![]() This second possibility was the one that Louise Banks used. In the movie this was not possible because Louise Banks didn’t speak Heptapodish nor the Heptapods speak English! Another possibility is to immerse ourselves in the language and use gestures and other non linguistic means to learn the language. Of course, this is only possible if the linguist and the speaker have a language in common. This is basically asking the speakers, “how do you say xx in your language?” By doing that, you figure out the basic sound patterns and vocabulary. A common approach is what we call linguistic elicitation. This brings us to our next question: how would a linguist approach a completely unknown language from outer space? Those of us working with undescribed languages have some experience with this issue. So, it was impossible for the linguist to analyze isolated phonemes. The sounds of the Heptapodish (what I will call the language of the Heptapods here) are similar to whales sounds combined with other weird non human sounds. In the movie, Louise Banks faces this very same problem when she tries to group and discriminate the sounds produced by the aliens. The aliens are called Heptapods in the movie, and even if you are not a linguist, you can probably figure out why. This will make it almost impossible to identify the phonemes (a sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language) of a non human language. For instance, they could have two tongues or none, two mouths or none, and so on. This is because the physical characteristics of the aliens might not be human-like. The sounds produced by non humans could be of a completely different nature than what we have heard so far. This would be the first problem we would face with a non human language and probably the most difficult to overcome in order to make sense of it. This is what we call place and manner of “articulation” For instance, what we perceive as a /b/ in English is produced by our upper and lower lips releasing some airflow from our mouth. These same organs shape the way in which we produce linguistics sounds. Sounds are produced by our larynx, lips, tongue, teeth, lungs, etc. Let’s take a simple example: the sounds of the language. These last two characteristic haven been recently put into question by Pirahã, a language spoken in the Amazon.Ī language from another planet would challenge all of these characteristics and we would have to start all over from zero. For instance, it is widely accepted (while still being debated) that all human languages share some common features or characteristics that linguists call “language universals.” Some of those characteristics are: semanticity, arbitrariness, discreteness, displacement, productivity, cultural transmission, duality of patterning, embedding and recursivity. ![]() ![]() Yes, that’s right, as linguists we have been able to establish some differences and similarities among the world’s languages. Well, that’s a very complicated question because all of our language knowledge is based on human languages. Let’s start with what a language from another planet would be like. I know this movie is science fiction, but let’s try for a minute to pretend it is real and see what conclusions we can draw from it. Professors Lisa Travis, Jessica Coon and Morgan Sonderegger were the chosen ones to assist in providing linguistic accuracy for the movie script. However, for the making of Arrival the film producers consulted three real linguists from McGill University in Canada. We need to remember that Arrival is a sci-fi movie so we are not necessarily expecting it to be 100% fact-based. Whenever we see a movie containing scientific or historical facts, we usually ask ourselves how accurately those facts were portrayed on the screen. What catches our attention is the fact that the whole plot is based on deciphering an unknown language, and that a linguist is the hero of the movie. WILS is not going to do a traditional review of the movie since there are other blogs and websites specialized in that. The film has already premiered in the US, Canada, Mexico and on December 7th, it will be released in France under the name Premier Contact. Her job is to “crack the code” of the alien language in order to communicate with the aliens and asses their real intentions before it is too late for mankind. The main character, Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is a linguist recruited by the US government to lead a group of experts attempting to determine the intentions of these outer space visitors. The film is about 12 alien ships simultaneously touching down across our planet. Arrival is the latest film by Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |