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Post by Gilberto on Jul 11, 2010 13:38:02 GMT -5
From the Darmok episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to Helen Keller, Sean and Greg talk language with Tracy. How would we communicate with aliens? Math or music? And why are there so many types of sign language? media.libsyn.com/media/darkcrazy/TVAMD_language2.mp3 |
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Post by lynn on Jul 12, 2010 16:51:05 GMT -5
This is such a fascinating area of discussion, I found very interesting the idea of people thinking differently due to different languages. I remember reading somewhere in a David Eddings book how difficult it is trying to teach someone a second language because they insist on thinking in the first one (along with an amusing discussion where the character in question insists that the language he thinks in is the language every human thinks in, that's why foreigners are all so slow because they are constantly having to translate everything from their real brain language to the foreign tongue) And my high school French teacher confirmed that when you speak another language for a while you start to think in that language.
Maths is all a bunch of hocum anyhow, what if we're trying to prove you're clever and scientific by going on about the sum of the square of these two sides of a right-angled triangle and the aliens are all like there's no such thing as this perfect triangle in reality, and what's with this mythical number plane? Why do they think this orange is equal to this orange when it is clearly half the size? These people are all stupid air-heads.
Oh also, Firefly had an interesting use of language. Joss actually thought about stuff, about which cultures are likely to last into our future, and how he can get naughty swears on TV, and made everyone swear in Mandarin. Awesome. I also liked how he'd transmuted words to mean new things, in a very natural way, so that shiny means good, and wash is a name. And now it's coming to pass with geeks everywhere bringing shiny in as a term of enjoyment. Now that's sci-fi!
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Post by panic on Jul 14, 2010 7:10:53 GMT -5
This is a great topic and you three delved into deep intellectual waters. I loved that for most of the show you're all talking about language and thought and each of you have different experiences which illustrate points you are making... and then it comes: Gilberto calls Helen Keller a fraud, a charlatan, perhaps even a myth. Thank you for blowing the lid off this whole Helen Keller conspiracy.
Keep speaking truth to power!
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Post by drivebyluna on Jul 14, 2010 18:06:22 GMT -5
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Post by drivebyluna on Jul 15, 2010 20:22:14 GMT -5
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Post by drivebyluna on Aug 26, 2010 20:45:58 GMT -5
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