Timeline for How alien can a language be - grammar?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 11:03 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Dec 22, 2015 at 21:31 | vote | accept | Tim B | ||
| Nov 25, 2015 at 9:40 | comment | added | slebetman | This reminds me of Puppeteer language from Niven's Known Space universe (the most famous series out of which is probably Ringworld). Puppeteers have two mouths and each mouth can reproduce exactly the sound of a piano or violin as well as human speech (in any voice) as well as animal sounds. Puppeteer speech is said to sound like an orchestra playing out of tune combined with the sound of a crashing car. | |
| Nov 25, 2015 at 9:34 | comment | added | slebetman | @FedericoPoloni: There are several human languages where word order, or sequence, is free-form (like the spoken alien language in that story). Latin being one of the most studied. Also to a limited extent Hungarian, Turkish and Finnish. No need to delve into fiction for what seem to English speakers as non-sequential grammar. | |
| Nov 25, 2015 at 6:30 | comment | added | jingyu9575 | The alien has a race condition if the mouths are not synchronized: brown fox over quick dog jumps lazy. | |
| Nov 25, 2015 at 4:28 | comment | added | Federico Poloni | @TimB Have you read the Nebula-award-winning novella Story of your life, by Ted Chiang? The main plot point is an alien language which is intrinsically non-sequential. This could give you some ideas. | |
| Nov 25, 2015 at 2:43 | comment | added | GreenAsJade | ... BUT it still has nouns, verbs and adjectives, so it is not truly alien | |
| Nov 25, 2015 at 2:39 | comment | added | GreenAsJade | Nice parallel example! | |
| Nov 25, 2015 at 2:27 | comment | added | Peter Olson | But even spoken languages use multiple channels to communicate (e.g. with prosody or intonation) what other languages will express with separate words. For example, to disambiguate between a statement and a yes-no question, some languages will use intonation ("You wanna go to the store./You wanna go to the store?") while others will use a question particle ("你想去商店。你想去商店吗？"). The same is true for signed languages, where some languages will use facial cues (e.g. raised eyebrows in ASL) to mark a yes-no question, while others use an extra sign or modify the syntax. | |
| Nov 25, 2015 at 2:07 | comment | added | Peter Olson | @DanSmolinske What qualifies as a "word" is a fuzzy concept, so it's hard to answer that precisely, but using multiple channels to represent different things simultaneously is very common in signed languages. For example, in some sign languages "turn the car left at the gas station" will typically be done by signing "gas station", then placing the left hand in front of you with a building classifier hand shape, then giving the right hand a vehicle classifier hand shape, then turning the right hand left at the left hand. | |
| Nov 24, 2015 at 21:34 | comment | added | Dan Smolinske | @Lostinfrance: But is that using two channels to communicate two words simultaneously, or is it using a combination of two channels to communicate a single word? | |
| Nov 24, 2015 at 21:32 | comment | added | Lostinfrance | I gather that the various sign languages used by the deaf do make use of parallel channels, e.g. facial expression plus hand position. | |
| Nov 24, 2015 at 20:34 | history | answered | Dan Smolinske | CC BY-SA 3.0 |