Most unbelieveable thing in science fiction...
Stevens R. Miller
>Well done Star Trek for the
>Universal Translator. A sf solution to a sf problem.
But rather post hoc, IIRC. In, "The Making of Star Trek," Roddenberry is
described as having considered this problem and coming up with an even more
novel solution than the universal translator: he just ignored it. Otherwise,
he felt, every encounter with a new intelligence would have to include some
tedious exchange starting with, "how is that you speak our language?"
The translator is present in TOS, but it's not on their shirts or in their
ears like it is now. Kirk sometimes explicitly asks Uhura to "tie it in" or
something like that. When he wants to talk to Cochran's "companion," he holds
a translator in his hand; about the size of a flashlight. (Good scene, too,
because the translator doesn't work perfectly and that leads to some of the
rest of the story.)
The present use of the translator seems to be a late afterthought that, like
lots of modern Trek, is there mostly to eliminate science fiction, rather than
enhance it (so they get on with the real work of soap opera).
Now, to avoid this being a Trek rant: I can't think off-hand of any truly
intriguing solutions to this problem in the literature. Yet, I think we can be
pretty sure that if we ever meet another intelligence we are going to have to
solve this problem for real. And it won't, I expect, be a matter of merely
decoding a one-to-one, onto map from their language to one of ours (why do
space aliens always get portrayed as only having one culture?). Suppose, for
example, that They don't ever complete Their own sentences. What if They
communicate by the implications drawn from how the other party being addressed
chooses to complete them? Could we handle that? How? (Trek (again) did a
very nice job with that in the TNG story wherein Picard met a person who spoke
entirely in metaphors; now *that* is more like science fiction.)
Aliens in SF generally just aren't wierd enough. That's the most unbelievable
thing, IMHO.
--
Stevens R. Miller http://www.interport.net/~lex/
Jacob Kane
most unbelievable thing is that so many races speak the same language.
Wouldn't you agree? Thena again, every book would be piss-boring if it was
involved with trying to interpret a new race. Well done Star Trek for the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"The most ponitless thing existing about the pointlessness of
existence is the existence of pointlessness...."
__0__ "Mr.Macabre" Jacob Kane & the pHantom ahh fan club
_( )_
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Corinne Aragaki
>Now, to avoid this being a Trek rant: I can't think off-hand of any truly
>intriguing solutions to this problem in the literature.
You might want to try H. Beam Piper's short story "Omnilingual."
Steve Wall
Miller) wrote:
>
> Aliens in SF generally just aren't wierd enough. That's the most unbelievable
> thing, IMHO.
I agree. Another unbelievable thing is the relative technical parity
seen between earthlings and aliens in a lot of SF. If the universe
is 15 billion years old, what're the odds that we'll meet a civilization
that's only 5000 years old like ours? What happens when we meet a
civilization a billion years older than ours?
Steve W.
Edmund C. Hack
Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote:
>In article <48fgeo$dh0...@leeds.ac.uk> POL4...@leeds.ac.uk (Jacob Kane) writes:
>
>>Universal Translator. A sf solution to a sf problem.
>
>
>Now, to avoid this being a Trek rant: I can't think off-hand of any truly
>intriguing solutions to this problem in the literature.
Two words: Babel Fish!
--
Edmund Hack \ "Woodrow Wilson has his fourteen points, but
ech...@crl.com \ Clemenceau turns to Lloyd George and says
Houston, TX \ 'You know that God himself had only ten.'" - Al Stewart
Paul T. Riddell
with other life forms. On Earth, the truly lively life forms (I mean
endothermic forms, such as mammals, birds, and dinosaurs, with the
capability of developing intelligence) produce new species about every
two to five million years, so I wouldn't bet on human civilization
holding out for a billion years. However, this is an inherently biased
judgement: life forms that exist under drastically different conditions
(such as forns that use helium II for a solvent) might consider us to
breed like cockroaches and die like mayflies.
Acutally, a billion-year lead in cultures is bad enough: what about
100 years. A current US aircraft carrier could wipe out the combined
military might of 1895 Earth (providing the carrier has a few atomic
weapons), and the view from a hundred years from now should be even
stranger. With this in mind, a contact with aliens 200 years in advance
of us would be akin to Tutankhamen visiting the staff of the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. Even if we had the words to describe it, the
expereince would be above and beyond us.
Cordially,
Paul T. Riddell
http://themet.computek.net
Stewart Robert Hinsley
l...@interport.net "Stevens R. Miller" writes:
[ deletia ]
> (why do
> space aliens always get portrayed as only having one culture?).
Off the top of my head I can think of more aliens displayed with
multiple cultures than otherwise (probably because I've forgotten
all the books which stereotype their aliens), tho' there's also
a large number of books which come into the 'no data' category -
i.e. cultural (non-)variation is off stage in the books.
Examples of species with cultural variety -
Merseians, Ythrians, Diomedeans, Ishtarians, Didonians,
Suleimanites and Ardazhirho (Poul Anderson), tran (Alan Dean
Foster), Cetians (Ursula Le Guin), Moties (Niven and Pournelle)
[ deletia ]
>
> Aliens in SF generally just aren't wierd enough. That's the most unbelievable
> thing, IMHO.
But if they were weird enough they'd also be unbelievable, and
incomprehensible as well. Authors have a fine line to draw between
making their aliens thinly described humans, and making them beyond
the understanding of the readers.
How weird should they be? IMHO, we don't have the data to predict
how comprehensible in terrestrial terms an alien should be.
Howabout regul, majat, kif, stsho and calibans for weirdness?
> --
> Stevens R. Miller http://www.interport.net/~lex/
>
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley Managers are the servants of their staff
Antonio Calvo Rodriguez
> Another unbelievable thing is the relative technical parity
>seen between earthlings and aliens in a lot of SF. If the universe
>is 15 billion years old, what're the odds that we'll meet a civilization
>that's only 5000 years old like ours? What happens when we meet a
>civilization a billion years older than ours?
Can we imagine such civilization ?
How this civilization will consider us? Pets?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Antonio Calvo Rodriguez
Vigo, Spain
Net <AnC...@Ibm.net>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Chuk Goodin
>chooses to complete them? Could we handle that? How? (Trek (again) did a
>very nice job with that in the TNG story wherein Picard met a person who spoke
>entirely in metaphors; now *that* is more like science fiction.)
I thought that story was even worse than ignoring the language
difficulties. For one thing, what's the difference between a race
that uses one word for concepts we would use one word for, and a race
that uses some kind of metaphorical phrase for concepts that we would
use one word for? How do you teach your kids a language that refers
to history, without teaching them the history first? I would guess
the same way that kids around here pick up language: you hear
words/metaphors and associate them with the context they're heard in.
Okay, the translator should be able to handle that, unless it works by
decoding some sort of essential patterns that all sentient beings just
_have_ to have for their language.
>Aliens in SF generally just aren't wierd enough. That's the most unbelievable
>thing, IMHO.
Humans in SF generally just aren't weird enough. Most characters who
are supposed to be from different planets or thousands of years in the
future come across as just being modern people with more tech (or
different societies, or whatever the "gimmick" is in the work in
question). I think it'd be hard enough for someone from two hundred
years ago to identify with modern people, never mind two thousand
years.
chuk
David E Romm
Miller) wrote:
[re translations to/from alien language}
> I can't think off-hand of any truly intriguing solutions to this
> problem in the literature. Yet, I think we can be
> pretty sure that if we ever meet another intelligence we are going to have to
> solve this problem for real. And it won't, I expect, be a matter of merely
> decoding a one-to-one, onto map from their language to one of ours (why do
> space aliens always get portrayed as only having one culture?).
Perhaps the best First Contact story is Shogun. In that novel, the people
do not, for the most part, communicate by the spoken word until later. On
the other hand, Clavell tells the reader what has been said by both
sides. We get to know what's been said, even if the characters do not.
_That's_ how you handle the problem. It's different on tv, but even the
tv version of Shogun did it well.
--
Shockwave radio: Science Fiction/Science Fact
http://www.winternet.com/~romm
"Abducted by aliens? What should we do?"
"Go find the cafeteria!" -- Animaniacs
John Novak
>>realize he's come up with a pretty good metaphor for what an interstellar
>>galactic civilization would be like, with cultures at similar levels
>>associating with each other because they can comprehend one another, and
>>those beyond comprehension doing the same.
>What if one of the lower-level cultures has something that one of the
>upper-level cultures wants? Or are you suggesting that the upper-level
>culture can't possibly want anything a lower-level culture might have? (Not
>necessarily produce, but have.)
I guess you'd have to give an example.
Given the limits to which Vinge takes his model, and given some
of what people like Drexler say will be possible for us in a
hundred years with nanotechnology, I _can't_ imagine the
lower-level cultures having or producing anything physical that
the higher level cultures would want.
There might be artistic or aesthetic products, but most of those
can be "taken" without ever disturbing the Lowers. Music? Write
down the score, or record it. Paintings? Observe, copy,
imitate, expand. Likewise architecture, sculpture, literature,
whatever.
--
"There are thousands of Novaks," I pronounced. "All are addressed as
Mister. But I am Novak of Novak, head of house and sept, first of the
family, chieftain of the clan. I am addressed as Novak. Not `Mister`
Novak. Novak."
Mister Skin
anc...@ibm.net writes:
> > Another unbelievable thing is the relative technical parity
> >seen between earthlings and aliens in a lot of SF. If the universe
> >is 15 billion years old, what're the odds that we'll meet a
civilization
> >that's only 5000 years old like ours? What happens when we meet a
> >civilization a billion years older than ours?
>
> Can we imagine such civilization ?
> How this civilization will consider us? Pets?
Actually, Vernor Vinge has already dealt with this problem, or one very
much like it, in A Fire Upon The Deep. In AFUD, some portions of some
races reach so far beyond the norm for interstellar culture that they
"Transcend" and move on to a presumably more advanced culture. The
cultures that don't transcend are sort of washed upon the galactic
shores, overlapping one another and coexisting (most of the time)
peacefully. If you ignore the physical nature of Vinge's universe, you
realize he's come up with a pretty good metaphor for what an interstellar
galactic civilization would be like, with cultures at similar levels
associating with each other because they can comprehend one another, and
those beyond comprehension doing the same.
_____________________________________________________
Nothing is as good for removing the burdens from a man's shoulders, as
the weight of a woman's ankles resting upon them.
--An inspirational thought from Mister Skin
Paul Probus
ro...@winternet.comÀ says...
>
>In article <lex.646....@interport.net>, l...@interport.net (Stevens R.
>Miller) wrote:
>
>[re translations to/from alien language}
>> I can't think off-hand of any truly intriguing solutions to this
>> problem in the literature. Yet, I think we can be
>> pretty sure that if we ever meet another intelligence we are going to have
to
>> solve this problem for real. And it won't, I expect, be a matter of merely
>> decoding a one-to-one, onto map from their language to one of ours (why do
>> space aliens always get portrayed as only having one culture?).
>
>Perhaps the best First Contact story is Shogun. In that novel, the people
>do not, for the most part, communicate by the spoken word until later. On
>the other hand, Clavell tells the reader what has been said by both
>sides. We get to know what's been said, even if the characters do not.
>_That's_ how you handle the problem. It's different on tv, but even the
>tv version of Shogun did it well.
>--
think it was called "The Code Breakers" or something like that. Anyway the
movie was about US and British code breakers and how they worked to break both
the German and Japanese code. I don't remember if the movie mentioned much
about the British working on the Japanese codes (they were, I know), the
movie concentrated on the US efforts. None of the code breakers for the US
knew Japanese which compounded the problem of trying to break the Japanese
code. First they didn't know how the code was made, then, once they did, they
had to figure out how to translate what was being transmitted, in Japanese, to
English. I forgot how they did it, but they were able to go directly from the
encoded message to English w/o having to know Japanese.
Paul Probus
pro...@cnj.digex.net
Loki
: involved with trying to interpret a new race. Well done Star Trek for the
A deus-ex-machine cop-out to an SF problem, you mean?
Loki
--
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------------------+
| gwis...@uoguelph.ca | cs1...@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca | Geoffrey Wiseman |
+---------------+------+---------------------------------+------+-----------+
| http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/~ontarion/users/geoff |
+-----------------------------------------------+
"Undoubtedly, none of these opinions are my own, let alone anyone else's."
Loki
[- We might meet aliens much more advanced than we are -]
Sure. And, since this line started with ST, you'll note that they do
quite often run into aliens that are more advanced. I might agree that
this should happen with different frequency, but that's largely debatable.
[- Aliens aren't weird enough -]
Ah, but is the author including aliens so as to comment on humans. A
device, rather than a setting? In that case, the human readers must be
able to identify with the other race, making true estrangement contrary
to the book. But, yes, when alien strangeness does not conflict with the
'theme', I would agree.
[- Star Trek Episode in which language was metaphor -]
The thing I always found annoying about that is that the language was
understandable and worded. If it was entirely metaphor, why wouldn't
they just come up with some word/sound/phoneme-combination to represent
that bit of history. Instead, it was like they had a full, normal
language but chose to limit themselves to a very small portion of the
possibilities that language provides. It irritated me.
Loki
--
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------------------+
| gwis...@uoguelph.ca | cs1...@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca | Geoffrey Wiseman |
+---------------+------+---------------------------------+------+-----------+
| http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/~ontarion/users/geoff |
+-----------------------------------------------+
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see
one chance out between two worlds, Fire walk with me."
Stevens R. Miller
>> [ ... ] I _can't_ imagine the
>> lower-level cultures having or producing anything physical that
>> the higher level cultures would want.
Doesn't this simplify advancement too much? That is, it isn't a given that
cultures can be rank-ordered on a single scale. Culture A might have achieved
ability 1, but not ability 2, while culture B might have achieved ability 2,
but not ability 1. Even if either A or B is deemed the more advanced of the
two cultures, they'll still have reasons to trade.
Nancy Lebovitz
Antonio Calvo Rodriguez <anc...@ibm.net> wrote:
>sw...@planet.net (Steve Wall) wrote:
>
>> Another unbelievable thing is the relative technical parity
>>seen between earthlings and aliens in a lot of SF. If the universe
>>is 15 billion years old, what're the odds that we'll meet a civilization
>>that's only 5000 years old like ours? What happens when we meet a
>>civilization a billion years older than ours?
>
>Can we imagine such civilization ?
>How this civilization will consider us? Pets?
Possibly pets, lab animals, religious icons, or a nature preserve,
but you can also bet that they'll have categories we haven't thought
of.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
Nancy Lebovitz
K C Moore <k...@hpsl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <48o1ke$g...@cegt201.bradley.edu>
> j...@cegt201.bradley.edu "John Novak" writes:
>
>> [ ... ] I _can't_ imagine the
>> lower-level cultures having or producing anything physical that
>> the higher level cultures would want.
>>
>> can be "taken" without ever disturbing the Lowers. Music? Write
>> down the score, or record it. Paintings? Observe, copy,
>> imitate, expand. Likewise architecture, sculpture, literature,
>> whatever.
The lower level culture might itself be used as a toy or an
experimental subject.
Consider "The Great Pat Boom" by Damon Knight, in which aliens
start paying large sums of money for unusual shapes of cow pats.
It seems clear that it's either done as an experiment or a
practical joke, since the aliens suddenly stop paying for
cow pats.....check it out--it's a great story, and easily
worth a Double Emperor Swirl.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@universe.digex.net> wrote:
>
>The lower level culture might itself be used as a toy or an
>experimental subject.
>
>Consider "The Great Pat Boom" by Damon Knight, in which aliens
>start paying large sums of money for unusual shapes of cow pats.
>It seems clear that it's either done as an experiment or a
>practical joke, since the aliens suddenly stop paying for
>cow pats.....check it out--it's a great story, and easily
>worth a Double Emperor Swirl.
Having watched the black&white comic boom/bust, the sports
card boom/bust and the current Magic: the Addiction boom/bust*, I
find the aliens' behavior quite plausible.
James Nicoll
* The bust started several months ago, for speculators who want to get
the panic selling started early.
--
"No ball team wants a dead or paralyzed critter for its mascot."
Danny Boles, in _Brittle Innings_ by Michael Bishop
Graham Head
prid...@computek.net "Paul T. Riddell" writes:
With this in mind, a contact with aliens 200 years in advance
> of us would be akin to Tutankhamen visiting the staff of the Jet
> Propulsion Laboratory. Even if we had the words to describe it, the
> expereince would be above and beyond us.
Not necessarily. Firstly, there is no reason to assume that other races
develop technologically at the same rate as we do. Secondly, there seems
little reason to suppose that the high rate of technological development that
we have been undergoing for the last five hundred years (approx) need continue.
How about, from about 2030, no new technologies, no substantial inventions,
few discoveries for the next 4,500? I don't know whether that is likely or not,
of course, but it would mean that between roughly AD 1500 and AD 6000 the odds
are that picking a year at random you'd hit roughly the same level of
development. Unless you chose one of the early years when society was just
climbing to its technological plateau.
Just an example, of course. The main point is that we can't - necessarily -
assume the same rate of development into the future ;->.
--
Graham Head
Jerry Bryson
Right. Advance could be asymptotic; perhaps ogival.
The easy facts have been learned. Each new thing we learn costs more resources than the thing before. So we may someday find ourselv=
es spending more and more to learn less and less. The same pattern in likely for reduction to practice of the new info. New research=
and applications of old research will compete for capital which competes with consumption. Also, each student generation has to go =
further in old studies to reach virgin territory. So expect never to stop advancing, but to slow way down.
It was different earlier, because new knowledge included new methods of research. Back then, new facts increased the learning rate, =
which appeared to be exponential.
Nancy Lebovitz
>lots of modern Trek, is there mostly to eliminate science fiction, rather than
>enhance it (so they get on with the real work of soap opera).
Neatly put.
>
>Now, to avoid this being a Trek rant: I can't think off-hand of any truly
>intriguing solutions to this problem in the literature. Yet, I think we can be
>pretty sure that if we ever meet another intelligence we are going to have to
>solve this problem for real. And it won't, I expect, be a matter of merely
>decoding a one-to-one, onto map from their language to one of ours (why do
>space aliens always get portrayed as only having one culture?). Suppose, for
>example, that They don't ever complete Their own sentences. What if They
>communicate by the implications drawn from how the other party being addressed
>chooses to complete them? Could we handle that? How? (Trek (again) did a
>very nice job with that in the TNG story wherein Picard met a person who spoke
>entirely in metaphors; now *that* is more like science fiction.)
>
You don't get a one-to-one, onto map between *human* languages. That's
why we don't have computer translation.
I think that "not completing their sentences" is an improvable example,
but one that points to some major stuff. Now that I think about it,
sentences may be an artifact of writing--at least it's my impression
that early written Greek and Latin didn't have them....and maybe they
didn't have sentences because people didn't talk in sentences. (I'm
not going to push this too far, though--they also didn't have spaces
between words, but ideographic languages did distinguish words. Maybe
people were more likely to invent ideographs if they spoke with a
little more time between words, and more likely to invent letters
if they ran their words together. Or maybe not.)
In any case, I think you're talking about high-context vs. low-context
cultures. The difference is in how much people are expected to make
explicit as compared to how much they're expected to already know--
and high-context cultures can be confusing or even dangerous to
outsiders.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
Nancy Lebovitz
>
>>In any case, I think you're talking about high-context vs. low-context
>>cultures. The difference is in how much people are expected to make
>>explicit as compared to how much they're expected to already know--
>>and high-context cultures can be confusing or even dangerous to
>>outsiders.
>
>present cultures? Does the level of context rise with time? Now you've got
>me wondering if a space-borne culture might be incomprehensible to us for this
>reason (which does suggest a really cool improvement on my example).
>
I've heard that US and German cultures are low-context as human cultures
go. It could be argued that that law and science are efforts to push
context as low as possible. I'd be as willing to bet that context will
drop for a while as people try to communicate with people from very
different cultures, then rise if people are living in a world culture.
I had a specific example in mind of the dangers of dealing with people
from a high-context culture. I was told about a Northern woman who
was raped in the Southern US--she'd let a man into her apartment
after she'd turned him down for a date. The (Southern) woman who
told me the story had a lot of trouble understanding that the
Northern woman couldn't reasonably be expected to know the local
rules--and the Southern woman is a bright person.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
Stevens R. Miller
>Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote:
>>The present use of the translator seems to be a late afterthought that, like
>>lots of modern Trek, is there mostly to eliminate science fiction, rather than
>>enhance it (so they can get on with the real work of soap opera).
>Neatly put.
Thank you. It's sort of a special case of my general belief that, while Trek
of the 60's was loosely based on extrapolated reality, current Trek is loosely
based on extrapolated Trek of the 60's.
>>Suppose, for
>>example, that They don't ever complete Their own sentences. What if They
>>communicate by the implications drawn from how the other party being addressed
>>chooses to complete them? Could we handle that?
>I think that "not completing their sentences" is an improvable example,
>but one that points to some major stuff.
>In any case, I think you're talking about high-context vs. low-context
>cultures. The difference is in how much people are expected to make
>explicit as compared to how much they're expected to already know--
>and high-context cultures can be confusing or even dangerous to
>outsiders.
