Theory on Petrie's Speech

[FlipperBoidSkua]

I'm not sure if someone already expressed this theory, but I wanna share my idea and see what you guys think of it.

Okay, so Petrie speaks in broken English and is the only one in the Gang to do so since the beginning. Well, living in California, I know plenty of people here who also speak in broken English and they all share the same reason: English is not the first language and they're still learning.

I notice that Petrie is the only Flyer in the original movie to actually talk. All the other Flyers chirp and squawk and make animal noises. Perhaps that 'animal noise' is Flyer language. The director knew pterosaurs were not dinosaurs and so probably gave them their own community seperate from the dinosaurs. Petrie learned how to speak with Leaf Eaters, but can only manage a 'broken' version.

Now in the sequels we see that Flyers are just like all the other dinosaurs. Well, from a production standpoint, the new director and producers probably didn't know that there was a reason for Petrie's broken speech and made it his personal quirk. In the LBT universe itself, perhaps Flyers have to learn to speak Leaf Eater (or Sharptooth, depending on them) and Petrie's just having a hard time with his learning skills compared to his siblings.

Not sure how well this theory holds up and it might actually be useless, but I just wanted to share. Sorry if I'm annoying people. :unsure:

[Ptyra]

That works quite a bit!

[Pangaea]

That's actually a really good theory! You make a good point about undisclosed backstories and concepts from the original movie not carrying over to the sequels due to a different production staff. It reminds me of a discrepancy I noticed some time ago regarding Spike's age in relation to the rest of the gang. As everyone who's familiar with the original LBT should know, Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, and (presumably) Petrie were already at least a few years old at the time Spike hatched, yet in the very first sequel, another spiketail who is clearly meant to be much younger than Spike appears during the credits. It would seem that even the makers of the second film didn't realize that Spike was himself a hatchling at the time the gang arrived in the Great Valley. Until now, though, I've never considered the possibility that the original reason for Petrie's speech was also "forgotten" after the first movie. This makes me wonder what other background information from the first movie might have been lost in transit between films.

You certainly aren't annoying anyone with this post, Sparky. If you have other theories like this one, I think we'd all love to hear them.

[DarkHououmon]

Interesting theory. It does make sense.

[Malte279]

As everyone who's familiar with the original LBT should know, Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, and (presumably) Petrie were already at least a few years old at the time Spike hatched...

Not necessarily. We tend to assume that the time leap between Littlefoot's hatching scene and his gnawing on a stick would be several years, but actually I think there are several good indicators that it may have been a much shorter time frame.
We tend to believe that it would take years for the characters to learn how to talk, but as a matter of fact Ducky (who would have not grown at all judging from the lack of difference in size between her hatch scene and pretty much every other scene in the original movie) utters her first word (Mama) just seconds after she hatches.
In the sequels (which I admit are of limited use when it comes to making theories about the original) Chomper too seems to have mastered the art of speaking fairly quickly (alternative explanations for his command of leafeater language in LBT V are likely and possible, but remain fanfiction).
In the original movie Ducky also considers the possibility that Littlefoot may not be able to talk yet when first meeting him, which does not suggest that she would presume him to be many years old. For all we know based on the original movie the characters might be just weeks or months old at the end of the movie. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the time gap after the cut covered a timespan of several years or even a single one. The assumption is based only on real life development speed of humans and the presumption of them to be of a certain age. I think there was even some non-English book suggesting an age of five or six years or so, but to what degree that is to be accepted as canon can also be argued.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

I'd buy that broken English one. That's actually quite sensible

And Pangaea, I have always wondered where that other Spiketail came from in the end of the second film. I mean, Spike lives with duckbills. He doesn't have spiketail parents around to have siblings.

Yes, the spiketail could be (and arguably must be) completely unrelated to him, but then why does the movie give it any screentime at all, or assume it carries the weight of the others' siblings?

[EggStealerGirl]

You know, this theory does actually work!

And even if this wasn't Bltuh's actual intention at all, this still is a very great way of thinking about it! ^^

You really are onto something here!

[Pangaea]

As everyone who's familiar with the original LBT should know, Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, and (presumably) Petrie were already at least a few years old at the time Spike hatched...

