New answers tagged language
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
Colored tokens as an abstraction layer for counting
Colored tokens are extremely useful counting tools specifically because they are not married to a specific numeric system. I could take a set of ...
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
Not sure if its the answer you are looking for but here is a rabbit hole: Not just a numerical system, but even a Turing-complete esoteric programming language that is really colorful: piet
Piet ...
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
Have you read Can Fish Count, by Brian Butterworth? There is an interesting discussion of counting practices, including the Yupno counting system from New Guinea: the names of the numbers are names of ...
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
I think depending on the biology of your alien species it could work. There are many animals that can change the colour of their skin so completely that they become near invisible. Think the octopus ...
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Could a substance (drug, chemical, etc.) instantly teach a language?
In a hypothetical scenario where a substance can rewire the user's brain to instantly speak and understand another language without the use of nanobots or other technological aspects, the substance ...
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Could a substance (drug, chemical, etc.) instantly teach a language?
In the 2017 video game Prey such technology exists called "neuromods". It allows instantly teaching any skill, not just languages. It works by scanning the brain of somebody who has the ...
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Could a substance (drug, chemical, etc.) instantly teach a language?
My understanding of how the endorphin system and mirror neurons work suggests that this is a hard no.
Language involves connecting concepts to symbols. A chemical supplements can definitely strengthen ...
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Could a substance (drug, chemical, etc.) instantly teach a language?
Does the Babel Fish Count?
Quotation from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest
thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave ...
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Could a substance (drug, chemical, etc.) instantly teach a language?
Not really. Despite the RNA answer. Language is a skill, translating thoughts into words and grammar is not simple memory.
Just like memorizing an English-Spanish dictionary word by word will not ...
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Could a substance (drug, chemical, etc.) instantly teach a language?
RNA theoretically could because it can transfer memories. That has been demonstrated in snails, at least.
Though it might take a while to load into the brain's optimization system enough to make ...
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
In fact, we do use color-coded numbers a lot.
The electronic color code is a well-known (but by no means exhaustive) example, widely used for indicating the values of resistors and capacitors. All ...
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29
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
Usage adapts to the allowances of the writing system, not the other way around. That is, if we have a conflict between the "right way" that we want to write things, and the practical way ...
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
Any culture that values (or thrives from) precise numeric/mathematics will always have multiple way to express their numbers.
For example in English, we have:
0123456789 (often called Arabic numeral)
...
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
Human numeral systems are all quite old, and pre-date the availability of a full range of coloured inks at low cost. That's a fairly recent development, starting with the rise of chemical synthesis in ...
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Accepted
Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
If the colour distinction of the species is large enough
Communication works or fails by distinction clarity. We use speach and writing, because we can produce sounds and visuals that can be ...
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8
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
There are some Terran natural languages (or better, cultures) that use some rudimentary colo(u)r coding of numerals.
One is the use of counting rods in (ancient) China, where the positive numbers were ...
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
... in a way ...
When we talk about numbers, mostly we mean natural numbers ($\mathbb{N}$) or integers ($\mathbb{Z}$). Those are 1, 2, 3, ... and ... -1, 0, 1, 2, ..., respectively. Sometimes, we mean ...
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
The main problem with this is that it's more complex for no reason.
Sound writing systems can distinguish between different components easily. On paper, colors are easily distinguishable enough, but......
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Numeral systems based on different colors rather than different symbols?
No human examples, as color blindness is relatively common in humans. Red Green in men is apparently 14%. So they'd be innumerate and forced to work at Starbox or deliver processed carbohydrates to ...
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How would a "universal language field" work?
Have an AI manage it.
Have a super advanced computer which has a record of every language manage all the translation. The AI can have sensors which can detect sound, smell, motions, radio waves, ...
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Orthographic change over time
Almost certainly not in reality but this is your built world.
Consider the slight transition from real Latin into what 'we' now call the Roman alphabet; the simple embellishments in French, German, ...
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Orthographic change over time
I'll take your 15000 years and raise you 500.
Canterbury Tales is written in just over 500 year old middle English. Both the script and the words require significant study to understand.
https://...
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Orthographic change over time
It depends on your starting point. The usual assumption is that writing starts with pictograms and some numeral system, than quickly evolves to use some rebus scheme (the pictograms represent not the ...
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Orthographic change over time
As AlexP commented on the question, you are asking about a time interval that is three times as long as human history. So the short answer is "we don't know." In world building terms that ...
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Orthographic change over time
"Would it be plausible that their orthography would be broadly recognizable as having a common ancestor?"
Sure, maybe, not unimaginable, if you know what to look for. For example, consider ...
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Accepted
Orthographic change over time
To the best of my knowledge there is no historical analogue for users of the same orthographic system becoming separated from each other. You're right to say change in writing is more "...
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Rate of linguistic change among geographically separated descendants of a common language
If you look at how quickly Latin dialects of the Western Roman Empire drifted apart into Romance languages of decreasing mutual intelligibility, while not only did writing exist, but an awful lot of ...
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Rate of linguistic change among geographically separated descendants of a common language
One thousand years was sufficient for the Romance languages to evolve from Latin.
In the 4th of the common era all the Romance languages (Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, Provensal, Sardinian, ...
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Rate of linguistic change among geographically separated descendants of a common language
For that amount of time, I would expect virtually little to no commonality.
I'm going to use English, written English and Latin as my baseline for comparison.
Mostly because of it's significantly ...
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Rate of linguistic change among geographically separated descendants of a common language
If there isn't enough contact between the groups to keep the languages at least mutually intelligible, there won't be enough for genetic viability even with 5000 people per group.
It's generally ...
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Justifications for a language learned via magical transference?
The Summoned Hero is technically possessing an existing person.
Matter/Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, which makes travelling between universes thoroughly against the course of nature.
...
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Is it plausible for constructed languages to be used to affect thought and control or mold people towards desired outcomes?
Other answers have addressed the concepts behind the use of language
Indeed, I especially liked Robert's and Elemtilas' answers and up voted them. However, I'd like to point out something that hasn't ...
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Is it plausible for constructed languages to be used to affect thought and control or mold people towards desired outcomes?
This is Already Happening
We already know that children can be taken and raised by the state for the state's purposes. Germany did it with the Lebensborn and Hitler Youth programmes. This I would ...
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Is it plausible for constructed languages to be used to affect thought and control or mold people towards desired outcomes?
Two SF books that revolve around this idea, and in particular the strong form of the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis, are Native Tongue and The Languages of Pao. In the weak form of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, ...
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Is it plausible for constructed languages to be used to affect thought and control or mold people towards desired outcomes?
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis suggests exactly that. In essence, it states that humans have a hard time thinking thoughts that they can't put into words. This can be further expended to indicate that the ...
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