morgynleri-mirrors:elfwreck:allthingslinguistic:toboldlyblahblahblah:troi-in-monochrome:Actually, th
morgynleri-mirrors:elfwreck:allthingslinguistic:toboldlyblahblahblah:troi-in-monochrome:Actually, the fact that any alien race communicates with another is quite remarkable.tHIS WAS THE ONE TIME STAR TREK GOT PSYCHOLOGY RIGHT, actually!!!Humans are biologically programmed that during the acquisition of language if something is pointed at and a word is said, we assume that word is a NOUN. Every human in every culture and every language does this. But there’s nothing to say in an alien language their biology would be the same. That word could just as easily be an adjective or a verb or the objects location in space or a million other things. Good job Star Trek. Just this once, you managed to not piss off every psych student to watch your shows. In linguistics, this is known as the gavagai problem: Quine uses the example of the word “gavagai” uttered by a native speaker of the unknown language Arunta upon seeing a rabbit. A speaker of English could do what seems natural and translate this as “Lo, a rabbit.” But other translations would be compatible with all the evidence he has: “Lo, food”; “Let’s go hunting”; “There will be a storm tonight” (these natives may be superstitious “Lo, a momentary rabbit-stage”; “Lo, an undetached rabbit-part.“ Parent rolls a red ball in front of an infant, and says a word. Is that word:BallRoundRedRollingFunThe answer tells you some essential things about the language–which details are considered most important, how they perceive the world, and so on.An alien language might say any of those. Or it might say “floor” - look, kiddo, perceive the foundation on which things happen. Or it might say “grab” - here’s something you can grasp in your hands. Or it might say, “one” - there is one object here. Or something else.Language families are important for this. Related languages will tend to use the same types of words in the same types of situations: in English, Spanish, and French, it’s most likely the parent is saying something that means “ball.” In Apache, it’s likely to be “rolling.”* We don’t know any nonhuman language families. We don’t know what they consider to be the core elements of communication.See also: Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.* Suzette Haden Elgin’s Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense books mention this. I don’t remember which one(s).@deadcatwithaflamethrower - linguistics! -- source link