Now you're talking. How much variation do we see on the context spectrum in
present cultures? Does the level of context rise with time? Now you've got
me wondering if a space-borne culture might be incomprehensible to us for this
reason (which does suggest a really cool improvement on my example).
--
Matt Austern
> I think that "not completing their sentences" is an improvable example,
> but one that points to some major stuff. Now that I think about it,
> sentences may be an artifact of writing--at least it's my impression
> that early written Greek and Latin didn't have them....and maybe they
> didn't have sentences because people didn't talk in sentences.
One of the nicest examples of this isn't, strictly speaking, from a
science fiction writer at all. Jorge Luis Borges describes a world in
which the languages aren't based on nouns, but on adjectives; you
can't say what a thing is, but only the characteristics that it has.
I find that a fundamentally alien way of speech and thought, and I
doubt if any human language could ever develop that way.
--
Matt Austern He showed his lower teeth. "We
ma...@physics.berkeley.edu all have flaws," he said, "and
http://dogbert.lbl.gov/~matt mine is being wicked."
Sanford Manley
: > Another unbelievable thing is the relative technical parity
: >seen between earthlings and aliens in a lot of SF. If the universe
: >is 15 billion years old, what're the odds that we'll meet a civilization
: >that's only 5000 years old like ours? What happens when we meet a
: >civilization a billion years older than ours?
: Can we imagine such civilization ?
: How this civilization will consider us? Pets?
And indeed, a that old civilization might be capable of:
1. Monitoring us with NO indications we could detect??
2. Covertly influencing the direction of our culture??
3. Or be TOTALLY disinterested...
--
Sanford M. Manley sma...@pbfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us
You never will achieve peace and joy by being against anything.
What you stand for is essential......anyone can be a detractor.
Junsok Yang
>
>>>The present use of the translator seems to be a late afterthought that,
like
>>>lots of modern Trek, is there mostly to eliminate science fiction, rather
than
>>>enhance it (so they can get on with the real work of soap opera).
>
Trek
>of the 60's was loosely based on extrapolated reality, current Trek is
>loosely
>based on extrapolated Trek of the 60's.
>
Without really disagreeing from any of the above comments, (I do agree
that there is too much soap opera on Trek), let me suggest a few things...
The latter Treks (Next Gen, Deep Space Nine, Voyager) don't have any real
choice but to "loosely extrapolate" from the original trek since they do
bill themselves as Trek universe 80 years in the future. Whether this was
the right choice to make in setting up a SF series is arguable, but once
you've set up that gimmick, you have to live with it, and some of the
extrapolations of the original Trek have been outdated (various wars and
disproven technologies) but are so integral to the setting of Trek that they
have to incorporate it somehow. Given the rules of the SF game, which is
first and foremost *consistency*, (you can ignore some aspects of hard
science if you do it *consistently* Just look at how even the current books
handle FTL) it's only natural.
Also with regard to Universal Translators, if you want to make a show
about contacting new life and new civilizations (something which the new
Treks haven't been doing enough of...) and you don't want to center the show
around a bunch of sociologists and linguists, (which you can do in printed
SF, but very doubtful in a visual medium, and frankly, I can see how such a
show may get really tedious: "Good God, Spock, you mean these people don't
use pronouns?!!! :) ) universal translator is BS, but it's *useful* BS, to
go beyond linguistics into culture and sociology. (Though admittedly Trek
is SF-lite, and has no choice but to be SF-lite.)
***************************************************************
"If you must be introspective, at least do it in public.
Millions want to share in your loneliness and your misery."
...Pete Townshend
Junsok Yang (yan...@yalevm.cis.yale.edu)
Graydon
: One of the nicest examples of this isn't, strictly speaking, from a
: science fiction writer at all. Jorge Luis Borges describes a world in
: which the languages aren't based on nouns, but on adjectives; you
: can't say what a thing is, but only the characteristics that it has.
: I find that a fundamentally alien way of speech and thought, and I
: doubt if any human language could ever develop that way.
So no one would ever take the plow of the swan-road over the whale's bath
to bring Freya's tears to the tree of necklaces?
Kennings are not pure adjectives, it's pretty close to what you describe.
--
saun...@qlink.queensu.ca | Monete me si non anglice loquobar.
Stephen Dedman
>In article <49kf9t$6...@universe.digex.net> nan...@universe.digex.net (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>>Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote:
>>>The present use of the translator seems to be a late afterthought that, like
>>>lots of modern Trek, is there mostly to eliminate science fiction, rather than
>>>enhance it (so they can get on with the real work of soap opera).
>>Neatly put.
>Thank you. It's sort of a special case of my general belief that, while Trek
>of the 60's was loosely based on extrapolated reality, current Trek is loosely
>based on extrapolated Trek of the 60's.
>>>Suppose, for
>>>example, that They don't ever complete Their own sentences. What if They
>>>communicate by the implications drawn from how the other party being addressed
>>>chooses to complete them? Could we handle that?
>>I think that "not completing their sentences" is an improvable example,
>>but one that points to some major stuff.
>>In any case, I think you're talking about high-context vs. low-context
>>cultures. The difference is in how much people are expected to make
>>explicit as compared to how much they're expected to already know--
>>and high-context cultures can be confusing or even dangerous to
>>outsiders.
>Now you're talking. How much variation do we see on the context spectrum in
>present cultures? Does the level of context rise with time? Now you've got
>me wondering if a space-borne culture might be incomprehensible to us for this
>reason (which does suggest a really cool improvement on my example).
>--
>Stevens R. Miller http://www.interport.net/~lex/
One classic example of misinterpreting alien languages is Damon Knight's
'To Serve Man' (the punchline, in case anyone doesn't know it, is
"It's a Cookbook!"). This, of course, tells us much more about the way
English uses the same words for different concepts than it does about
aliens... but imagine how aliens might use what *seems* to be the same
'word' to our limited senses to express very different concepts. As an
example, Lee Gold points out that the sentences "I possess a
demon who devours female spies" and "My elder brother wants carrots and
vegetables for dinner" sound almost identical when translated into
Japanese.
Now imagine dealing with an alien race where the pitch and
duration of each phoneme is important, but the *order* isn't, so that
"You can land on our moon" might mean "Our moon can land on you". Running
that through a tone-deaf 'Universal Translator' would be as useful as
trying to 'listen' to sign language.
- Stephen Dedman
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
*nobody* on Riverworld could calculate how high the mountains were - until
some unexplained "1970's technologies" became available :-)
--
Ahasuerus http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/, including:
FAQs: rec.arts.sf.written, alt.fan.heinlein, alt.pulp, the Liaden Universe
Biblios: how to write SF, the Wandering Jew, miscellaneous SF
Please consider posting (as opposed to e-mailing) ID requests
Jerry Bryson
>Matt Austern (ma...@cyclops5.berkeley.edu) wrote:
>: which the languages aren't based on nouns, but on adjectives; you
>: can't say what a thing is, but only the characteristics that it has.
>
>: I find that a fundamentally alien way of speech and thought, and I
>: doubt if any human language could ever develop that way.
The red-coated man-like rode behind the equine behind the canine as they
chased the sly.
Nouns and adjectives are not that different. Both cut subsets from larger
sets.
Debbie Notkin
>One of the nicest examples of this isn't, strictly speaking, from a
>science fiction writer at all. Jorge Luis Borges describes a world in
>which the languages aren't based on nouns, but on adjectives; you
>can't say what a thing is, but only the characteristics that it has.
>I find that a fundamentally alien way of speech and thought, and I
>doubt if any human language could ever develop that way.
In, of all places, Vonda McIntyre's first Star Trek novel, THE
ENTROPY INCIDENT, there is a character who speaks *only*
in nouns; instead of "Kirk went that way," the closest she can come
is "Kirk intersection corridor." But the Borges is even weirder
(and thus more wonderful, to my mind).
A similarly peculiar concept is the one in Pamela Dean's THE DUBIOUS
HILLS, in which all knowledge is categorized in the community and only
one person has a given kind of knowledge. If you want to know if your
own arm hurts, you have to ask the healer; you don't know, but he
does. If you want to know if it's raining, you have to ask the weather
person--you can't tell, but she can.
I'm not sure Dean quite pulls this off, but the effort is fascinating
and I recommend the book.
--
Debbie
ki...@slip.net
Mark Rosenfelder
>>: can't say what a thing is, but only the characteristics that it has.
>>
>>: I find that a fundamentally alien way of speech and thought, and I
>>: doubt if any human language could ever develop that way.
>
>chased the sly.
>
>Nouns and adjectives are not that different. Both cut subsets from larger
>sets.
Indeed, some languages allow adjectives to be used freely as nouns.
(It can be done in English, but normally only with plurals: the rich, etc.)
Your example is cute, but cheats a bit, methinks. English has both
"horse" and "equine". I'm not sure what sense it makes to posit a
language that has only "equine". If it has only one word that picks out
the characteristics that relate to horses, we should translate it "horse",
not "equine".
Cecil Rose
>In article <lex.678....@interport.net>,
>Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote:
>>In article <49kf9t$6...@universe.digex.net> nan...@universe.digex.net (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>>
>>>In any case, I think you're talking about high-context vs. low-context
>>>cultures. The difference is in how much people are expected to make
>>>explicit as compared to how much they're expected to already know--
>>>and high-context cultures can be confusing or even dangerous to
>>>outsiders.
>>
>>Now you're talking. How much variation do we see on the context spectrum in
>>present cultures? Does the level of context rise with time? Now you've got
>>me wondering if a space-borne culture might be incomprehensible to us for this
>>reason (which does suggest a really cool improvement on my example).
>>
>I've heard that US and German cultures are low-context as human cultures
>go. It could be argued that that law and science are efforts to push
>context as low as possible. I'd be as willing to bet that context will
>drop for a while as people try to communicate with people from very
>different cultures, then rise if people are living in a world culture.
>I had a specific example in mind of the dangers of dealing with people
>from a high-context culture. I was told about a Northern woman who
>was raped in the Southern US--she'd let a man into her apartment
>after she'd turned him down for a date. The (Southern) woman who
>told me the story had a lot of trouble understanding that the
>Northern woman couldn't reasonably be expected to know the local
>rules--and the Southern woman is a bright person.
I'm a Southern man who hasn't the foggiest idea what "rules" you're
talking about.
Cecil Rose
ala...@earthlink.net
Carson, California
Dorothy J Heydt
Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@spss.com> wrote:
[examples slipped]
>Your example is cute, but cheats a bit, methinks. English has both
>"horse" and "equine". I'm not sure what sense it makes to posit a
>language that has only "equine". If it has only one word that picks out
>the characteristics that relate to horses, we should translate it "horse",
>not "equine".
