Now, these have accepted meanings---but, it strikes me that the accepted meanings are of the here-and-now, and of American / Western civilization in particular. And since the story takes place thousands of years in the future and thousands of light years away (more or less), I got to wondering how gestures might have evolved...

I'm not really asking for help here---I'll figure out something to do. But it's been brought home to me in recent plowings through this and that, that gestures that are acceptable in one culture are obscene here, and vice versa. Even the meaning of "yes" and "no" gestures varies. Anybody got information on tap, some account of their own to share?

In that case it worked because it showed how alien the thought processes of the Fremen were as a result of their environment.

If they have a human body, give them human gestures.

In the majority of the world, any given gesture will have a similar meaning. There are some gestures, like the middle finger, that only have the same meaning where our pop-culture has spread (IE places where they watch our movies).

The Peace sign forefinger and middle finger, means peace in America, no matter how you hold it. The Peace-Out Gesture of a peace sign slammed to your chest would be an insult in great britain or Australia where a "Peace sign", showing the recepient the back of your hand means the same as giving them the middle finger.

There are several ways to introduce a gesture and attach it to a meaning. The best might be to say the gesture then explain it.

"Glorph wiggled his ambulatury tenacles over his head, insulting Mifkka and all of his ancestors."

You have some leeway here to be redundant without being silly.

Instead of "He nodded, meaning yes."

Say "He nodded in agreement." or "He nodded approvingly."

This is an example of when to break the standard rules against pronouns and redundancy. However, if your gestures are the same as those used by your readers, it would be a little silly to explain them.

If someone nods at me when I propose an idea in a business meeting, it is natural for me to make a mental not of their approval in addition to noticing their nodding. I don't just think, "The boss is nodding" I think "The boss is nodding, She approves of the idea." so in this case, redundancy is not unnatural. Hopefully the boss wasn't nodding because she's got her ipod running and her earpiece hidden by her hair.

But, you can always use another characters reaction.

"Joe nodded.

"Noting Joes affirmative response, Mike continued."

Keep in mind these are bad writing but good examples using the most basic concepts.

Don't, as in your example, outright define the gesture. Do, reaffirm the gesture.

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I read recently (probably one of the things that started me worrying about this) that crossing the arms across the chest is a sign of respectful attention in India (I think), but a signal of boredom with and contempt for the listener in America.

And the various meanings of the "Peace Sign Minus One" can astonish Americans, who, after all, tend to assume our world is universal...

(edited to correct a typo)

Thanks to "The Gods Must be Crazy".

Edit: Oh! and in some places if a local starts looking you in the eye it means you've lost their respect and the more blatant it becomes the more trouble you could find yourself in.

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Those were the !kung people.

I suspect that movie is not the best anthropological reference material...

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No, !Ki the little "bushman" was, but there's a scene where the bumbling hero gets chased by a Rhino and ends up running into the lady who was dressing or bathing or something. Some Zulu guys are passing thru at the time and came to see what the commotion was. The lady didn't see the Rhino so doesn't really believe him and he asks the Zulus to back him up. They same something (I pressume 'yes' in a Zulu language) and shake their heads side to side.

But anyway, yes, Movies in general don't tend to allow the facts to get in the way of a good story.

Back on topic, though: Zulus also shake hands with their left hand ("I don't need my shield with you" instead of our "I don't need my weapon with you"). This is the origin of the Boy Scouts hand shake (left-handed).

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Those weren't Zulus.

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Message The Baden Powell handshake originates with an encounter he had with an Ashanti chief, so I guess that would have been Ghana?

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Aust Alien, I remember that scene and it was very funny.

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I've had characters "signal yes" or "make a sign against bad luck" or such.

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When I grew up, I understood both "the finger" and the "F-word" to mean "I'm in the mood to beat my wife and/or children senseless." That was what gave it espressive power. When I got old enough to understand the concept formally expressed by both, it left me rather cold, truth be told.

