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A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

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Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#21

Post by ihm »

awinter-py wrote: post #15

I've never understood the core question of S-W. Is it that you can't have a word without having a concept for it? That seems like a no-brainer. Neanderthals weren't able to build airplanes, and their language probably didn't have a word for airplane (presumably), but B wasn't the cause of A. The vedic indians had flying vehicles in their literature and were also not able to build airplanes. Most cultures that can bui…

I think one point of Sapir-Worf is that aspects of different languages reinforce different concepts and ways of thinking. The language is often the bearer of the culture's store of concepts.

One famous example is the Guugu Yimithirr language[0], which uses absolute directions (North, South, East, West) instead of relative ones (left, right, in front of, behind). So one would say, "Can you pass me the salt to your North?" As a result, people in these cultures are constantly keeping track of which way North is: their language forces them to.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guugu_Yimithirr_language

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#22

Post by awinter-py »

pebblexe wrote: post #19
awinter-py wrote: post #15

I've never understood the core question of S-W. Is it that you can't have a word without having a concept for it? That seems like a no-brainer. Neanderthals weren't able to build airplanes, and their language probably didn't have a word for airplane (presumably), but B wasn't the cause of A. The vedic indians had flying vehicles in their literature and were also not able to build airplanes. Most cultures that can bui…

Are you kidding me? Are you claiming the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis isn't true on ycombinator ? This is a forum famous for talking about blub languages and lisp. And if it's true for artificial languages, that's a strong indicator that it's true for human ones. But sadly there are very few studies comparing programming languages and I've never seen one comparing human languages qualitatively.

I have a fairly large sample set suggesting that claiming to know C++ on your resume is not correlated with understanding the concept of memory allocation.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#23

Post by awinter-py »

ihm wrote: post #21
awinter-py wrote: post #15

I've never understood the core question of S-W. Is it that you can't have a word without having a concept for it? That seems like a no-brainer. Neanderthals weren't able to build airplanes, and their language probably didn't have a word for airplane (presumably), but B wasn't the cause of A. The vedic indians had flying vehicles in their literature and were also not able to build airplanes. Most cultures that can bui…

I think one point of Sapir-Worf is that aspects of different languages reinforce different concepts and ways of thinking. The language is often the bearer of the culture's store of concepts. One famous example is the Guugu Yimithirr language[0], which uses absolute directions (North, South, East, West) instead of relative ones (left, right, in front of, behind). So one would say, "Can you pass me the salt to your Nor…

natives of grid-based cities can always find north as well.

Interestingly the street grid isn't a language feature.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#24

Post by new299 »

Johnbot wrote: post #6
cletus wrote: post #2

One big issue with communicating with aliens is sensory differences with humans. Humans perceive a sound range, the so-called visibl spectrum and certain limited smells (compared to man animals). Even here there are animals that perceive different spectra and the magnetic field. What's more human communication relies on a basic common wiring (e.g. Paus s between words seem to be basically universal regardless of lang…

That is certainly an interesting problem, one I first saw in a Hackaday post from a few years ago [1]. Personally, I've always wondered how any aliens would interpret the Arecibo message - if they could even decode it, that is. [1] http://hackaday.com/2015/10/06/electronics-for-aliens/

Thanks, that's my article! I'm glad you remember it after all this time.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#25

Post by skizm »

What bothered me the most is that the way they start the "conversation" with the aliens is by using names and human concepts (walking, eating, etc.). I'm not a trained linguist or anything, but it seems to me they should start with concepts that are universal: mainly numbers. Maybe as a CS guy I'm biased (since my language is symbols and numbers), but literally every conceivable language has to contain numbers of some kind (at the very least the concept of singular vs plural).

So start with "one" and "two" or maybe even the concept of nothing vs something. Work your way to vocab words related to space and time (again, I would think these universal concepts considering the aliens traveled with the goal of getting to earth), then get into specific human concepts like me vs you vs third person.

They essentially worked through language in the same way you would work through language with a human baby, which I think would get you no where when talking to an alien race (who are "adults" at this point you would assume, and have their own fully developed world views).

