definition of alien anthropologist?
Michael J. Hymowitz
who studies alien cultures. Xenologist?
Xenopology? I guess I'm looking for the
equivalent of "sociologist" and
"anthropologist". Any suggestions
would be *greatly* appreciated. Please
reply via email, as well as posting (my
newsfeed isn't what it should be).
Thanks in advance,
michael
Matthias Warkus
Xenologist sounds all right, but it just means "one who studies what is
strange".
Xenopologist is a no-no. The "po" in "anthropologist" comes from "anthropos",
IIRC.
Xenosociologist?
Xenoanthropologist?
Ectosociologist?
Ectoanthropologist?
God forbid, *Exo*sociologist?
Exoanthropologist?
Take your pick. I like the "ecto" words better.
mawa
--
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My site was cracked by some obscene idiots this summer. It will go up
on another server soon. 'mawaspace' on Angelfire is not mine anymore.
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Elliott Oti
> I'm trying to find the correct word for one
> who studies alien cultures. Xenologist?
> Xenopology? I guess I'm looking for the
> equivalent of "sociologist" and
> "anthropologist". Any suggestions
> would be *greatly* appreciated. Please
> reply via email, as well as posting (my
> newsfeed isn't what it should be).
>
I don't think there's anything wrong with plain "sociologist" for someone
studying alien social culture, but that's a personal bias -- I don't like
the idea of xenosociology any more than xenophysics or xenochemistry.
Anthropology means, more or less, the study of man, so if an alien race is
discovered, (for instance) the Antho, then the study of their race becomes
anthology (sorry, couldn't resist :-), and the study of their culture
becomes cultural anthology. For the study of cultures of different
lifeforms in general I like the sound of "cultural biologist" and
"multicultural sociologist" etc.
Reading it over all these suggestions look awful. Oh well. Cheers,
Elliott Oti
http://www.fys.ruu.nl/~oti
Eh? Where's my sig?
MA Lloyd
>I'm trying to find the correct word for one
>who studies alien cultures. Xenologist?
>Xenopology? I guess I'm looking for the
>equivalent of "sociologist" and
>"anthropologist". Any suggestions
>would be *greatly* appreciated. Please
>reply via email, as well as posting (my
>newsfeed isn't what it should be).
Sociologist works fine as is, after all alien societies are still
societies. Sticking xeno- (stranger) on the front seems to be a popular
option, compare xenobiology. Exo- isn't quite so common.
I suspect if we ever reach a stage we need it, the field name will
stay anthropology, but xenology has seen some SF use. So has sophantology
(wisdom) and you could use (hellenized/latinized alien race name)ologist
as well, particularly if there are a small number of alien races which are
likely to have full scale disciplines around them. If there are a million
alien species then that doesn't work so well, not enough specialists in
any given one for the professional society. Still I can imagine the name
coined for the first alien race being extended to all of them in the same
way I can see simple expansion of anthropology.
-- MA Lloyd (mall...@io.com)
Margaret R. Dean
Michael J. Hymowitz <hym...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I'm trying to find the correct word for one
>who studies alien cultures. Xenologist?
>Xenopology? I guess I'm looking for the
>equivalent of "sociologist" and
>"anthropologist". Any suggestions
>would be *greatly* appreciated. Please
>reply via email, as well as posting (my
>newsfeed isn't what it should be).
"Xenologist" is good (not clumsy, and reasonably understandable), but if
you want to be a little more specific I suppose you could use something
like "xeno-ethnologist." That would get across the concept that it was
alien =cultures= that were being studied.
--Margaret Dean
<marg...@access.digex.net>
Cybiades
Michael J. Hymowitz <hym...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
MPG.107a37acb...@news1.lig.bellsouth.net...
>I'm trying to find the correct word for one
>who studies alien cultures. Xenologist?
>Xenopology? I guess I'm looking for the
>equivalent of "sociologist" and
>"anthropologist". Any suggestions
>would be *greatly* appreciated. Please
>reply via email, as well as posting (my
>newsfeed isn't what it should be).