It is difficult to generate an utterance without nouns in English,
a language that has nouns as one of its basic word classes. The
early grammarians of Sanskrit, noting that a very large number of
nouns could be shown to derive from a verb root--the first thing
you did with a verb root was to change it into either a noun stem
or a verb stem, and proceed from there--went so far as to
invent hypothetical *verb roots for nouns that didn't have any.
There probably are languages having no nouns as we understand the
term, but none come to my mind at present. (It's been a *long*
time.) Nootka, which I was reviewing recently, is made up
entirely of verb roots and particles which are strung together
into rather long words. But some of the particles have the
effect of forming the strings into nouns, and the noun class is a
recognized part of Nootka syntax. So that doesn't get you much
forrader.
In any case, even if you do find (or construct) a language
without nouns, when you translate it into English you will
translate some of the verb forms into nouns, because English uses
nouns.
Dorothy J. Heydt
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu
University of California
Berkeley
Beth R. Martin
ma...@cyclops5.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern) wrote:
> One of the nicest examples of this isn't, strictly speaking, from a
> science fiction writer at all. Jorge Luis Borges describes a world in
> can't say what a thing is, but only the characteristics that it has.
>
> I find that a fundamentally alien way of speech and thought, and I
> doubt if any human language could ever develop that way.
This would indeed be an interesting alien language. I've seen some
refutations of the above, and as a linguistics major thought it my duty to
point out that it is one of the universals of human language to have nouns.
-Beth
Stevens R. Miller
>...as a linguistics major thought it my duty to
>point out that it is one of the universals of human language to have nouns.
Interesting fact, Beth. Thanks. What parts of speech are not universal? Can
you give us one that doesn't exist in English? Might be a bridge to useful
speculation about alien languages.
Mark Rosenfelder
Quite so; but I was more wondering what sense it makes to posit a
language that but "doesn't have nouns" but does have words like "equine".
If it has words like that, why aren't they nouns?
Of course, there are languages where there isn't much _formal_ distinction
between (say) nouns and verbs: add verbal endings and it's a verb, add
nominal endings and it's a noun. You could argue that English is such
a language. ("I like verbing nouns. It weirds language!" --Calvin)
To get the exotic splendor of a "language without nouns" we need something
more than that, though.
Matthew Hoyt
>In article <brm1-071...@128.253.108.188> br...@cornell.edu (Beth R. Martin) writes:
>>...as a linguistics major thought it my duty to
>>point out that it is one of the universals of human language to have nouns.
>Interesting fact, Beth. Thanks. What parts of speech are not universal? Can
>you give us one that doesn't exist in English? Might be a bridge to useful
>speculation about alien languages.
English articles have no gender. Whereas French and German articles
differ according to the gender of noun. All nouns in German and French
have gender. German & French also has two different sets of pronouns
and verb endings whether you are speaking to a close friend or relative
or a not so close person. Japanese carries this even further, if I
am not mistaken, breaking it into equals, those of a higher rank, and
those with a rank below you.
To bring this back on topic - Delany presents language as way to
influence thought in Babel-17. Wherein the language is built around
concepts that are to undermine the opposing force (if I remember correctly).
Jan Six
> br...@cornell.edu (Beth R. Martin) writes:
> >...as a linguistics major thought it my duty to
> >point out that it is one of the universals of human language to have nouns.
> Interesting fact, Beth. Thanks. What parts of speech are not universal? Can
> you give us one that doesn't exist in English?
Locative cases. Gender classes other than male/female/neuter.
Declinable negation. Ergative. Dual number. Inclusive/exclusive we.
Informal/formal you.These are just off the top of my head.
For comparison - English constructions that do not exist in Finnish:
Gender. Verb to have. Definite/indefinite article. Future tense.
Continuous aspect.
You will perceive that most of these distinctions concern slightly
more precisely defined grammatical classes than nouns or verbs.
______________________________________________________________________
Jan Six |"It is a hypothesis that the sun will rise in the
| morning. This means we don't _know_ it will rise"
Jan...@uku.fi | - Ludwig Wittgenstein
|
It's my real name.|"Actually, now that you come to mention it..."
Honest. | - Nikolaus Copernicus
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Stevens R. Miller
>Declinable negation. Ergative. Dual number. Inclusive/exclusive we.
>Informal/formal you.These are just off the top of my head.
I know what some of these are, but not others (ergative?). Could you say a
bit more about these examples?
Alyn
>Quite so; but I was more wondering what sense it makes to posit a
>language that but "doesn't have nouns" but does have words like "equine".
>If it has words like that, why aren't they nouns?
>
>Of course, there are languages where there isn't much _formal_ distinction
>between (say) nouns and verbs: add verbal endings and it's a verb, add
>nominal endings and it's a noun. You could argue that English is such
>a language. ("I like verbing nouns. It weirds language!" --Calvin)
>To get the exotic splendor of a "language without nouns" we need something
>more than that, though.
I've been itching to bring this up ever since I've come across this
thread -- Babel 17 (by ???).
The book Babel 17 was about language, and how it affects how you
think. So the Babel 17 language was kind of a "military" language;
one which saw everything in terms of opportunities for attack /
defense. So once you learned to think in B17, it kind of changed your
whole way of thinking -- enormous advantage to the cloak & dagger as
well as might is right sorts. It was a constructed language. At
least that's what I remember ...
.. anyway, a language without nouns would imply that it's speakers
do not see themselves as beings who are distinct from their
environment (hmm, maybe that's the kind of language in nirvana).
Nope, hang on, I guess it wouldn't necessarily mean that. I think it
_would_ mean that they have a different concept of existence. Rather
like the procedural languages which preceded object oriented languages,
maybe they would view what we view as objects (nouns) to be processes (?)
Alyn
--
The opinions expressed in this communication are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
Jan Six
> I know what some of these are, but not others (ergative?). Could you say a
> bit more about these examples?
> >Locative cases.
Quite a number of languages use case inflections [You/me, who/whom]
far more extensively than English. Latin is a well-known example, but
even there, the number of cases is fairly limited. There are langu-
ages with as many as 20 different cases [this does not make these
languages particularly difficult BTW, since they use this system to
replace a large number of prepositions: of, by, with, through etc...]
Locative cases are a particularly good example, because they are
fairly widespread. Finnish has six locative cases, three "internal"
and three "external", further differing in whether or not they imply
movement, and the direction of that movement.
[Poyta = table, Talo = house. Various diacritics omitted for clarity]
Talossa = in the house (interior)
Talosta = from (out of) the house
Taloon = into the house (movement)
Poydalla = on the table (surface)
Poydalta = from (off) the table
Poydalle = onto the table (movement)
Note that it is possible to say "talolla". This would immediately
conjure up a mental image of somebody sitting on a roof, however...
> >Gender classes other than male/female/neuter.
The fact that most well-known [read Indo-European] languages happen
to make gender distinctions only according to sex causes most English
speakers to confuse these categories [to the point where "gender" has
wrongly come to be regarded as synonymous with "sex"]. But there are
languages with as many as 16 different gender categories, depending
on whether the item a particular word refers to is alive or dead,
fixed or mobile, visible or invisible, atomic (a tree) or
dispersed (a wood), etc etc etc... I do not speak any Bantu or
Aboriginal languages, so I can't give a specific example.
> >Declinable negation.
There are a number of languages in which the words for "yes" or "no"
vary according to context, giving extra information that English can
only express by paraphrase. In Finnish, "no" is declined like a
regular verb:
En = no (I don't)
Et = no (you (alone) don't)
Ei = no (he/she/it doesn't)
Emme = no (we don't)
Ette = no (you (y'all) don't)
Eivat = no (they don't)
> >Ergative.
English is an "accusative" or subject-requiring language: the
obligatory noun in its atomic sentence [noun + verb; the smallest
possible combination of words that forms a grammatical sentence]
is the subject. To demonstrate what this means, consider the
sentence:
He slept.
This is a complete and grammatically correct sentence. Now consider
It is raining.
Who or what is "it"? The answer is: nothing. "It" is a dummy subject
needed to form a complete English sentence. English sentences _always_
require a subject, even if nothing corresponds to it in the real world.
But there are languages in which the obligatory noun in a sentence is
not the subject, but the object. These are called "ergative" languages.
Basque is an example of an ergative language. I don't speak Basque,
but a literal translation of the first sentence above would be more
or less like:
Slept him.
What slept him? Nothing: there's no _subject_ needed here, but you
need an object. Likewise:
Is rain.
would be a perfectly grammatical sentence in an ergative language.
> >Dual number.
There are quite a number of languages which, beside singular and
plural, distinguish a separate category for things that come in
pairs: ears, hands, eyes etc... Sometimes this characteristic is
extended to all categories of nouns. In English, you can have a
dog, or (several) dogs. In Khoisan and other languages with a dual,
you can have a dog, two dogs, or more dogs - the word "dogs" would
be grammatically different in both cases.
> >Inclusive/exclusive we.
In English, when one says "we", this refers to "myself and other
people". Without context, it is not clear whether the other people
include the person addressed. There are languages that make this
distinction, having separate words for "myself and these other folks,
but _not_ you" and "me and you, and possibly some other folks".
Incidentally, languages with a dual number can refine this system
even further, adding "me and you, _only_" and "me and my (one) pal
here, not you".
Time for my ObSF: Quenya, one of Tolkien's Elvish languages has an
exclusive/inclusive we. When Frodo and his companions meet Gildor
in the Woody End, he greets the Elves with the famous:
Elen sila lumenn'omentielvo [a star shines on our meeting]
The -vo ending is an inclusive we, meaning "me, my companions and
you", a very proper greeting. Some early editions of LOTR wrongly
printed an earlier version of this phrase, apparently because of
skipping the author's emendation in the proof:
Elen sila lumenn'omentielmo
The -mo is an _exclusive_ we, meaning "me and my friends, but _not_
you" - decidedly impolite for what's supposed to be a greeting.
> >Informal/formal you.
There are quite a number of languages in which a distinction is
made between a formal and informal mode of addressing a person.
French is a familiar example: "Tu penses" you think, is informal and
familiar, but when speaking to a stranger or a superior, "Vous pensez"
you think (formal) would be far more likely to be used. English is
actually fairly rare even among Indo-European languages in not making
this distinction.
Phew! I trust you will have found these examples enlightening.
Having mentioned Tolkien above, can anybody think of particular
grammatical concepts [either in this list, or others] that have been
used by SF authors in their fictitious languages? In particular the
ergative concept sounds rather interesting: I don't subscribe to the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis myself, but I could well imagine an author
pitting an accusative, subject/agent-oriented language against an
ergative, object/target-oriented language to make a point about
differences in way of thinking/world view.
