutely - except that they don't tend to teach top secret military codes in university.

-- Philip Mills (philip.mills@cableinet.co.uk), July 11, 1998.

I always assumed after seeing Isthmus Crypticus that the mumbling, gibberishy language used occasionally by soldiers and the press was Scolati. Due to the simple style of the speech and the relatively simplistic alphabet i tend to think of it as the language of the less educated, a sort of proletariat tongue. Example: the news story on the plague insect in one of the first shorts seemed geared at those with very little understanding of or education in biology, whereas the story in Thanatophobia about the medical plant bombings, something probably more intellectual, was in english.

-- alex (meat_machine@hotmail.com), November 10, 1998.

The document translated into "Skolati Middle-High Breen" makes me think of how the U.S. government translated (and stored) many of its top-secret documents into Navajo, presumably to add another level of security. Since the number of people who speak Navajo is very small, the chances of the document being decyphered if it fell into the 'wrong' hands was slim.

-- Zach (rapacity@usa.net), November 12, 1998.

The document translated into "Skolati Middle-High Breen" makes me think of how the U.S. government translated (and stored) many of its top-secret documents into Navajo, presumably to add another level of security. Since the number of people who speak Navajo is very small, the chances of the document being decyphered if it fell into the 'wrong' hands was slim.

On the subject of accents, in "The Demiurge", is it just me or does Cilia have a slight Australian accent?

-- Zach (rapacity@usa.net), November 12, 1998.

I don't think the unintelligible background language we hear in various episodes really has anything to do with what Una's translating for Fon. I'll have to go back to the tape and listen more closely, but doesn't Una say that it looks like a cross between Scalotti and Middle High Breen? Her remark that someone sure didn't want anyone to be able to translate it leads me to think that it's strictly a code language, and probably composed of two very different languages, making it harder to break - like if you mixed Hebrew and Spanish, which aren't anything alike.

High German and Low German is commonly used to refer to the dialectical difference between the language as it is spoken in the north (Low German or Plattdeutsch) vs. the south (High German).

-- Stephen Fuller (stepfull@aol.com), January 23, 2000.

Just re-watched the Isthmus Crypticus episode and I was wrong. Una does say "Scalotti Middle High Breen" as if it were all one language, not two. So there goes that theory.

-- Stephen Fuller (stepfull@aol.com), January 23, 2000.