Is Riley a polyglot? Could her language skills help out the sensates? (Season 1 and 2 spoilers)
There's been many complaints on this forum about how Riley is the most useless member of the August 8 cluster. Many people have tried to talk around this, saying she's the emotional centre of the group. I disagree with this notion, however, and feel it's a cop-out answer for Riley's role in the group. Sure, Riley has a strong emotional threshold considering how well-adjusted she is despite all the trauma she's gone through and she looks out for the other sensates, particularly Will in the Christmas special. But that's not a trait unique to her. Sun, in addition to her ass-kicking abilities has shown great empathy for her fellow sensates and has advised them. The same can be said for Will. I don't believe being the "emotional centre" is Riley's unique selling point.
However, one thing that I haven't seen anyone mention yet is that Riley seems to have a real gift for languages. Her native language is Icelandic yet she is obviously fluent in English too. As evidenced by the Christmas special, she also speaks with Will's drug dealer in Dutch. Icelandic, English and Dutch are all Germanic languages so there is some relation in terms of vocabulary and sentence structures. However, this is still an impressive skills. Is it possible Riley was brought up learning multiple languages? Travel probably played a big part in her life with her father being a musician and it's implied she went to find herself following the death of her husband and child, possibly travelling around large swathes of Europe. Does Riley know any other languages and will the writers recognise that she could be helpful if the gang need to go globe hopping out of their respective countries? When she took over Kala's body in Positano, did she speak to the DJ in Italian or English (Positano being a touristy area would obviously have a lot of people with English).
I know this is still something of a soft skill as the cluster have at least 7 languages between them but Riley could fill in the blanks they don't have. Out of the major languages, there are no Mandarin, French or Portuguese speakers in the group. Maybe Riley can speak them? And yes, while it is rare, there are quite a number of people who can speak multiple languages from multiple different language families.
And I apologise, this topic is so verbose but seeing as we're talking about languages and I've seen no other topics on it. What languages do you think each member can speak?
Riley: Native Icelandic speaker. Fluent in English and also knows Dutch. Maybe more? Will: Native English speaker. Nomi: Native English speaker. Capheus: Native Swahili speaker. Confirmed at being very good at speaking English. May possibly know another cultural language of Kenya. Kala: Native Hindi speaker. It's likely she also has a high knowledge of English based on her wealthy background. English is an official language of India and is considered popular among the elite (correct me if I'm wrong). Tina Desai is also fluent in 3 other regional Indian languages (in addition to Hindi and English) so they may incorporate this into Kala's character too. Wolfgang: Native German speaker. It's possible he has a working knowledge of English based on his love of movies like Conan as well as his familiarity with 4 Non Blondes. May know some Russian based on his heritage. Lito: Native Spanish speaker. There's no real indication he speaks any other language. Sun: Native Korean speaker. Also has at least some knowledge of English as she is able to read an inscription in London when visiting Riley.
Posted Jan 5, 2017, 11:02 PM UTC · edited