starfishstar

FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Summary: Five Torchwood members, five language-related anecdotes. Or, Jack Harkness gets to know his team, one foreign language at a time.

Characters: Hail, hail, the gang’s all here! Meaning: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Tosh and Owen.

Words: 5x100

Rating: G

Notes: For challenge #342 at

tw100, “foreign language.”

Auuugh, sorry, I borrowed a bit of Sam Starbuck’s headcanon yet again, for Jack’s section.

Story also at AO3!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

1. Alien Language (Tosh)

Tosh flashed that disarming little smile Jack was quickly learning to associate with a stroke of even more brilliance than usual on her part.

“Oh,” she said. “That alien communiqué you were worried about? It just reads, ‘Greetings, Earth. Passing through your airspace. No harm intended.’”

Jack raised one eyebrow. “And you know this because…?”

“I wrote a program that compares all known languages in the database, and identifies patterns. Simple, really.”

Jack stared. But Tosh had already turned back to her computer screen, clearly not expecting praise or reaction. “And now I know why I hired you,” he murmured.

2. Welsh (Owen)

“No,” Owen said.

“Yes,” Jack said.

“No,” Owen repeated. “You are not telling me they write it as a double ‘L’, but then pronounce it like a cat hacking up a hairball.”

“Owen,” Jack said. “You’re from England. This is one of two official languages of a country with which you share a land border. How did the pronunciation of Welsh escape your notice for all these years?”

Owen gave a complicated shrug. “I was busy. With things that were actually important.”

Jack crossed his arms and regarded Owen, wondering if all their interactions were going to be like this.

3. Latin (Ianto)

“You speak Latin?” Jack demanded. Ianto had just dusted off a Roman-era tablet unearthed at a building site beyond the outskirts of Cardiff, read the text aloud in a smooth, clear voice, then not even paused before launching into a translation. That had definitely not been in his Torchwood One personnel file.

Ianto ducked his head modestly. “A bit. I dabbled in the Classics for a while.”

“What other skills are you hiding behind that mild façade?” Jack wondered, only half in jest.

Ianto smirked his devastating slow smirk. “I suppose you’ll have to find that out for yourself, sir.”

4. German (Gwen)

“Oh, I can’t, really,” Gwen protested. “I was always rubbish at languages at school.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “No one’s asking for an operatic aria here. But you admitted to knowing a song in German about a ladybird, and now none of us are going to let it drop until we’ve heard you sing it.”

Gwen giggled, smiling down at the little red insect that had alighted on her finger. Then she lifted her chin and sang in a surprisingly high, clear, sweet soprano voice:

“Marienwürmchen, setze dich
auf meine Hand, auf meine Hand,
ich tu dir nichts zu Leide.”

5. Not So Alien Language (Jack)

“Bnzik,” Jack said suddenly, voice slurred with sleep. “Al frabn?” It had been a late night of research, and even Jack “I Don’t Sleep” Harkness had conked out for a bit on the Hub’s sofa.

“Say what?” Gwen jerked upright in her chair, scrubbing a hand over her face.

“I said, how long was I asleep?”

“Ah, dunno,” Gwen muttered, not seeming to have noticed Jack’s lapse.

Ianto, quietly manning the coffee machine, wondered if it was the first time any of them had heard the 51^st century colony world language Jack liked to pretend he’d never grown up speaking.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(Updated, July 2016, to add: This fic now exists in multiple languages! Russian on AO3, German on AO3 or on DW. And especially given its language-themed subject matter, I would always be thrilled to see more translations from anyone who wants to try their hand at it...see here for more info!)

(Updated again to add: And now also in French!)