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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: SF & Language - Minimums
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References: <01bc265a$a239f270$275ee8cd@sal9000> <5fkk3f$giu@sulawesi.lerc.nasa.gov> <5fldjl$4iv@van1s03.cyberion.com> <kedamono-0503972228290001@cnc096055.concentric.net>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 18:19:51 GMT
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In article <kedamono-0503972228290001@cnc096055.concentric.net>,
Kedamono <kedamono@concentric.net> wrote:
>
>There is also the possibility that it's impossible to communicate with
>aliens, since our brains are hardwired for "human-style" languages.
>Reading up on, and checking out a few documentaries on language
>acqusition, humans are in a sense hardwired to learn a human language.
>Creatures from Ross 234 IV would be hardwired to learn their own language.
>There grammar, body language, tonal qualities, they may be so radically
>alien, that it would be impossible to *speak* their language.
>
>However, reading is a learned ability. So while no human tongue could hope
>to twist around the sentence case/noun predicate structure of a truly
>alien language, you can always learn to read one.

	I find this difficult to understand.  It is possible to read
languages that one cannot speak for physiological reasons (i.e. you never
learned the pronunciation, you have a speech impediment, the language is
signed, etc.).  However, if the reason you can't speak the language is
that the grammar is irreconcible with your own hardwired universal
grammar, how would seeing that grammar reproduced in written form overcome
the difficulty?  Writing is just a notational system for recording spoken
language (for humans, that is; I suppose its possible to have an alien
sentience that can communicate only through recorded signs, but that
would be tricky); the grammar of a written language--though seldomn
absolutely identical to that of any spoken form of that language--is
nevertheless subject to all the limitations of any species-specific form
of communication.

	There have been attempts to produce language-neutral forms of
written communication (Blissymbolics strikes me as one of the more
sophisticated ventures), but I would argue that they still owe a great
deal to how the human mind categorises actions, intentions, and so forth
(not to mention, to how it categorises visual data, since most systems
like these are "pictographic" in nature).  In other words, they would
probably still be to humanocentric to be comprehended by aliens.

[snip]
>I did a small article for a game magazine that tried to show what such a
>language would sound like. It only has three tenses, Past, Present,
>Future.  Sentence grammar was even simpler: Subject-action on
>subject-Object causing action. Only 5 pronouns: I, he, she, it, we.
>Possession was shown by the action or verb. And numbers were in base 8
>
>Example: "George, get me a beer." ---> "George. Beer for I."
>         "I'll pay you 200 credits for that." ---> "Price pay I, 310 credits."
>
>I had better examples at the time. I'll have to dig them out.

It still looks way too Anglo-centric, not to mention implausible.  A
three-way distinction in the third-person pronoun, but no second-person
pronoun?  Ridiculous!  A truly basic pidgin might have no pronouns at all.
And three tenses may seem basic to speakers of English (and Esperanto),
but they aren't; if you've done any study of creoles, you should know that
aspectual distinctions take precedence.  Most pidgins use adverbs for
these distinctions anyway.

So, for example, "I'll pay you 200 credits for that" might come out as
"That come Kedamono.  Night pass.  Kedamono pay 310 credits (or "310
credits come George", with the agent being understood, this being a rather
basic transaction)".  Even "that" is a tricky word; one might use a
generic term, like "object", and rely on context (the one the speaker is
touching, the one George just mentioned, etc.) to make it clear which one
is meant.  It all depends what the points of commonality are between the
languages in contact.

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
