universal translator n.

Italian Boasts Machine as Universal Translator.

[Kirk] The universal translator on the shuttlecraft. We can try that, talk to that thing. [Spock] The translator is for use with more congruent life forms. [Kirk] Adjust it, change it…. Adjusting the translator will give you something to do.

With a hard-won deftness, he extracted transit coupons from one folder, the visaed passport from another, gathered a medical clearance and a credit disk and a universal translator, working his way along the float until it was entering the slot between two control islands, within moments of the portal.

UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR U.F.P. STANDARD For communication between United Federation language forms and with unknown alien language forms in the Treaty exploration territory.

I don’t speak Austrian, you know. Do you have some kind of universal translator with you or something?

This time she used the surface dialect—a combination of hoots, clicks, grunts, and glottal stops that few non-Neanderthals could twist their tongues around. But she had a universal translator in her memory chip, part of her diplomatic equipment. He stared hard at her, plainly shocked that she could talk.

Much as I’d like to believe that all humanity needs to do is pack a universal translator when negotiating with aliens, I’m pretty sure that won’t really be the case.