Not necessarily. We tend to assume that the time leap between Littlefoot's hatching scene and his gnawing on a stick would be several years, but actually I think there are several good indicators that it may have been a much shorter time frame.
We tend to believe that it would take years for the characters to learn how to talk, but as a matter of fact Ducky (who would have not grown at all judging from the lack of difference in size between her hatch scene and pretty much every other scene in the original movie) utters her first word (Mama) just seconds after she hatches.
In the sequels (which I admit are of limited use when it comes to making theories about the original) Chomper too seems to have mastered the art of speaking fairly quickly (alternative explanations for his command of leafeater language in LBT V are likely and possible, but remain fanfiction).
In the original movie Ducky also considers the possibility that Littlefoot may not be able to talk yet when first meeting him, which does not suggest that she would presume him to be many years old. For all we know based on the original movie the characters might be just weeks or months old at the end of the movie. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the time gap after the cut covered a timespan of several years or even a single one. The assumption is based only on real life development speed of humans and the presumption of them to be of a certain age. I think there was even some non-English book suggesting an age of five or six years or so, but to what degree that is to be accepted as canon can also be argued.

Good point. Yes, I should have added "in dinosaur terms", to that. Animated films almost unanimously portray animals as growing and aging at similar rates to humans (you can see this even in Don Bluth's other films), and the fact that the gang barely ages throughout the entire remainder of the LBT series gave a push to that automatic assumption for the original LBT movie. So, yeah, a screwup on my part.

At any rate, Littlefoot at least visibly ages up between his hatching scene and the scene where he is foraging with his family, whereas Spike's only change is his size, and that is more likely an animation error/inconsistency than anything. My overall point was that the cavalcade of hatchlings in the credits of LBT II maybe shouldn't have included that baby spiketail, since Spike is technically hatchling sized himself. Unless you assume that he's done some growing since then at the same rate as the rest of the gang, and…argh, I hate having to assume things.

[Cancerian Tiger]

I always thought the little dinosaurs at the end of the second one were memories of the Gang's siblings that never made it in the first film, aside from Ducky's siblings.  In particular, we see three little versions of Cera following her around.  Cera had three sisters who, as far as we know, never made it.  Perhap that's how she remembers seeing them last :unsure:.  I don't know how to explain Spike's case, though.

[Petrie]

Best theory I've come across on the subject.

[The Anonymous Person]

Awesome theory!

[StrutEggStealer]

I've wondered about that as well. I agree that it was Petrie's personal quirk, and made him all the more unique.
But I've also wondered. Petrie seems like one of the youngest of the group. He's quite clumsy and prone to act quite childlike. I actually know a little boy in the preschool I work at who speaks some broken English, even though he would appear ethnically American.
That's an interesting idea on the Flyers having a different language, because after all, flyers aren't true dinosaurs, just flying reptiles.

[jansenov]

I also find it interesting to speculate on the nature of Petrie's mother tongue, if Leafeater, which we hear as English, is indeed a foreign language to him.

The way he pronounces English is unlike any broken English I've ever heard. English is a language with a rather simple grammar compared to other languages. But it has a high number of distinct vowels (14 to 18, depending on dialect), which is a rare characteristic among languages, and it has a peculiar way of pronouncing plosives (t, d) by putting the tongue on the gum, rather than on the upper teeth, as is done in most languages. Foreigners usually learn basic English grammar in no time, but they have difficulties pronouncing all the vowels and pulling back the tongue and rounding the lips and moving the cheek muscles the way natives do.

With Petrie it is the opposite. His pronounciation is like that of a native, but his grammar is atrocious. It seems like Petrie's mother tongue is a language of even simpler grammar than English, but of an even more complex phonology as well.

Petrie can, even with his creaky voice, apparently pronounce a tremendous range of sounds, but even the simplest grammatical structures present a challenge to him. It would be a language where sound changes are the utterly dominant way of expressing relations between words and the meanings of words, with no auxiliary verbs, adverbs, prepositions, prefixes and suffixes, and perhaps no syntax, to speak of.

[Kor]

Maybe the flyers have their own sort of language, but often learn leafeater also, like the way Mo knows leafeater also.

[Bruton the Iguanodon]

I like this theory.   I just wonder if Pterano fans are ok the concept that in Bluth's vision of the LBT world, Pterano would supposedly talk like that too  

[Kor]

It makes sense that if that is a second language that some like Petrie would talk like that and if someone has more of a knack with learning languages would speak better at the same age, like Petrie's sibblings have been shown.    Though I assume by the time he's an adult Petrie's speaking should have improved over the years from when he's a kid to when he's an adult, since he would be speaking leafeater often.

[LBTDiclonius]

...Head canon accepted.

Thanks, FBS!

[RainbowGirl 39]

I like the fact Petrie has bad grammar it makes him himself