What would an alien language look like?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- Disappointed by the alien languages you see in movies? I have good news! There is a new branch of linguistics-Xenolinguistics-dedicated to imagining what an alien language might actually look like!
In this video, I want to explore the weirdness of the forms an alien language could take, using what we know about human language, animal communication, biology, and cognition.
Big thanks to my friend Maxwell Domanchich for helping me out with this video!
A new handbook on xenolinguistics was just published!
Xenolinguistics: Towards a science of extraterrestrial language.
Preview available here: doi.org/10.4324/9781003352174
0:00 - Xenolinguistics
2:04 - How weird is Klingon?
3:38 - Universal grammar
5:33 - The languages of Tlön
7:02 - Language and number
8:20 - Gestural language
10:29 - Chemical signaling
12:09 - Color changing and bioluminescence
15:17 - Electro-communication
17:23 - Magnetoreception
18:46 - How to make an alien language
19:59 - The languages of Star Wars
Sources
Borges (1940). Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.
Catania (2019). The astonishing behavior of electric eels.
Clarke (1973). Rendezvous with Rama.
Crook Baddeley & Osorio (2002). Identifying the structure in cuttlefish visual signals.
Evans & Levinson (2009). The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science.
Golston (2018). φ-features in animal cognition.
Ligon & McGraw (2018). A chorus of color: hierarchical and graded information content of rapid color change signals in chameleons.
Hanlon & Messenger (1988). Adaptive coloration in young cuttlefish (sepia officinalis l.): The morphology and development of body patterns and their relation to behaviour.
Holmer (2013). Greetings Earthlings! On possible features of exolanguage.
Hopkins (1999). Design features for electric communication.
Hunter (1775). An account of the Gymnotus Electricus.
Jackson & Ratnieks (2006). Communication in ants.
Jeanson et al. (2003). Pheromone trail decay rates on different substrates in the Pharaoh’s ant, Monomorium pharaonis.
Jones & Conner (2019). The jamming avoidance response in echolocating bats.
Mouritsen & Ritz (2005). Magnetoreception and its use in bird navigation.
Musso et al. (2003). Broca’s Area and the language instinct.
Osvath (2013). Astrocognition: A cognitive zoology approach to potential universal principles of intelligence.
Palmer et al. (2006). Response of female cuttlefish Sepia officinalis (Cephalopoda) to
mirrors and conspecifics: evidence for signaling in female cuttlefish.
Ross (2023). Modification as a universal property of intelligent communication.
Ross (2023). A linguistic perspective on the Drake equation.
Westby & Conselice (2020). The astrobiological Copernican weak and strong limits for intelligent life.
Williams et al. (2019). Dynamic pigmentary and structural coloration within cephalopod chromatophore organs.
Wiltschko & Wiltschko (2005). Magnetic orientation and magnetoreception in birds and other animals.
Clips:
Star Wars (1977)
Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (1982)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Avatar (2009)
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Treasure Planet (2002)
Return of the Jedi (1983)
Johnny Moses - Winter Water Serpent Song: • Winter Water Serpent Song - Наука та технологія
![Can language change the way you think? [The Science of Arrival]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/lIPi3OiaG3I/mqdefault.jpg)
There are few works of fiction that address language as a central theme. It would be helpful if it were more common. Seeing the language from a different perspective would be interesting and a welcome stimulus to study. When trying to group this theme I saw that it is in many places, but never in a central place.
I was secretly hoping to get more recommendations for fiction with this theme in the comments ;)
@@LanguageofMind Embassytown tackles the topic in a really creative way! Heaven's Vault is a fun game that centers around deciphering an alien language.
@@LanguageofMind When I saw Spider Man spot for the first time I thought it was uninteresting (comics). But I really like portal, which is basically the power of spot.
Douglas Ramsey (cipher), is unpopular. But the concept is incredible. Just like a portal, all that’s left is for someone to understand and do something incredible.
Apart from that, there is the film Arrival, which is very focused on language. The 3-body problem has things in this interesting sense, although it is not the main theme. When it comes to language, finding out about something called semasiography really blew my mind and what I knew about language. Quipu "writing" is a good example of semasiography.
@@swim3936 I am currently halfway through Embassytown! Need to finish
@@LanguageofMind children of time novels got me obsessed with this topic
Hot damn, the production quality has skyrocketed
Thanks! Still learning
I have already tried this in a universe I have created. But it's nice to hear from someone else about it.
Love this. I used to write sci fi and fantasy as a teenager and have pages of notes full of (really simplistic) conlangs. If I ever got back into it I'd want to take into account all the possible weird and wonderful forms of articulation. There's just a balance to be had between communicating to the audience and being realistic which is often difficult to achieve.
You should develop more languages! And let me know what you come up with
Luminescence is a doable option. Visible light occupies 300 nanometers. If aliens have detectors distinguishing 10 nanometers, we can get 30 letters.
The emmitting fluorescence must be fast switching though
Changing hue seems like a slow and inaccurate chemical process to me. I can see multiple light emitting organs covered by muscle, modulating amplitude. But you can also make patterns with a setup like this.
We modulate our vocal chords, but speech is mostly controlled by throat and mouth movement - so it's a single emiter with multiple modulations applied (ignoring other gestures and facial expressions). Speech is really a rather complex stream of audio patterns.
You can have a simple red led and modulate direction and amplitude to get the same bandwidth as speech. Direction is particularly useful, as shown by gesture languages.
yo this might be my favorite video you've done yet Ryan
you keep hitting them out of the park
Thank you!
Probably just like spoken vulgar Sanskrit. A highly inflected language with 8 declensions (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, instrumental, and locative) to avoid loss of information in verbal transmission.