>
>michael
Exobotanist, exobiologist, etc...seem to be the choice. Xeno- is an
imprecise prefix, as it means "foreign" in modern Greek, hence xenitia,
foreign lands. I know its classical meaning of "strange", but remember this
is an interpration of foreigner=stranger. The word simply doesn't have that
literal sense. I guess you call alien cultures foreign, but xenology smacks
of the study of foreign cultures, i.e the Japanese studying Finnish culture,
etc...exo which means "outside" is possibly more precise, as it hints at an
extension to the known fields of biology, botany, etc...ecto and exo share a
common derivation from Greek meaning outer or outside...I was under the
impression ecto- as an English prefix referred to concepts or things
"outside a body or organism" such as ectoderm. I suppose someone will create
a definitive word...in my own sorry fiction, I've used
exobotanist, -biologist, etc, if only for the sake of keeping Greek words
true ;)
'Later
Peter
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(a micronation)
Brett Evill
>Xenologist sounds all right, but it just means "one who studies what is
>strange".
Nope. 'xenos' = 'foreigner'. A xenologist would be a person who studies
foreigners.
--
Brett Evill
To reply by e-mail, remove 'spamblocker.' from <b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au>
Erik Max Francis
> I'm trying to find the correct word for one
> who studies alien cultures. Xenologist?
> Xenopology? I guess I'm looking for the
> equivalent of "sociologist" and
> "anthropologist". Any suggestions
> would be *greatly* appreciated.
The most frequent term employed is something like _xenologist_. The
prefix meaning "foreign" or "strange" -- and thus by extension here,
alien -- is _xeno-_, and will probably be used in more specific terms.
_Xenologist_ means "one who studies aliens," which is a little
nonspecific. Certainly you could imagine having _xenobiologists_,
_xenosociologists_, _xenoanthropologists_ (_anthropology_ uses the
prefix _anthropo-_, meaning "human being," but I believe even now
anthropology does not _always_ applys strictly to humans -- but some
other term might be used), _xenogeologists_ (more specific than
_xenoplanetologists_; the study of the homeworlds of alien species),
_xenotheology_ (should the aliens have anything resembling religion),
and so on.
> Please
> reply via email, as well as posting (my
> newsfeed isn't what it should be).
[Posted and emailed.]
--
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Erik Max Francis
> Exobotanist, exobiologist, etc...seem to be the choice. Xeno- is an
> imprecise prefix, as it means "foreign" in modern Greek, hence
> xenitia,
> foreign lands. I know its classical meaning of "strange", but remember
> this
> is an interpration of foreigner=stranger. The word simply doesn't have
> that
> literal sense. I guess you call alien cultures foreign, but xenology
> smacks
> of the study of foreign cultures, i.e the Japanese studying Finnish
> culture,
> etc...exo which means "outside" is possibly more precise, as it hints
> at an
> extension to the known fields of biology, botany, etc...
Neither prefix is completely precise, although _xenology_ has appeared
in a lot of context (science-fictional or not) to mean "study of
aliens." Either one would be recognized and usable -- for instance,
there isn't going to much confusion about what you mean if you're
talking about either _xenobiologists_ or _exobiologists_.
Chad Ryan Thomas
hym...@yahoo.com says...
>
>I'm trying to find the correct word for one
>who studies alien cultures. Xenologist?
>Xenopology? I guess I'm looking for the
>equivalent of "sociologist" and
>"anthropologist".
Well, etymologically, "sociologist" can apply to any species, so it would work
fine. As for an equivalent of "anthropologist," your suggestion of
"Xenologist" seems as good an idea as any. "Xenopology" isn't right, because
the -opo- in Anthropology is from the ending of the Greek word anthropos. The
corresponding word in Greek from xeno- is simply xenos. Hence, Xenology, and
the Xenologist.
--
****** Chad Ryan Thomas *********** crth...@asu.edu ******
/ "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be\
\ content." -- St. Paul (Phil. 4:11, KJV) /
*********** http://www.public.asu.edu/~crthomas ***********
gw...@my-dejanews.com
Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
> Cybiades wrote:
>
> > Exobotanist, exobiologist, etc...seem to be the choice. Xeno- is an
> > imprecise prefix, as it means "foreign" in modern Greek, hence xenitia,
> > foreign lands. I know its classical meaning of "strange", but remember
> > this is an interpration of foreigner=stranger. The word simply doesn't
> > have that literal sense. I guess you call alien cultures foreign, but
> > xenology smacks of the study of foreign cultures, i.e the Japanese
> > studying Finnish culture, etc...exo which means "outside" is possibly
> > more precise, as it hints at an extension to the known fields of
> > biology, botany, etc...
>
> Neither prefix is completely precise, although _xenology_ has appeared
> in a lot of context (science-fictional or not) to mean "study of
> aliens." Either one would be recognized and usable -- for instance,
> there isn't going to much confusion about what you mean if you're
> talking about either _xenobiologists_ or _exobiologists_.