Stevens R. Miller
>[A tour de force synopsis of different grammars used throughout the world.]
>Phew! I trust you will have found these examples enlightening.
"Exhilirating" would be a better word. Where do I send the check?
Vicke Dovheden
Jan Six <Jan...@uku.fi> wrote:
>l...@interport.net (Stevens R. Miller) wrote:
>
[major snippage]
>
>Phew! I trust you will have found these examples enlightening.
>
[snip]
>
>______________________________________________________________________
>Jan Six |"It is a hypothesis that the sun will rise in the
> | morning. This means we don't _know_ it will rise"
>Jan...@uku.fi | - Ludwig Wittgenstein
> |
>It's my real name.|"Actually, now that you come to mention it..."
>Honest. | - Nikolaus Copernicus
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
Would it be presumptous to conclude that you are a linguist by trade,
Mr. Six? A very impressive and exhaustive post!
Vicke
Maureen F. McHugh
> Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote:
> >Can
> >you give us [a part of speech] that doesn't exist in English?
> >Might be a bridge to useful speculation about alien languages.
Mandarin is a tonal language. English is a language that signifies
questions with rising intonation. If you you take the word in
Mandarin which means 'to ask' which is rendered 'wen' in romanized
form with a falling intonation (the fourth tone, signified with
an accent over the word, '\') and you let your voice go up instead of
down, it no longer means 'to ask' but instaed becomes a slang term
that means 'to kiss'. (Offering to kiss someone instead of asking
someone can lead to true communication difficulties.)
Mandarin signifies a question in a couple of ways, but a really
common one is to use the signifier 'ma' at the end. 'The mountain
is high' is, roughly 'Shan hen gao', but 'Is the mountain high' is
roughly, 'Shan hen gao ma?'
We don't have a grammatical form for signifiers.
Another signifier is a tense signifier. Add 'le' to the end of a
Chinese sentence and it becomes past tense. 'Wo chi' is 'I'm eating.'
'Wo chi le' means "I ate.' We change tense with verb changes,
Mandarin uses signifiers.
Maureen F. McHugh
http://www.en.com/users/mcq/
David Thomas Richard Given
Fascinating. It's interesting that all the examples of what I would call
the `odder' grammatical concepts occur in `exotic' languages. The
`standard' ones are all quite similar to English. Historical imperative,
or simply using the least complicated language around? (I wonder if the
Romans actually spoke Latin with all its declensions and conjugations as
I failed to learn it in school, or if they used a simplified version for
speech.)
I've yet to see a completely uninflected language.
>Having mentioned Tolkien above, can anybody think of particular
>grammatical concepts [either in this list, or others] that have been
>used by SF authors in their fictitious languages? In particular the
>ergative concept sounds rather interesting: I don't subscribe to the
>Sapir-Whorf hypothesis myself, but I could well imagine an author
>pitting an accusative, subject/agent-oriented language against an
>ergative, object/target-oriented language to make a point about
>differences in way of thinking/world view.
Brian Aldiss refers to a large number of grammatical concepts in his
_Helliconia_ books. These are used when trying to speak to phagors, who
think entirely differently than humans. Unfortunately, I can't remember
what they are.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why do people surf the Information Superhighway? Won't they get run over?
http://www-hons-cs.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~dg
Sun-Earther David Daton Given of Lochcarron
Nancy Lebovitz
>grammatical concepts [either in this list, or others] that have been
>used by SF authors in their fictitious languages? In particular the
>ergative concept sounds rather interesting: I don't subscribe to the
>Sapir-Whorf hypothesis myself, but I could well imagine an author
>pitting an accusative, subject/agent-oriented language against an
>ergative, object/target-oriented language to make a point about
>differences in way of thinking/world view.
>
and the other to indicate all the members of a class. Again IIRC, this
was mentioned in THE ROAD GOES EVER ON.
Thanks for all the details.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
Bob Goudreau
: > >Informal/formal you.
: There are quite a number of languages in which a distinction is
: made between a formal and informal mode of addressing a person.
: French is a familiar example: "Tu penses" you think, is informal and
: familiar, but when speaking to a stranger or a superior, "Vous pensez"
: you think (formal) would be far more likely to be used. English is
: actually fairly rare even among Indo-European languages in not making
: this distinction.
English did once have such a distinction. However the polite (i.e.,
plural) form of the second person pronoun -- "you" -- has by now almost
completely obliterated the more intimate (i.e., singular) form --
"thou" -- to the point that the latter is now an archaicism.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation
goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive
+1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
Mark Gonzales
Beth R. Martin <br...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>I'd like to see some application of the sapir-worf hypothesis to alien
>cultures. FYI, that's the theory that has to so with the Eskimos and 117
>words for snow (a myth, btw). The idea is that the language differences
>indicate real differences in viewing the world.
For what it's worth I've attached a list of Inupiat (eskimo) words for
snow. (From alt.fan.pratchett out of the Boston Phoenix via the the
rec.puzzle FAQ)
I don't see anything in the list that would support Sapir-Worf. All the
snow words seem to express concepts understandable and useful to an
english speaker. The only odd one is "aniuk" but that probably means
"snow that is clean enough for melting into water".
I think we would need to meet some real aliens to find support for
Sapir-Worf.
Mark
==> trivia/eskimo.snow.s <==
Couple of weeks ago, someone named D.K. Holm in the Boston Phoenix came up
with the list, drawn from the Inupiat Eskimo Dictionary by Webster and
Zibell, and from Thibert's English-Eskimo Eskimo-English Dictionary.
Eskimo English Eskimo English
---------------------------------+----------------------------
apun snow | pukak sugar snow
apingaut first snowfall | pokaktok salt-like snow
aput spread-out snow | miulik sleet
kanik frost | massak snow mixed with water
kanigruak frost on a | auksalak melting snow
living surface | aniuk snow for melting
ayak snow on clothes | into water
kannik snowflake | akillukkak soft snow
nutagak powder snow | milik very soft snow
aniu packed snow | mitailak soft snow covering an
aniuvak snowbank | opening in an ice floe
natigvik snowdrift | sillik hard, crusty snow
kimaugruk snowdrift that | kiksrukak glazed snow in a thaw
blocks something | mauya snow that can be
perksertok drifting snow | broken through
akelrorak newly drifting snow | katiksunik light snow
mavsa snowdrift overhead | katiksugnik light snow deep enough
and about to fall | for walking
kaiyuglak rippled surface | apuuak snow patch
of snow | sisuuk avalanche
Beth R. Martin
>
> > >Informal/formal you.
>
> There are quite a number of languages in which a distinction is
> made between a formal and informal mode of addressing a person.
> French is a familiar example: "Tu penses" you think, is informal and
> familiar, but when speaking to a stranger or a superior, "Vous pensez"
> you think (formal) would be far more likely to be used. English is
> actually fairly rare even among Indo-European languages in not making
> this distinction.
Just thought I should point out (although the author indubitable already
knows this) that English did at one time have an imformal/formal you
distinction, cognate to that found in french: thou/thee.
someone else wrote:
Fascinating. It's interesting that all the examples of what I would
call
the `odder' grammatical concepts occur in `exotic' languages. The
`standard' ones are all quite similar to English. Historical
imperative,
or simply using the least complicated language around? (I wonder if
the
Romans actually spoke Latin with all its declensions and
conjugations as
I failed to learn it in school, or if they used a simplified
version for
speech.)
The standard grammatical concepts differ from the odder ones only that they
appear in English. Many Indo-European languages share similar features,
and don't have others. If you don't know any non-European languages,
you're out of luck in terms of encountering these. Finnish isn't
indo-european, which is why it is so different. Mandarin Chinese is the
language spoken by the most people world-wide, and it has many features
English speakers would consider 'odd'. For example, question particles -
the closest thing I can compare it too is like the Canadian 'eh?', but
really different :)
my own ObSF - I do get really sick sometimes of the Universal Translator
Schtick. Star Trek, I can deal with, but in SF that's trying to be
scientifically credible, it's annoying.
I'd like to see some application of the sapir-worf hypothesis to alien
cultures. FYI, that's the theory that has to so with the Eskimos and 117
words for snow (a myth, btw). The idea is that the language differences
indicate real differences in viewing the world. This could be very fun in
terms of aliens: what if an alien language has no way of distinguishing
first and second person, for example? etc.
-Beth Martin
David Mix Barrington
The Groacchi civilization in those stories!
The near absence of verbs in the Groacchi language!
Laumer's annoying lack of consistency in Groacchi syntax!
The use of the infinitive in Groacchi as an imperative, to wit,
"To raise your upper appendages above your organ cluster, Earth person,
or your imminent vaporization!"
Dave MB
Jan Six
[re examples of grammatical diversity]
> Fascinating. It's interesting that all the examples of what I would call
> the `odder' grammatical concepts occur in `exotic' languages. The
> `standard' ones are all quite similar to English. Historical imperative,
> or simply using the least complicated language around?
Two points. First, what languages do you consider "standard"? My
hunch is that if you were to list them, most would be members of the
Indo-European phylum. If so, saying that the "standard" languages are
similar to English is just a tautology. Indo-European languages repre-
sent a mere fraction of the linguistic diversity available. Last time
I checked there were over thirty different language phyla, some of
them with considerably more member languages than the Indo-European
phylum. There is nothing intrinsically odd about any of the non-Eng-
lish features I described, except their unfamiliarity to you. All of
them occur in a large [at least two-digit] number of other languages.
By number of languages if not by number of speakers, some of the
"standard" non-odd features of English would be quite baffling to a
majority of non-English speakers. The fact that they are not odd to
you is merely a consequence of your having known them all your life.
To give just one example: to a Finnish speaker, referring to a third
person as "he" or "she" is quite confusing. Finnish has no gender,
and there is only one word ("han", with two dots my newsreader refu-
ses to cough up over the _a_) used for both male and female third
persons. To a Finn, this is definitely an _odd_ feature of English.
Which gives me a nice segue to my second point: English is *most*
emphatically not the least complicated language around. It is true
that it does not make extensive use of inflections, but to native
speakers of heavily inflected languages, this is a _difficult_ fea-
ture. You see, English makes up for this lack of inflections by using
a horrendously complicated system of prepositions. When do you say
"at", and when do you say "in" (my friend's place/house etc.)? What's
the difference between "of course" and "off course"? Do you compare
things "to" each other or "with" each other? And don't even _try_ to
get me started on spelling...
> I've yet to see a completely uninflected language.
I'm told that there are quite a number of languages that do not have
inflections. At least one of these (Mandarin Chinese) has close to a
billion speakers.
[interesting info on Brian Aldiss' _Helliconia_ snipped - Thanks!]
Dawn S Friedman
all this time! Thank you for the correction.
--
--Dawn Friedman d...@std.world.com
Love without mercy.
Bob Goudreau
: goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) wrote:
:
: >plural) form of the second person pronoun -- "you" -- has by now almost
: >completely obliterated the more intimate (i.e., singular) form --
: >"thou" -- to the point that the latter is now an archaicism.
: Do you mean _anachronism_, or is this a word I have not come across?
No, I don't mean anachronism.
: (Note that even though I have not seen that word before, I can take a
: pretty good stab at what Bob means... :-)
I hope it was obvious from context and orthography. My _Random_House_
Dictionary_of_the_English_Language_(Unabridged_Edition)_ shows
"archaicism" to be an alternate form of "archaism", which is defined
as "something archaic, as a word or expression". This was precisely
what I was trying to say.
Loki
: goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) wrote:
: >"thou" -- to the point that the latter is now an archaicism.
: Do you mean _anachronism_, or is this a word I have not come across?
Drop the extra "ic" and you have the word I assume he meant: 'archaism'
According to Webster's 7th New Collegiate Dictionary (the closest one):
1: the use of archaic diction or style
2: an instance of archaic usage
3: something archaic
Loki
--
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------------------+
| gwis...@uoguelph.ca | cs1...@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca | Geoffrey Wiseman |
+---------------+------+---------------------------------+------+-----------+
| http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/~ontarion/users/geoff |
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any form, in whole or in part. Copyright (c) Geoffrey Wiseman, 1995.
License to distribute this post is available to Microsoft for $250.
Appearance without permission constitutes agreement to these terms."
Molhant Norman
>Which gives me a nice segue to my second point: English is *most*
>emphatically not the least complicated language around. It is true
>that it does not make extensive use of inflections, but to native
>speakers of heavily inflected languages, this is a _difficult_ fea-
>ture. You see, English makes up for this lack of inflections by using
>a horrendously complicated system of prepositions. When do you say
>"at", and when do you say "in" (my friend's place/house etc.)? What's
>the difference between "of course" and "off course"? Do you compare
>things "to" each other or "with" each other? And don't even _try_ to
>get me started on spelling...
Very true, Jan!
As far as _simple_ european languages go, the one I found easiest to learn
and use was Dutch, with Spanish a not-that-close second.
Matter of fact, Dutch proved so easy that, after 20 years without using it,
I found myself in an airplane full of dutch speaking people and was quite
pleased to discover I could still understand them and make myself understood.
I also had a 20 years gap in my use of English (I was in a french-speaking
family from age 5 to 25) and relearning the queen's English proved quite
painful. It still shows in my (lack of) mastery of that very difficult
language. And indeed, yes, while I absorbed French as a child [and thus
am not too aware of the difficulty of that task], I still find some of that
language peculiarities irritatingly difficult.
Latin was worse, though, but made learning German much easier, for some reason.
Classical Greek was pure hell, but it made many french words much easier to
understand and had a considerable effect on the quality of my spelling in
French.
Even Polish proved not too difficult after that.
Swahili is an entirely different type of kettle, and a really fascinating one,
as many categories in that language have next to no equivalent in any european
language I know. It imposes a mind set all its own.
Now, when I'm thinking in words (i.e.: when I'm reflecting [in French,
reflechir {to reflect} has a meaning quite different than penser {to think},
as the first activity is conscious {reflechir} and the second is not
necessarily so {penser}]), I find that about half the time I do it in French,
half the time in English, probably because these are the two languages I use
most often. When I'm speaking Dutch, however, I do also reflect in Dutch.
And it is the only other language (apart from English and French) in which I
do that.
Anyway, this was to point out that I found Dutch to be really easy to learn
and use, starting from an english/french background.
Bye, Jan, and thanks for the little tour of language peculiarities.
Norman.
--
----------------------------------------------+------------------------------
I own a PC to program what my customers want. | mol...@ere.umontreal.ca
I own a Mac to program what my students need. | above_opinions.only_owner =
I own an Amiga to program what I want & need. | Norman W. Molhant = me;
Mary K. Kuhner
>Fascinating. It's interesting that all the examples of what I would call
>the `odder' grammatical concepts occur in `exotic' languages. The
>`standard' ones are all quite similar to English. Historical imperative,
>or simply using the least complicated language around?
Russian lacks articles, which makes it (in that respect) much simpler
than English; and I suspect there are other ways in which English is
"unnecessarily" complex. Just think! If we dropped articles we'd never
have to worry about whether it's "a dog" or "the dog" again. (If that
doesn't seem hard, it's only because you've had years to get used to it;
non-native speakers have a good deal of trouble with the distinction.)
Many languages are also totally casual about word order, whereas (having
dropped its cases) English has to be quite rigid and precise. Man bites
dog; dog bites man. Someone whose native language retained its cases
might well have trouble with the word order distinction, and might find
it more difficult than the cases are.
I suspect "exotic" is in the ear of the listener.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
--
I do not receive posts from the following systems because they tolerate
abuse of Usenet: interramp.com psi.com scruz.net
If you wish me to see your message anyway please use email.
Richard Brisbourne
>Jan Six (Jan...@uku.fi) wrote:
>: > >Informal/formal you.
>: There are quite a number of languages in which a distinction is
>: made between a formal and informal mode of addressing a person.
>: French is a familiar example: "Tu penses" you think, is informal and
>: familiar, but when speaking to a stranger or a superior, "Vous pensez"
>: you think (formal) would be far more likely to be used. English is
>: actually fairly rare even among Indo-European languages in not making
>: this distinction.
>English did once have such a distinction. However the polite (i.e.,
>plural) form of the second person pronoun -- "you" -- has by now almost
>completely obliterated the more intimate (i.e., singular) form --
>"thou" -- to the point that the latter is now an archaicism.
Interestingly it still survives (just) where I live: in the north of
England (Yorkshire and Lancashire) the local dialect still follows
exactly this pattern: "you" to a single addressee signifies respect,
"thou", often pronounced "tha'", familiarity.
--
Richard Brisbourne | | |
+--+- -Soar the big sky- +--+- +--+-
Bury, Lancs, UK | | |
K C Moore
gwis...@uoguelph.ca "Loki" writes:
> Apparently, from the original poster's repost, dropping the "ic" is not
> necessary, it's an alternate spelling, not a typo. I'll stick to
> 'archaism' though. 'archaicism' has the ring of something that's already
> been expanded once too many times and could fall through a few more times
> before anyone would notice: 'archaicicicicism'
Despite this not being alt.usage.english, I think you need a generous
qotation from the entry from Chambers 20th Century Dictionary (1983
edition):
"_archaic_, /adj./ ancient: savouring of the past: not absolutely
obsolete but no longer in general use: old-fashioned.- /adv./
_archaically. /n/. archaicism.- /v.i./ _archaise, ize_ to imitate he
archaic.- _/ns./ _archaiser, -z-; archaism_ inclination to archaise:
an archaic word or phrase; _archaist_.- /adj./ _archaistic_ affectedly
or imitatively archaic."
My interpretation of this is that "archaism" would have been acceptable
in the original context but that "archaicism" is better, since it
preserves "archaism" for its first meaning.
--
Ken Moore
k...@hpsl.demon.co.uk
Robert Pearlman
[snip]
|> Phew! I trust you will have found these examples enlightening.
|>
|> Having mentioned Tolkien above, can anybody think of particular
|> grammatical concepts [either in this list, or others] that have been
|> used by SF authors in their fictitious languages? In particular the
|> ergative concept sounds rather interesting: I don't subscribe to the
|> Sapir-Whorf hypothesis myself, but I could well imagine an author
|> pitting an accusative, subject/agent-oriented language against an
|> ergative, object/target-oriented language to make a point about
|> differences in way of thinking/world view.
|>
|> ______________________________________________________________________
|> Jan Six |"It is a hypothesis that the sun will rise in the
|> | morning. This means we don't _know_ it will rise"
|> Jan...@uku.fi | - Ludwig Wittgenstein
|> |
|> It's my real name.|"Actually, now that you come to mention it..."
|> Honest. | - Nikolaus Copernicus
|> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|>
And indeed they are enlightening. Thanks. BTW, you can add Hebrew to the
languages with a dual number.
As to use of grammatical concepts by SF authors, there's "The Languages
of Pao" by Jack Vance. Also, Keith Laumer's Groaci appear to speak an
ergative language, or something close to it, if Laumer's translations
into the Terran can be relied upon.
--
rp
Robert Pearlman
[snip] (Material included query on SF stories using language
differences as a theme.)
Further to my previous post -- how could I forget the most obvious
example? Stranger in a Strange Land! Its not as good on language as
the Vance (Languages of Pao) because RAH doesn't really go into any
details of the Martian language. All we know about it is:
it makes your throat hurt
grok = drink
it contains a question radical and an inverted position (see
"Red Planet")
--
rp
Chris Kuan
>Chris Kuan (kuan.c...@bhp.com.au) wrote:
>: goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) wrote:
>:
>: >completely obliterated the more intimate (i.e., singular) form --
>: >"thou" -- to the point that the latter is now an archaicism.
>
>: Do you mean _anachronism_, or is this a word I have not come across?
>
>
>: (Note that even though I have not seen that word before, I can take a
>: pretty good stab at what Bob means... :-)
>
>I hope it was obvious from context and orthography. My _Random_House_
>Dictionary_of_the_English_Language_(Unabridged_Edition)_ shows
>"archaicism" to be an alternate form of "archaism", which is defined
>as "something archaic, as a word or expression". This was precisely
>what I was trying to say.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation
>goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive
>+1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
I know, it was a JOKE, dammit! :-)
Sorry if I appeared to be saying that you were ignorant about the word
_anachronism_.
While we're on the topic, what is the difference between archaism and anachronism,
anyway? (Yes, this is a serious question - warning, thread drift ahead...)
--
---/\/\----------------------------------------------------
/ / /\ Chris Kuan
/ / / \ Systems Integration Services
/ / / /\ \ BHP Information Technology, Wollongong Region
\ \/ / / / Voice +61 42 75 5657 Fax +61 42 75 5500
\ / / / e-mail kuan.c...@bhp.com.au
--\/\/\/---------------------------------------------------
Scott Drellishak
)Well, they're sort of opposites. An anachronism is something that
)belongs to a particular period C, which is in the future of a period
)B, appearing in that period B when the thing in question did not yet
)exist. As far as we know, anachronisms appear only in fiction, since
)a real life anachronism would require the existence of a time machine.