Declension isn't the only way to avoid ambiguity. You can just as well have the information explicitly marked on the verb/prepositions, you can have fixed word order, you can have explicit scope marking (like parentheses/indentation in programming languages, but verbalized), you can use prosody etc.
Another terrifically well-written, researched, and produced video. Superb job Ryan! This channel -- and particularly this video's topic -- is right up my alley. And it should ultimately have 100s of thousands of subscribers. I hope to be part of that growth along the way. Thanks!
Thank you! This is a topic that really speaks to me too, so I'm happy that it's finally getting scholarly attention!
I’d love to see an analysis of what your diet and metabolism would need to be like to generate the energy required to power an antenna for routine communication
We need an eel biologist
What an amazing video, I was really looking forward to this one! Glad to have you back. I have seen some articles about animal and plant languages and even their translation through AI and other technologies and I find it fascinating.
Whenever I ponder on the topic of the limits of the mind I always start through the possibility of creating a language of one. Perhaps I do it one day just for fun 😅 or perhaps it would be a way to visualise how my brain actually represents reality to itself? 🤔 Food for thought.
Can't wait for the next video. Cheers from France :)
Thanks! I'm also really intrigued by plant (and other biological) communication. I've been doing some reading on this, maybe I'll make a video sometime!
I love learning about languages from this channel.
I never knew the aliens were saying gibberish in Star Wars
Some of it is gibberish, and some of it is real human languages. But the subtitles definitely don't match what's being said!
i love this video!!!!!!
Thank you!
So rich in information and fascinating.. what a topic, I absolutely love it! I instantly thought of His Master's Voice, by Stanislaw Lem and the message of aliens sent towards Earth, group of scientists from different fields trying to encode it
Ooh, good recommendation. I need to read this!
Really good! What a piece of nice work. Greetings from Colombia!
You're back \(･◡･)/
I'm back! This was a lot of work... need to improve my workflow. Lol
I’m a little let down that you did not mention how the different nature of alien language would aeffect their thinking. I would enjoy more videos on semantics anyways
@@Tmesis___19 I really wanted to talk about semantics! But the video had gotten so long... Maybe I can revisit this topic.
Shocked this doesn't have like a million views or something
I'm kind of wondering if UA-cam doesn't like the fact that I used Star Wars music. Lol, whoops
BRUMP
You mean "Sounds Like" not look like.
Well, not every language uses sound! Is there a better word for the perceived shape or structure of something that doesn't have an associated sensory modality?
@@LanguageofMind When you say what a language look like it is like they are doing a body language/gestures/or like speech delivery when they're reciting a poem in a stage or if you're saying what it is "look like" you describes something a form of an object or a structure or a facial looks of what their appearance look like. But whereas when you say what a language sounds like it is like you're speaking a different language in terms of their accents/mother tongue using their mouth to speak. For example, What russian language sounds like when they're speaking that language in their accent.
I'm sorry... what? Your whole body is a fractal antena. The neural system continuously moves electrons, as long as you're still breathing. How is any reasonably complex creature on earth missing an antena?
It is true that your nervous system generates a magnetic field, but it's extremely weak. It can be measured with MEG, but the signal doesn't travel far. I wouldn't consider the nervous system a dedicated organ for this purpose. I think we can design a better transmitter!
@@LanguageofMind Well, the hardware's there, we just need the software (conscious control). And how do we know that every other mammal besides us isn't using it as radio communication? We keep saying this and that furry animal can "smell fear" or sense distress. If trees can exchange chemical signals trough the mycelium networks in forests, how is this hard to believe?
Biological radio comms is plausible in my book. Also, we've surrounded ourselves with modulated radio on a wide range of frequencies, what used to be a signal is now buried in the noise. As a receiver, we've hot hundreds of meters of wiring for all kinds of frequencies, mostly right under the skin. That's pretty impressive hardware even if it's ineficient and does triple duty.
@@LanguageofMind Look, light emitting diodes generate a whole lot of visible light (light is in the radio spectrum) and virtually no magnetic field. The size of the magnetic field generated by a radio emiter has no correlation to the power of other emissions. My wifi router also has a weak magnetic field. A candle flame generates no magnetic field effects but still puts out thermal and light radiation.
@@PaulSpades Neurons generate very, very weak signals in the radio range (lots of biological tissues will interact weakly in the radio spectrum). My expertise is in EEG, but I've never heard anyone claim the nervous system can generate radio signals of any appreciable strength.
engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/can-brain-waves-interfere-with-radio-waves/
@@LanguageofMind EEG only measures SLF. SLF waves have extremely long range and low bandwidth.
But SLF can serve as a carrier wave for other signals - which are not studied in the medical field (it is assumed that modulation of SLF is natural variation and that's that). Everybody in the field seems satisfied with the single neuron 10hz model, from the textbooks.
No proper measurements or attempts of decoding neural spikes in diverse situations(during sex, during injury, in life threatening danger) have been done. There is way more data gathering to be done. And analysis should include the madmen that hack satellite signals and reverse engineer network protocols for fun - not medical professionals.
I'm not saying that you or I can communicate with GHz waves over 2 km. I just know that all EMF caries data. And we have the required hardware to receive (definitely) and possibly transmit some EMF beyond the EEG "brainwave" models.
I am writing a science fiction novel involving an alien race, I had planned to have them use a human language to communicate with humans but that leaves me with as many problems as it solves. If you have not already been flooded with people requesting alien languages and you would like to know more about my project let me know how to contact you. I would be happy to try and convince you it would be worth the effort.
Sure! Email me: ryan.rhodes (@) rutgers (dot) edu
I wonder how San-Ti language may sound like?