Just my 2 cents though.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#26

Post by chaoky »

pebblexe wrote: post #19
awinter-py wrote: post #15

I've never understood the core question of S-W. Is it that you can't have a word without having a concept for it? That seems like a no-brainer. Neanderthals weren't able to build airplanes, and their language probably didn't have a word for airplane (presumably), but B wasn't the cause of A. The vedic indians had flying vehicles in their literature and were also not able to build airplanes. Most cultures that can bui…

Are you kidding me? Are you claiming the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis isn't true on ycombinator ? This is a forum famous for talking about blub languages and lisp. And if it's true for artificial languages, that's a strong indicator that it's true for human ones. But sadly there are very few studies comparing programming languages and I've never seen one comparing human languages qualitatively.

No, programming languages are completely different from natural languages. You are conflating some concepts here. There are artificial programming languages which are context free and express computation more or less. Then there are artificial and human languages which express statements in real life and are not context free. Its obvious that some methods of expressing computation are easier for humans to comprehend than others and are formed on a much more mathematically logical basis. For example, the lambda calculus is much more readable than a turing machine and has 3 easy mathematical rules, although it is harder to implement on a von Neumann model. Sapir Whorf applies strictly to natural languages and to some extent constructed ones, but here most modern linguists agree it in its strong form has been discredited in the same way that race instrinsically influencing behavior has been discredited. People are people, and looking at historical sound change should convince that sound changes over a long period of time do not change any absolute measure of "complexity" in a language in a well defined way.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#27

Post by plttn »

skizm wrote: post #25

What bothered me the most is that the way they start the "conversation" with the aliens is by using names and human concepts (walking, eating, etc.). I'm not a trained linguist or anything, but it seems to me they should start with concepts that are universal: mainly numbers. Maybe as a CS guy I'm biased (since my language is symbols and numbers), but literally every conceivable language has to contain numbers of som…

If I remember the book correctly, they talk more about their attempt at using numbers, but due to the way heptapods think (all of time happening at once), the math concepts are actually harder than physical concepts.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#28

Post by chc »

marcosdumay wrote: post #12
Johnbot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is certainly an interesting problem, one I first saw in a Hackaday post from a few years ago [1]. Personally, I've always wondered how any aliens would interpret the Arecibo message - if they could even decode it, that is. [1] http://hackaday.com/2015/10/06/electronics-for-aliens/

I always thought aliens would think the marks on the golden disk are as meaningful as the defects on the semiconductor chips. I can't imagine why they would wonder if it's a message.

We get radio bursts from dying stars and try to interpret them as messages. Intelligence as we know it is pretty obsessed with trying to extract information from its environment, even where none may exist at all.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#29

Post by croon »

awinter-py wrote: post #15

I've never understood the core question of S-W. Is it that you can't have a word without having a concept for it? That seems like a no-brainer. Neanderthals weren't able to build airplanes, and their language probably didn't have a word for airplane (presumably), but B wasn't the cause of A. The vedic indians had flying vehicles in their literature and were also not able to build airplanes. Most cultures that can bui…

The article specifically mentions examples like thunder as a verb vs noun, and time as passing objects vs recurring.

Obviously as a species we can develop concepts we have no words for to begin with, this is evolution. But that would also mean that they can evolve separately, which in turn means different languages can have different concepts that can't be translated. At least not without detours, or loss of meaning. Much more abstract concepts than airplanes.

I remember asking my friends the other day: "is there a word for karma, that also encompasses the effects your poor actions have on innocent people around you?"

That is a concept very closely related to a concept we already have a word for, so it wasn't too difficult to explain. What I imagine it really means is that there could be concepts I can't even fathom because my imagination is only articulated in the languages I understand.

Ps. The word we ended up with was "splash karma" or "collateral karma".

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#30

Post by mci »

skizm wrote: post #25

What bothered me the most is that the way they start the "conversation" with the aliens is by using names and human concepts (walking, eating, etc.). I'm not a trained linguist or anything, but it seems to me they should start with concepts that are universal: mainly numbers. Maybe as a CS guy I'm biased (since my language is symbols and numbers), but literally every conceivable language has to contain numbers of som…

You have reinvented the idea behind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincos_(artificial_language)
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