<story><title>A linguist on Arrival&apos;s alien language (2016)</title><url>http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/11/22/a_linguist_on_arrival_s_alien_language.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dudeonthenet</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s also worth making the distinction between the movie and the impressive short story that the movie is based on, which the article completely fails to mention: Ted Chiang - Story of Your Life [1]&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve read Chiang&amp;#x27;s book about two years before the movie aired and it really is top-notch speculative fiction that I highly recommend to any Sci-Fi lover.&lt;p&gt;Even though Denis Villeneuve,  Eric Heisserer and Ted Chiang himself did a wonderful job with the screenplay, while managing to convey the main ideas and emotion of the book, there are quite a few details about the process of translating Heptapod A and B that didn&amp;#x27;t make it into the movie, details which would have painted a more complete picture of the situation for the interviewed professor of linguistics that was interviewed in this article.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.goodreads.com&amp;#x2F;book&amp;#x2F;show&amp;#x2F;18626849-stories-of-your-life-and-others&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.goodreads.com&amp;#x2F;book&amp;#x2F;show&amp;#x2F;18626849-stories-of-your...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>A linguist on Arrival&apos;s alien language (2016)</title><url>http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/11/22/a_linguist_on_arrival_s_alien_language.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>skizm</author><text>What bothered me the most is that the way they start the &amp;quot;conversation&amp;quot; with the aliens is by using names and human concepts (walking, eating, etc.). I&amp;#x27;m not a trained linguist or anything, but it seems to me they should start with concepts that are universal: mainly numbers. Maybe as a CS guy I&amp;#x27;m biased (since my language is symbols and numbers), but literally every conceivable language has to contain numbers of some kind (at the &lt;i&gt;very least&lt;/i&gt; the concept of singular vs plural).&lt;p&gt;So start with &amp;quot;one&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;two&amp;quot; or maybe even the concept of nothing vs something. Work your way to vocab words related to space and time (again, I would think these universal concepts considering the aliens traveled with the goal of getting to earth), then get into specific human concepts like me vs you vs third person.&lt;p&gt;They essentially worked through language in the same way you would work through language with a &lt;i&gt;human&lt;/i&gt; baby, which I think would get you no where when talking to an alien race (who are &amp;quot;adults&amp;quot; at this point you would assume, and have their own fully developed world views).&lt;p&gt;Just my 2 cents though.</text></comment>