All the while, linguists typically transcribe the statements, paying attention to the sounds, the grammar and the way meanings are combined, building a working theory of the language, he said.
Written code shapes alien language translator how to#
From the names of things, a linguist can then work their way towards actions, and how to express relationships between objects, Everett said. Pointing to a nearby object, like a stick, and asking (even in English) what it's called is typically interpreted as a cue to name it, Everett said. Rather than asking questions about the Pirahãlanguage in a shared second language, he conducted his research in a style known as monolingual fieldwork.
So it didn't matter that Everett didn't know Portuguese. The people were similarly isolated, and were entirely monolingual, he said. It is also well-known for some of its atypical qualities, such as a lack of counting numbers or relative directions, such as "left" and "right," qualities which Everett worked out over years of study. Pirahãis what's called a language isolate, a linguistic orphan of sorts, and is the last surviving member of its language family. Studying languageĮverett spent more than 30 years working with the Pirahãpeople of the Brazilian Amazon, learning and studying their language, which was poorly documented prior to his work. That's what they do," Everett told Live Science. "Linguists who've had extensive field experience can do this. Īnd in both the short story and film, linguists play a key role in bridging the gap between humans and aliens-something that isn't entirely farfetched, according to Daniel Everett, a linguist at Bentley University in Massachusetts. "There's a long tradition of science fiction that deals with language and communication," Chiang told Live Science in an email. It taps into the common science-fiction theme of alien tongues not only the communication barrier they might present, but the unusual ways they could differ from human language. The film is based on "Story of Your Life," a short story by Ted Chiang. Though the story is rooted in science fiction, it does tackle a very real challenge: How do you communicate with someone-or how do you learn that individual's language-when you have no intermediary language in common? In the film, a team of experts is assembled to investigate, and among the chosen individuals is a linguist, played by actress Amy Adams.
In the upcoming sci-fi drama "Arrival," several mysterious spacecraft touch down around the planet, and humanity is faced with how to approach-and eventually communicate-with these extraterrestrial visitors.
0 kommentar(er)