Well, a trawl through our database produces a number of
compounds of xeno-, including xenobiology/ist, xenocide,
xenology/ist, and xeno-archaeology. The only established
exo- compound is exobiology, but it's clearly very well
established: I've found it used in both _Nature_ and
_Scientific American_ (as a job description for someone
in NASA). There's also a little evidence for exoplanet.
One complication is that xeno- is increasingly being
used to refer specifically to other species on Earth. My
doctor, for example, spent several minutes recently
telling me what a wonderful idea xenotransplantation is.
Naturally, neither prefix is perfect, but then it's not
very practical trying to find an ancient Greek word for
something the Greeks had never thought of. The only
other possibility which springs to mind is to use allo-,
from allos meaning other, but I don't think it has any
advantages.
Of course if your aliens happen to be bug-eyed monsters,
then you need to call in a phymatophthalmoteratologist.
gwyddwr
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Erik Max Francis
> Naturally, neither prefix is perfect, but then it's not
> very practical trying to find an ancient Greek word for
> something the Greeks had never thought of.
Well, doesn't make much sense to reject it because of that either.
After all, _xeno_ is a prefix in English now, regardless of what it
means in Greek.
Probably _exo_ is a better prefix from a purely logical point of view,
but then who said that English worked by sticking to a strict meaning of
word parts and their etymology? The use of _xeno_ is certainly more
common, but _exo_ is starting to gain popularity in the scientific
community (slowly).
--
Erik Max Francis / email m...@alcyone.com / whois mf303 / icq 16063900
Alcyone Systems / irc maxxon (efnet) / finger m...@sade.alcyone.com
San Jose, CA / languages En, Eo / web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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\
/ I am still learning.
/ (Michaelangelo's motto)
Greg Berigan
>> Naturally, neither prefix is perfect, but then it's not
>> very practical trying to find an ancient Greek word for
>> something the Greeks had never thought of.
> Well, doesn't make much sense to reject it because of that either.
> After all, _xeno_ is a prefix in English now, regardless of what it
> means in Greek.
>
> Probably _exo_ is a better prefix from a purely logical point of view,
> but then who said that English worked by sticking to a strict meaning of
> word parts and their etymology? The use of _xeno_ is certainly more
> common, but _exo_ is starting to gain popularity in the scientific
> community (slowly).
Okay, so you're writing a story involving alien anthropology and you have
characters who work in the field having disagreements over the name of
their field: exo- or xeno-. Use them both and let the reader decide. Be
useful for humanising the characters.
--
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,_--//--_,
_-~_-(####)-_~-_ "Did you see that Parkins boy's body in the tunnels?" "Just
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Pat
> Culture assumes that the aliens being studied are sentient. Why not a
> good all around word like sentientology. The study of sentient beings.
Because fools would confuse it with Scientology.>
Patricia (Pat) Mathews
mat...@unm.edu
Joseph Askew
>Well, doesn't make much sense to reject it because of that either.
>After all, _xeno_ is a prefix in English now, regardless of what it
>means in Greek.
As in Xenaphobia? The irrational fear of chubby New Zealand women
in leather minis breaking into your house and kicking your head in?
What I'm concerned with is the tense people are using. The original
question too. The proper English term for someone who *is* studying
the anthropology of alien species is "troubled".
Joseph
--
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"[Monsanto] said that they had carried out 'extensive safety
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James Nicoll
Joseph Askew <jas...@chomsky.arts.adelaide.edu.au> wrote:
>In article <3612BC8D...@alcyone.com> Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> writes:
>
>>Well, doesn't make much sense to reject it because of that either.
>>After all, _xeno_ is a prefix in English now, regardless of what it
>>means in Greek.
>
>As in Xenaphobia? The irrational fear of chubby New Zealand women
>in leather minis breaking into your house and kicking your head in?
"Chubby"? Rosie O'Donnel might be chubby. Applying it to
Xena seems to me to be misusing the word.
I watch _Pop-up Videos_, an annoying addictive MTV video show and
I keep noticing that acceptable weights for women seem to have dropped
by 10 or 15 pounds in the last 15 years.
--
"[...] it's been about 12 years now that I've been singing this dumb song. You
know, it's amazing that somebody could get away with singing a song this dumb
for that long. [...] what's more amazing than that is that somebody could make
a living singing a song this dumb for that many years. But, that's America."
Derek Bell
> "Chubby"? Rosie O'Donnel might be chubby. Applying it to
>Xena seems to me to be misusing the word.
