![]() To go back to the eating chicken example, Ayam makan (literally “chicken eat”) can mean, in context, anything from “the chicken is eating”, to “I ate some chicken”, “the chicken that is eating” and “when we were eating chicken”! For example “The chicken is eating.” and “Is the chicken eating?” are rendered identical in this language, it’s up to the audience to judge whether or not the phrase is a question based on context and intuition.īut if you thought not being able to recognise questions was tricky, how about not being able to distinguish between subjects and objects, singular and plural, or even differences in time? If so, avoid the Malay dialect spoken in Riau province of Indonesia. Rather unhelpfully, this variant of the Mixtec language group contains no method with which the speaker or writer can indicate a question. These shed some light on problems you might encounter when trying to understand a being from an alien culture, provided their languages aren’t in the form of chemical emissions!Ī language that is often cited as one of the ‘strangest’ on Earth is Chalcatongo Mixtec, an indigenous language of Mexico. In looking to the skies for ‘alien’ languages, one could miss some very strange ones found right here on Earth. This line of thought is admittedly close to the edge of what might be considered language but is interesting to consider nonetheless. If the language was somehow hardcoded into the alien DNA or genetic analogue (assuming their biology includes a concept similar to genetics), the language would not be learned through culture, and therefore far less adaptable to situations like meeting another species. It could be the transmission of light or chemicals. Thomas Wier, Assistant Professor at the Free University of Tbilisi, suggests that a language only really needs two things: a symbolic system that can be recombined to represent meaning, and some method of conveying those symbols.Īlien languages might not necessarily be audible or based on an alphabetical or logographic visual element. Perhaps the best place to start is considering what is essential for a language, and what an alien might leave out of theirs. The film, which has been praised by critics, raises and interesting question: how would you talk to an alien? What would an alien language (not) have? The problem, of course, is that as global tensions mount, the characters have a limited time to decipher a language that doesn’t resemble any on Earth. In the film, Amy Adams plays a linguist who is tasked by the US government to communicate with recently arrived alien ships that have arrived on Earth. ![]() ![]() This weekend saw the release of science fiction blockbuster Arrival, which gives translation a rare moment in the spotlight. ![]()
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