h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Babel Fish (Bay-bell Fi-sh) n.
A small fish that fits inexplicably into the human ear, it lives off of endorphins and excretes language. The benefits of this are one fold - anyone with a Babel Fish in their ear will instantly be able to understand any language spoken to them.

Famous Babel Fish Users
Ford Prefect (Betalgeusian Guide Researcher)
Arthur Dent (Human Guide Researcher)
Trisha "Trillian" MacMillan (Human Astrophysicist)
Zaphod Beeblebrox (Deposed Betelgeusian Galactic President)

Origins of "Babel Fish"
The word "Babel" orinates from the tower of Babel, a potentially fictional stone tower in the bible which was built to reach God. Of course, God objected to this and as punishment smote the people with the gift of language. Almost instantly, everyone working on the tower became unable to speak legibly to one another as they were all speaking different languages!! The Babel fish was presumably created to correct this Godly error since when you get too many foreigners in the room you end up with a war on your hands.

*collapses with exhaustion*

now i've never played starship titanic but i have read the hitchhiker books, heard the original radio play, watched the tv series and been totally dumbfounded by the amazing contradictions between the three. what i do know is that the hitchhiker series, no matter what media it's on, is great and i recommend anyone here reads it.

ihaveblueshoes (and im not afraid to tell you)

I agree

Babelfish