Actually, an "anachronism" can work the other way as well -- a Roman
legion appearing in a novel about the Second World War is just as much
an anachronism as a Panzer divvision in a story about the Punic Wars.
--
/ Scott Drellishak s...@netcom.com \
| Vermeer Technologies ** WWW Authoring Tools ** http://www.vermeer.com/ |
\ "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." /
Jan Six
> While we're on the topic, what is the difference between archaism and
> anachronism, anyway? (Yes, this is a serious question
Well, they're sort of opposites. An anachronism is something that
belongs to a particular period C, which is in the future of a period
B, appearing in that period B when the thing in question did not yet
exist. As far as we know, anachronisms appear only in fiction, since
a real life anachronism would require the existence of a time machine.
An archaism (archaicism) is something that belongs to a period A in
the *past* of period B, appearing in period B when it is no longer in
common use. Archaisms can, and often do, belong to the real world,
though they are of course quite popular in fiction too: many fantasy
authors, good and bad, make a living from archaisms.
A little drawing to clarify things:
Past A -----------> B <------------- C Future
archaism anachronism
[with apologies to those unfortunate souls whose newsreader refuses
to use fixed-width fonts]
An example of an archaism would be a contemporary army using chain
mail rather than bullet-proof vests for personnel protection. An
anachronism would be a medieval army using bullet-proof vests in
lieu of coats of mail.
> warning, thread drift ahead...)
Plenty of opportunity for other folks to link this back into fantasy
or military SF :-)
Nancy Lebovitz
Chris Kuan <kuan.c...@bhp.com.au> wrote:
>>
>
>While we're on the topic, what is the difference between archaism and anachronism,
>
Anachronism is something which is out of its proper time period.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
Jan Six
> Actually, an "anachronism" can work the other way as well -- a Roman
> legion appearing in a novel about the Second World War is just as much
> an anachronism as a Panzer divvision in a story about the Punic Wars.
Fair enough. I stand corrected. This raises an interesting question,
though. At what point would we consider an accumulation of archaisms
to become improbable enough to constitute an anachronism?
Taking your example of a Roman legion in WWII, suppose a mad SS
standartenfuehrer with an obsession for Roman antiquities decides
to equip a unit of the SS with all the paraphernalia of a Roman
legion and sends them into battle. Would that be a true anachronism
or just archaicism getting wildly out of hand? How necessary is our
imaginary time machine in the definition of an anachronism?
It just struck me this could be a neat story idea [alternate history
of course]. Suppose some mad SS guy does just that, leading the Allies
to believe the Nazis have developed a time machine. Follows a wild
goose chase to get the secret of their time machine, which of course
doesn't really exist... or does it? Plenty of opportunity to play
Banks with the reader :->
Except that the more I think about it, the more I'm starting to
wonder if someone hasn't actually written such a story... ISTR
seeing a review once about a story in which the Nazis build a time
machine. Does this ring a bell with anyone?
Issib2
Taking your example of a Roman legion in WWII, suppose a mad SS
>standartenfuehrer with an obsession for Roman antiquities decides
>to equip a unit of the SS with all the paraphernalia of a Roman
>legion and sends them into battle. Would that be a true anachronism
>or just archaicism getting wildly out of hand? How necessary is our
>imaginary time machine in the definition of an anachronism?
>
>It just struck me this could be a neat story idea [alternate history
>of course]. Suppose some mad SS guy does just that, leading the Allies
>to believe the Nazis have developed a time machine. Follows a wild
>goose chase to get the secret of their time machine, which of course
>doesn't really exist... or does it? Plenty of opportunity to play
>Banks with the reader :->
>
>Except that the more I think about it, the more I'm starting to
>wonder if someone hasn't actually written such a story... ISTR
>seeing a review once about a story in which the Nazis build a time
>machine. Does this ring a bell with anyone?
This idea has a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" feel to it. Unfortunately I
don't recognize your story. But your post reminds me of a story I read
many years ago about a modern jet fighter pilot who time warps with his
aircraft to WWI France. So, of course, he joins the British Air Force.The
story is about his frustrations trying to become a WWI ace. He has only
the fuel he brought with him; WWI vintage aircraft generate too little
heat for his heat seeking missiles to track; enemy planes are too flimsy
and contain too little metal to register on his targeting radar; he flys
too fast relative to his enemy to use visual targeting for his canons;
etc. After running out of fuel his companions think his fancy plane
useless. He convinces his commander to requistion up enough camp stove
fuel (kerosene) for one last short flight. During that flight he saves a
comrade's life by discovering the one characteristic of his plane that
makes it an effective weapon in 1915. As you can see this story has
stuck with me, the author and title have not. Can anyone help?
Stu Shank
iss...@aol.com
12-15-95 15:27:00
Richard Wang
Loki <gwis...@uoguelph.ca> wrote:
>Apparently, from the original poster's repost, dropping the "ic" is not
>necessary, it's an alternate spelling, not a typo. I'll stick to
>'archaism' though. 'archaicism' has the ring of something that's already
>been expanded once too many times and could fall through a few more times
>before anyone would notice: 'archaicicicicism'
What, like Bengloarafurd Ford from Brust's _Brokedown Palace_? It's been
a while, but I think it goes something like this: 'ben' = ford in the
Serioli language. 'glo' = ford in the language spoken by those who drove
off the Serioli. 'ara' = ford in Dragaeran. 'furd' (obviously) = ford. And
then along came the damned Easterners who found a place called
Bengloarafurd and decided it would be nice to *specify* that it was, in
fact, a ford.
--
Richard Wang rw...@fas.harvard.edu
"You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is
the good war that hallows any cause. War and courage have accomplished
more great things than love of the neighbor." -- Zarathustra
Katherine Rossner
Organization: none of the above
Distribution: usa
Robert Pearlman (r...@iscp.bellcore.com) wrote:
: And indeed they are enlightening. Thanks. BTW, you can add Hebrew to the
: languages with a dual number.
And Old English. There are vestiges even in Modern English: "both" is
the only example that comes to mind, but there are probably a few others.
Katherine
--
j...@netcom.com
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if
I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I
became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness
and the desire to be very grown up."
C. S. Lewis, "On Three Ways of Writing for Children"
Jan Six
> Robert Pearlman (r...@iscp.bellcore.com) wrote:
> : BTW, you can add Hebrew to the
> : languages with a dual number.
>
> And Old English. There are vestiges even in Modern English: "both" is
> the only example that comes to mind, but there are probably a few others.
Well, if you want to go back to _old_ English... There are remnants
of an extensive case system too. For example, "hence", "thence",
"hither", "thither" are remains of old locative cases.
Vicke Dovheden
>Chris Kuan <kuan.c...@bhp.com.au> wrote:
>
>> While we're on the topic, what is the difference between archaism and
>> anachronism, anyway? (Yes, this is a serious question
>
>Well, they're sort of opposites. An anachronism is something that
>belongs to a particular period C, which is in the future of a period
>B, appearing in that period B when the thing in question did not yet
>exist. As far as we know, anachronisms appear only in fiction, since
>a real life anachronism would require the existence of a time machine.
>
>An archaism (archaicism) is something that belongs to a period A in
>the *past* of period B, appearing in period B when it is no longer in
>common use. Archaisms can, and often do, belong to the real world,
>though they are of course quite popular in fiction too: many fantasy
>authors, good and bad, make a living from archaisms.
>
>A little drawing to clarify things:
>
> Past A -----------> B <------------- C Future
> archaism anachronism
>
>[with apologies to those unfortunate souls whose newsreader refuses
>to use fixed-width fonts]
>
>An example of an archaism would be a contemporary army using chain
>mail rather than bullet-proof vests for personnel protection. An
>anachronism would be a medieval army using bullet-proof vests in
>lieu of coats of mail.
>
>> warning, thread drift ahead...)
>
>Plenty of opportunity for other folks to link this back into fantasy
>or military SF :-)
>
Is this really correct? If I'm not wholly misinformed, there is such
a thing as the "Society for Creative Anachronism" in the U.S., where,
amomg other things, people practice Broadsword fighting. This mode of
combat seems rather archaic to me ;-)
Vicke
>______________________________________________________________________
>Jan Six |"It is a hypothesis that the sun will rise in the
> | morning. This means we don't _know_ it will rise"
>Jan...@uku.fi | - Ludwig Wittgenstein
> |
>It's my real name.|"Actually, now that you come to mention it..."
>Honest. | - Nikolaus Copernicus
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> s...@netcom.com (Scott Drellishak) wrote:
> > Actually, an "anachronism" can work the other way as well -- a Roman
> > legion appearing in a novel about the Second World War is just as much
> > an anachronism as a Panzer divvision in a story about the Punic Wars.
>
> Fair enough. I stand corrected. This raises an interesting question,
> though. At what point would we consider an accumulation of archaisms
> to become improbable enough to constitute an anachronism?
I don't think it works that way:
anach.ro.nism also ana.chron.ic also anach.ro.nous also anach.ro.nous.ly
\*-'nak-r*-.niz-*m\ \*-.nak-r*-'nis-tik\ \.an-*-'kra:n-ik\ \*-'nak-r*-n*s\
\*-.nak-r*-'nis-ti-k(*-)le-\ n [prob. fr. MGk anachronismos, fr.
anachronizesthai to be an anachro]nism, fr. LGk anachronizein to be late,
fr. Gk ana- + chronos time 1: an error in chronology; esp : a chronological
misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other
2: a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place - anachronistic
aj
ar.cha.ism \'a:r-ke--.iz-*m, -(.)ka--.iz-\ \-*st\ \.a:r-ke--'is-tik,
-(.)ka--\ \'a:r-ke--.i-z, -(.)ka--\ n [NL archai:smus, fr. Gk archai:smos,
fr. archaios] 1: the use of archaic diction or style 2: an instance of
archaic usage 3: something archaic - ar.cha.ist n
> Except that the more I think about it, the more I'm starting to
> wonder if someone hasn't actually written such a story... ISTR
> seeing a review once about a story in which the Nazis build a time
> machine. Does this ring a bell with anyone?
_The Proteus Operation_ by James P. Hogan (Bantam, 1985, 0553050958)?
--
Ahasuerus http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/, including:
FAQs: rec.arts.sf.written, alt.fan.heinlein, alt.pulp, the Liaden Universe
Biblios: how to write SF, the Wandering Jew, miscellaneous SF
Please consider posting (as opposed to e-mailing) ID requests
Robert Sneddon
> [Clip] But your post reminds me of a story I read
> many years ago about a modern jet fighter pilot who time warps with his
> aircraft to WWI France.
> [Clip] As you can see this story has
> stuck with me, the author and title have not. Can anyone help?