Maybe he'd confused Xena with _Roseena: Warrior Mother_. :-)
Derek
--
Derek Bell db...@maths.tcd.ie |The road to hell is paved with
WWW: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dbell/index.html| melting snowballs
PGP: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dbell/key.asc | -- Larry Wall
Patricia Wadley
good all around word like sentientology. The study of sentient beings.
intelligence.
then again, after watching tv, maybe not.
llap
p
Michael J. Hymowitz wrote:
> I'm trying to find the correct word for one
> who studies alien cultures. Xenologist?
> Xenopology? I guess I'm looking for the
> equivalent of "sociologist" and
> "anthropologist". Any suggestions
> would be *greatly* appreciated. Please
> reply via email, as well as posting (my
> newsfeed isn't what it should be).
>
> Thanks in advance,
> michael
Cybiades
Joseph Askew <jas...@chomsky.arts.adelaide.edu.au> wrote in message
3612d...@hakea.services.adelaide.edu.au...
>In article <3612BC8D...@alcyone.com> Erik Max Francis
<m...@alcyone.com> writes:
>
>>Well, doesn't make much sense to reject it because of that either.
>>After all, _xeno_ is a prefix in English now, regardless of what it
>>means in Greek.
>
>As in Xenaphobia? The irrational fear of chubby New Zealand women
>in leather minis breaking into your house and kicking your head in?
Hey! Lucy Lawless ain't that chubby! :) It's good to see someone from the
Antipodes do well in Seppo- whoops, the United States, and it's good to see
a Kiwi Amazon woman like Lucy do well.
>
>What I'm concerned with is the tense people are using. The original
>question too. The proper English term for someone who *is* studying
>the anthropology of alien species is "troubled".
>
>Joseph
You sure about that? I thought the term was "Agent Mulder" ;)
'Later
Peter
----
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Lance Purple
Patricia Wadley <mj...@flash.net> wrote:
>Culture assumes that the aliens being studied are sentient. Why not a
>good all around word like sentientology. The study of sentient beings.
Sounds too much like the word "scientology"; your readers would
have trouble supressing images of volcanoes and L. Ron Hubbard.
(and no doubt his lawyers would sue for infringement).
How about "sophontics", the study of self-aware life forms.
.----------------------------.
| lpurple at netcom dot com |
'----------------------------'
Elliott Oti
> Culture assumes that the aliens being studied are sentient. Why not a
> good all around word like sentientology. The study of sentient beings.
> Non-sentient beings would not have a culture. Culture is a function of
> intelligence.
Sentientology.
Hmm. Isn't that the same religion Tom Cruise and John Travolta profess ?
Or was it the study of diner ethics ? I forget ...
(You should see my coffee mug's culture. Amazing. The mug isn't even
sentient.)
Elliott Oti
http://www.fys.ruu.nl/~oti
Who should be in bed by now.
Joseph Askew
>>As in Xenaphobia? The irrational fear of chubby New Zealand women
>>in leather minis breaking into your house and kicking your head in?
> "Chubby"? Rosie O'Donnel might be chubby. Applying it to
>Xena seems to me to be misusing the word.
Well, from what I can see, Rosie is more than chubby. I'ld say she
was verging on fat. Not fat like Roseanne I suppose. I'm not sure it
is misusing it really. She isn't fat, but she is definitely a round
little thing. Probably most of that is bone structure.
> I watch _Pop-up Videos_, an annoying addictive MTV video show and
>I keep noticing that acceptable weights for women seem to have dropped
>by 10 or 15 pounds in the last 15 years.
To what? I saw in the paper some re-printed article about how film
makers have finally accepted there might be other models of feminine
beauty with specific reference to Jennifer Lopez' backside. A pity
they discussed it solely in terms of drooling critics and catering
to the Hispanic and Black audiences. As if there aren't White males
who think a woman ought to be properly shaped! So if White stars
drop any more weight we'll be dealing with famine victims (and really
the mere ad for _Sliding Doors_ made me want to toss my cookies when
I saw what is a very pretty girl in a low cut evening gown. Feed the
girl up!) and presumably some large propertion of the young male movie
going audience will only be interested in Black and Hispanic women.
Not that there is anything wrong with that I suppose.
Joseph
Heard on an ad for this week's Xena "Come on Gabrielle, get your
gear off". Spoken by Xena. I might have to watch this weekend.
Please be mud wrestling, please be mud wrestling, please be mud
Patricia Wadley
p
Julian Flood
> How about "sophontics"
This sounds like one of those interminable Campbell(*) editorials which went
on and on about such things.
Someone said it should be alien sociology - Modorians had no society, just a
lot of individuals.
