Traveller wordlist for "alien" languages

[BytePro]

Figure most of those would likely be or come with symbols designed to be 'universally' recognized.

(By the species who made them, and so with the expectation that visual acuity and cultural differences would, naturally, be ignored such that no symbol could be seen or something quite the reverse interpreted...)

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Sort of what I was thinking. Because our western culture is somewhat polyglot, a lot of people know that "attention", "warning", "cuidado", "achtung", "warnung", "avertissement", or maybe even "waarschuwing" means. But, how many of us would recognize it in Greek or, especially in the east Asian languages? We think "well, make it universal - put an exclamation point in a triangle!" But, do the Chinese even use exclamation points? And, the triangle only makes sense to us because we've used it for decades for exactly that purpose (yield and caution signs).

One "universal" is yellow caution tape. Of course, that's cultural as well: yellow only holds the meaning of "caution" to us because of it being used for the "light is about to signal you to stop" concept in traffic lights. And, that idiom has only been around for less than 100 years, probably. And, of course, how many people have you seen cross a 'barrier' of caution tape? So, how is a traveller going to perceive it when they see everyone crossing the 'tape' and they can't read "police line - do not cross"? RP hilarity ensues

 

[Enoki]

What's to say that some alien language will mirror English in its format? I'm reminded of that Star Trek episode (the idea was a good on even if the episode was so-so) where the aliens spoke in idioms and metaphors.

Eskimos have like 20 or 30 words for snow where we would have to apply adjatives and pronouns and such to get the same level of detail.

As a Traveller example I had come up with some Ral Ranthan language for a novel I'm doing. My version of Ral Ranthan doesn't use words like I, you, us. They are implied in the way the speaker uses proper nouns and verbs.
Some examples:

Bizim port tafadan min kilometer gami Ship ten thousand kilometers off our port side.

Bu yaxis! That's good for you! (literally That good!)

Biz sizin goezal soevu I'll put in a good word for you.

Basca Understood, or I understand, or you understand depending on how it is used.

Narahatliq vermak? Do I have a problem with that?, or Do you have a problem with that? Again the speaker's intent has to be understood to make the inference on meaning. (literally Problem have?)


You and I are implied in the sentences so there is no word included in them.

The language is also short on conjuctive words, adverbs, adjectives etc. I intended it to sound very abrupt and guttural.

 

[Peter Newman]

Eskimos have like 20 or 30 words for snow where we would have to apply adjatives and pronouns and such to get the same level of detail.

Er, no, they don't. That's an urban myth. You may want to Google it. You might also check out 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis'

Also, the defintion of 'word' needs clarification. They're polysynthetic (like German and, to a lesser extent, English). You can create a compound word for a specific type of snow, but just does the fact that they'll understand dry-windblown-snow as one word make it a different word? I've just made it into a compound word in English. Does that make it a sperate English word for snow?

Also, there is no one 'Eskimo' language. Innuit and Yupik are different languages.

OTOH apparently Sami (Laplander) does have hundreds of words for snow:

http://scandinavian.wisc.edu/dubois/Courses_folder/Sami_readings/Week3/LanguageToday.pdf

See the last page for the part about snow words.

 

[rancke]

What's to say that some alien language will mirror English in its format? I'm reminded of that Star Trek episode (the idea was a good on even if the episode was so-so) where the aliens spoke in idioms and metaphors.

Keith Laumer does that sort of things a lot in his Retief stories. Played for laughs, though. The speculation of how likely the actuality, as the Groaci would put it.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Er, no, they don't. That's an urban myth. You may want to Google it. You might also check out 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis'

Also, the defintion of 'word' needs clarification. They're polysynthetic (like German and, to a lesser extent, English). You can create a compound word for a specific type of snow, but just does the fact that they'll understand dry-windblown-snow as one word make it a different word? I've just made it into a compound word in English. Does that make it a sperate English word for snow?

Also, there is no one 'Eskimo' language. Innuit and Yupik are different languages.

OTOH apparently Sami (Laplander) does have hundreds of words for snow:

http://scandinavian.wisc.edu/dubois/Courses_folder/Sami_readings/Week3/LanguageToday.pdf

See the last page for the part about snow words.

There are over 10 distinct Eskimo dialects in 4 or more languages (Yupic, Inupiak, Alutiq, Inuit and Sami...) And Yupik DOES have much more granularity than English, tho' 20 is a major exaggeration, and has multiple roots that can be both inflected and agglutinated...

15 related words, of which about half have the 'qe' particle... much the same way octogon and octopus and octogenarian have the octo prefix - each are different lexemes... And that's JUST Yupik. Not Inuit, Not Alutiiq, not Sami... just Yupiq. Now, only half of those are single words in english...


http://www.princeton.edu/~browning/snow.html