>
> Stu Shank
> iss...@aol.com
"Hawk among the Sparrows" by, waitasec while I reach for the copy of
Analog where it's the cover story, ah yes, Dean McLaughlin. Analog
July 1968 with a Kelly Freas cover showing something not entirely unlike
a SR-71 parked beside a Spad. I also remember a collection by the same
author where this is the title story. Hope this helps.
--
Robert Sneddon
C D Skogsberg
Jan Six <Jan...@uku.fi> printed thus:
>[Snipping like a maniac]
>Except that the more I think about it, the more I'm starting to
>wonder if someone hasn't actually written such a story... ISTR
>seeing a review once about a story in which the Nazis build a time
>machine. Does this ring a bell with anyone?
There's Dean R Koontz's _Lightning_, where the Nazis had a time
machine that only worked forward in time. It wasn't too good apart
from the scenes describing the actual time travel, which were pretty
good, IMO.
cd
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\\\\\ |Hedgehog Freedom Front Spokeshuman |"And I saw a pale rider upon
\\\\\\\__o |CD Skogsberg |a pale horse, and the name
___\\\\\\\'/___|c...@alfakonsult.se |of the rider was Death"
Don't Bugger Me|Disclaimer: Wu bu hui jiang zhongwen|-Book of Revelations ch6, v8
Harry Hamlin
: l...@interport.net (Stevens R. Miller) wrote:
: >In article <brm1-071...@128.253.108.188> br...@cornell.edu (Beth R. Martin) writes:
: >>...as a linguistics major thought it my duty to
: >>point out that it is one of the universals of human language to have nouns.
: >Interesting fact, Beth. Thanks. What parts of speech are not universal? Can
: >you give us one that doesn't exist in English? Might be a bridge to useful
: >speculation about alien languages.
: English articles have no gender. Whereas French and German articles
: differ according to the gender of noun. All nouns in German and French
: have gender. German & French also has two different sets of pronouns
: and verb endings whether you are speaking to a close friend or relative
: or a not so close person. Japanese carries this even further, if I
: am not mistaken, breaking it into equals, those of a higher rank, and
: those with a rank below you.
: To bring this back on topic - Delany presents language as way to
: influence thought in Babel-17. Wherein the language is built around
: concepts that are to undermine the opposing force (if I remember correctly).
Actually, colloquial English supplies substitute forms for the more
intimate pronouns found in other languages. It is the misunderstood and
inappropriate use of these terms that leads to a lot of legal hassles. We
may be the first major civilization to use litigation to refine language
in the workplace and academia...
--
Darkholder Comics & Games Seattle, WA 206-746-4471
Harry Hamlin
: l...@interport.net (Stevens R. Miller) wrote:
: >In article <brm1-071...@128.253.108.188> br...@cornell.edu (Beth R. Martin) writes:
: >>...as a linguistics major thought it my duty to
: >>point out that it is one of the universals of human language to have nouns.
: >Interesting fact, Beth. Thanks. What parts of speech are not universal? Can
: >you give us one that doesn't exist in English? Might be a bridge to useful
: >speculation about alien languages.
: English articles have no gender. Whereas French and German articles
: differ according to the gender of noun. All nouns in German and French
: have gender. German & French also has two different sets of pronouns
: and verb endings whether you are speaking to a close friend or relative
: or a not so close person. Japanese carries this even further, if I
: am not mistaken, breaking it into equals, those of a higher rank, and
: those with a rank below you.
: To bring this back on topic - Delany presents language as way to
: influence thought in Babel-17. Wherein the language is built around
: concepts that are to undermine the opposing force (if I remember correctly).
"The Languages Of Pao" by Jack Vance is a marvelous exploration of this
theme, and antedates Delaney by a generation.
David Goldfarb
)What, like Bengloarafurd Ford from Brust's _Brokedown Palace_?
_The Phoenix Guards_, actually.
)It's been
)a while, but I think it goes something like this: 'ben' = ford in the
)Serioli language. 'glo' = ford in the language spoken by those who drove
)off the Serioli. 'ara' = ford in Dragaeran. 'furd' (obviously) = ford. And
)then along came the damned Easterners who found a place called
)Bengloarafurd and decided it would be nice to *specify* that it was, in
)fact, a ford.
This is more or less right, except that either "glo" or "ara" was
derived from the Easterner word for "ford". "Furd" was an archaic version
of the modern Dragaeran for "ford", and the "ford" got tacked on in recent
times.
And of course you should mention that the ford has now been bridged
and the town renamed to "Troe", partly to honor the bridge's architect,
but mostly because "Troe" is short.
David Goldfarb <*>|
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | "Justice or immortality. An intriguing choice."
gold...@UCBOCF.BITNET |
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Babylon 5, "Deathwalker"
Dorothy J Heydt
>)...Bengloarafurd Ford...
>
>
>) [each syllable means "ford" in a different language"]
According to an editorial Gold did in Galaxy 'way back in the
fifties, there's a similar placename in England, "Torpenhow Hill"--
where each syllable means "hill" in a different language.
Two-layer combinations are much more common. E.g., if you ever
hear somebody say "The River Don" or "the Danube River" or "The
River Avon" where all the proper names simply mean "river."
Dorothy J. Heydt
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu
University of California
Berkeley
Gharlane of Eddore
>
> > To bring this back on topic - Delany presents language as way to
> > influence thought in Babel-17. Wherein the language is built around
> > concepts that are to undermine the opposing force (if I remember correctly).
Correct. A stunningly conceived and executed novel, for a kid who had
no decent education, extremely limited knowledge of linguistics and
language, and no linguistically-competent editors or advisors to check
with. It nailed several awards, and deserved them; it was one of the
major signposts in an important career. Recommended.
> "The Languages Of Pao" by Jack Vance is a marvelous exploration of this
> theme, and antedates Delaney by a generation.
>--
WRONG. "THE LANGUAGES OF PAO" was serialized in '57-'58,
and "BABEL 17" got its first printing from Ace in 1966.
Unless you define "generation" as 8 to 9 years, you really need to
re-examine whatever it is you use for a chronology.
You also mis-spelled "Delany."
The first *EFFECTIVE* use of the "Strong Whorfian" hypothesis in SF
would be either late-forties Van Vogt, or George Orwell's "1984,"
both of which antedate Vance and Delany by a good many years; but
the idea showed up in SF and Fantasy many times prior to its formal
statement by Whorf.
By the way, since "Strong Whorfian" is functionally indefensible,
it makes a wonderful framing point for a fantasy novel, but is
not likely to occur in reality.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you can't think of something
without knowing the words for it, you'll never conceive it and need
to create words for it in the first place. In actual practice, as
soon as there is a societal or specialist need for new concept-gestalts,
words and linguistic structures to fulfill those needs are either
consciously created, or unconsciously evolved out of existing aspects
of the language. This is one of the reasons language structures
drift, and words change their meanings over generations.
While it is possible to build conceptual booby-traps into vocabulary
(the meaning of the word "democracy" as taught in the pre-breakup
U.S.S.R. school system, and the version of the same word bruited
about the U.S. schools, both come to mind) there is simply a limit
to how far this sort of thing can go.
By the way, Vance's "THE LANGUAGES OF PAO" actually makes this point,
albeit subtly, when the Communicant class finds it rewarding to create
a composite language called "Pastiche," which becomes the de facto
standard Paonese.
Also recommended, for those who haven't read it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| __ __ |
| We are dreamers, shapers, singers and makers. / | / \ |
| We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, -|---+----+- |
| Crystal and scanner, holographic demons, | | | |
| And invocations of equations. |_/ \__/ |
| |
| These are the tools we employ. And we know... many things. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
James Nicoll
Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
>
>The first *EFFECTIVE* use of the "Strong Whorfian" hypothesis in SF
>would be either late-forties Van Vogt, or George Orwell's "1984,"
>both of which antedate Vance and Delany by a good many years; but
>the idea showed up in SF and Fantasy many times prior to its formal
>statement by Whorf.
You have to remember that Orwell's view on language were shaped
by his experiences as a non-party line socialist in the 1930 and 1940s,
when one couldn't say Stalin was a murderous prick and expect to get
published by Victor Gollanz, for example.
james Nicoll
--
" The moral, if you're a scholar don't pick up beautiful babes on deserted
lanes at night. Real Moral, Chinese ghost stories have mostly been written
by scholars who have some pretty strange fantasies about women."
Brian David Phillips
Nancy Lebovitz
James Nicoll <jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>In article <4b2n9d$i...@news.csus.edu>,
>Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
>>
>>The first *EFFECTIVE* use of the "Strong Whorfian" hypothesis in SF
>>would be either late-forties Van Vogt, or George Orwell's "1984,"
>>both of which antedate Vance and Delany by a good many years; but
>>the idea showed up in SF and Fantasy many times prior to its formal
>>statement by Whorf.
>
> You have to remember that Orwell's view on language were shaped
>by his experiences as a non-party line socialist in the 1930 and 1940s,
>when one couldn't say Stalin was a murderous prick and expect to get
>published by Victor Gollanz, for example.
>
by Howard Fast.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
12/95 updated calligraphic button catalogue available by email
Gary Farber
: Correct. A stunningly conceived and executed novel, for a kid who had
: no decent education, extremely limited knowledge of linguistics and
: language, and no linguistically-competent editors or advisors to check
: with. It nailed several awards, and deserved them; it was one of the
: major signposts in an important career. Recommended.
You don't consider The Dalton School to provide a decent education?
That, or you mean that Chip didn't go on to college.
I otherwise agree with you, and will toss in that I believe the
Sapr-Whorf Hypothesis is quite out of favor with current linguistic
theories. Of course, it was never really *in* favor.
--
-- Gary Farber Brooklyn,
gfa...@panix.com New York City
David Gibbs
Vicke Dovheden <vi...@df.lth.se> wrote:
>In article <4apevc$f...@luotsi.uku.fi>,
>Jan Six <Jan...@uku.fi> wrote:
>
>>Chris Kuan <kuan.c...@bhp.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>> While we're on the topic, what is the difference between archaism and
>>> anachronism, anyway? (Yes, this is a serious question
>>
>>Well, they're sort of opposites. An anachronism is something that
>>belongs to a particular period C, which is in the future of a period
>>B, appearing in that period B when the thing in question did not yet
>>exist. As far as we know, anachronisms appear only in fiction, since
>>a real life anachronism would require the existence of a time machine.
Nope...
An anachronism can be either direction in time.
An archaism is something that has survived from an earlier time.
An anachronism is something that has been transplanted out of its
time/milieu.
The key difference seems to be that an anachronism involves a
discontinuity in useage/existence.
-David Gibbs
(dag...@qnx.com)