Xeno-bio, xeno-soc etc is what we'll end up with. Betcha.
--
Julian Flood
jul...@argonet.co.uk
Life: much too important to be taken seriously.
Aahz Maruch
James Nicoll <jam...@ece.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
> I watch _Pop-up Videos_, an annoying addictive MTV video show and
>I keep noticing that acceptable weights for women seem to have dropped
>by 10 or 15 pounds in the last 15 years.
VH-1
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 <*> -=> http://www.rahul.net/aahz
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het
Zippergate: if they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't
need to worry about the answers. Shut up, already!
Jay Random
>
> Hey! Lucy Lawless ain't that chubby! :) It's good to see someone from the
> Antipodes do well in Seppo- whoops, the United States, and it's good to see
> a Kiwi Amazon woman like Lucy do well.
Amazon? If Lucy Lawless has had a mastectomy, then _Xena_ has the best
special effects I've ever seen on television.
Matthew DeBell
> On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Patricia Wadley wrote:
>
> > Culture assumes that the aliens being studied are sentient. Why not
> a
> > good all around word like sentientology. The study of sentient
> beings.
>
> Because fools would confuse it with Scientology.>
>
> Patricia (Pat) Mathews
> mat...@unm.edu
Must we plan the branches of academia around the blunders of fools?
Besides, we already have precedent for naming space-oriented fields to
confuse the ignorant. Cosmology (vs. cosmetology) and astronomy (vs.
astrology), for instance.
--Matthew DeBell m...@ibm.net
James Battista
: I'm trying to find the correct word for one
: who studies alien cultures. Xenologist?
: Xenopology? I guess I'm looking for the
: equivalent of "sociologist" and
: "anthropologist". Any suggestions
: would be *greatly* appreciated. Please
: reply via email, as well as posting (my
: newsfeed isn't what it should be).
Xenologist is prolly the most obvious term.
Not xenopologist -- the po is part of anthropos for man.
After that maybe something that refers to sentience, to help
distinguish the alien-anthropologist from a xenobiologist.
Maybe sophontologist, sapientologist -- what are the proper
Latin and Greek roots for sentience / sapience?
And then of course specialists would be kzinologists,
runaologists, sorologists, klingontologists...
'Course, the other option would be to make anthropologist
the general term and come up with a new one for strictly-
human anthropology. I like this option myself because it
makes the aliens more equivalent to human.
Or just call them sociologists?
Jim
James S. Coleman Battista
PhD candidate, Dept of Political Science, Duke Univ.
james.b...@duke.edu
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man -- J. Springfield
Mary K. Kuhner
Julian Flood <jul...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>Xeno-bio, xeno-soc etc is what we'll end up with. Betcha.
My University just decided that it needed a word for this concept,
to go with a brand-new program studying ... well, the program will
actually study life in extreme environments (high temperature,
high pressure, unusual carbon sources, etc.) but has some aspirations
to study extra-terrestrial microbial life, should any become
available.
They settled on "astrobiology", alas. Which should mean the study
of life on stars, or possibly asteroids.... I would *much* prefer
xenobiology, but they didn't ask me.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Erik Max Francis
> My University just decided that it needed a word for this concept,
> to go with a brand-new program studying ... well, the program will
> actually study life in extreme environments (high temperature,
> high pressure, unusual carbon sources, etc.) but has some aspirations
> to study extra-terrestrial microbial life, should any become
> available.
The term I've heard several times to describe life which exists in
extreme or even previously unthinkable environments (but on Earth) is
_extremophile_.
--
Erik Max Francis / email m...@alcyone.com / whois mf303 / icq 16063900
Alcyone Systems / irc maxxon (efnet) / finger m...@sade.alcyone.com
San Jose, CA / languages En, Eo / web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
USA / icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W / &tSftDotIotE
\
/ Covenants without the sword are but words.
/ Camden
Chad Ryan Thomas
>Or just call them sociologists?
Well, as an anthropologist, I feel compelled to note that an anthropologist is
not a sociologist. Not even a social anthropologist is a sociologist. The two
are related fields, but not equivalent.
So the question becomes, what does the original poster really want? An
anthropologist working with aliens, or a sociologist working with aliens?
Wim Lewis
Perhaps "xenopologist" comes from xeno- + polis + -log(ist), that is,
the study of (or writing about) alien cities. :-)
Or maybe it's a slightly corrupted descendent of "xenoapology"... hm...
--
Wim Lewis * wi...@hhhh.org * Seattle, WA, USA