Okay, I was still too young for that particular formal concept to really mean anything to me. So it was really just the concept of "it's very rude." Since I didn't have a wife or children to beat senseless (even had I been in the mood), and I never needed any formal means of being rude, I never had any use for the gesture or the word.

As I grew up, both symbols ceased to have any real meaning to me. For one thing, having been raised with my father's truly inventive blasphemies (both verbal and gesticulary), everything else seemed pretty tame (not to say unimaginitive and dull). And it was never backed by force anymore. I was no longer a child. I was stronger, smarter, and more ruthless than any human. Seeing his children (and wife) outgrow him had changed my father. And even if it hadn't, such a display from him would have been merely pathetic in view of our relative positions.

So both word and gesture faded, for me, back to their generally accepted meaning as a formal display of uncouth attitudes. When my drill sergeant asked if any of us would have a problem with that sort of thing, I claimed I found it offensive. But the truth, as it turned out, is that I was barely capable of even noticing. I have many memories of sergeant Jones, most fond. I do not remember any specific instance of him swearing at me, even though he peppered his language with such terms constantly (and on one occasion I'm pretty sure he "really" swore at me, the "I'd like to beat you senseless" kind). I'm pretty sure he used the finger a lot too, but I simply don't remember it.

Man, I still feel bad about that. I liked Sgt. Jones, and I knew that I'd let him down one way or another. To this day, I'm not sure exactly how. I think he'd been expecting me to do particularly well, or to follow our covert instructions on how to cheat, or...well, something. But he didn't say, and I never could really ask. Oh well, I guess he realized that I was what I am.

The point is that I know how a gesture (or word) can mean a lot to one person and be almost meaningless, in and of itself, to another. Because I've been both people. I used (with my siblings) to scamper for cover the moment a particular gesture was invoked, now I'd barely notice if you did it in Church.

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That's as maybe, but it doesn't say precisely what gesture they're making, only what the gesture means.

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The paragraph:

"What happened here, George?" asked Wayland.
George made a gesture that indicated he did not know.

Is clumsy compared with.

"What happened here, George?"
George shrugged.

Culturally we understand a shrug. It saves keystrokes to describe the gesture and is simpler.

With a gesture that we dont understand culturally, I don't think you can get away with not describing it.

It will feel like a cheat.

A good friend of mine is a cop. He has to report in court the precise language and gestures used by the people he interviews or arrests. 1: For context, 2: For accuracy and credibility.

So the POV is critical but so is context, accuracy and credibility.

It strikes me as a bit lazy to not describe a gesture that otherwise no-one reading will be able to picture because it is specific to a culture within the author's milieu.

Gestures change and evolve...new gestures come in. Most of you have probably seen the thumb-and-pinkie gesture that means "phone me" or "you've got a phone call." (Adapted from American Sign Language, apparently.) I never saw it in use until the late eighties.

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When characters met, they "made a leg." Made a leg? If I hadn't been familiar with accounts of the gesture (it lasted in America through the Revolutionary War, at least), I might well have been puzzled---I imagine some readers were, too.

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I can't think of anything but utter silliness when I read "made a leg." What is it?

EDIT: Of course, I can't think of anything but utter silliness when I read most things, but this one is definitely special.

You have to draw the line with being a pedant somewhere in your writing. Your personal cultural bent will reveal itself at some point no matter how hard you try to conceal it.

Recently I researched, wrote and designed and exhibition on botanical explorers throughout time. One of the interesting factoids I learned was that a Flora is a book detailing the plants of a specific region and time. And time? I thought, Plants of a specific time? Suddenly a light popped on in my head and I realised that I could go back to old floraes and see a snapshot of the the plants of a region at that specific time. Plants change over time especially in the last couple of centuries. Plants that, last century, were isolated to a tiny pocket within a Sikkim valley are know commonplace throughout temperate gardens around the globe. Never before in the history of the world could such a thing have occurred.

It lead me to the idea of creating a Cretaceous Flora or a Jurassic Flora with information derived from what we know from fossils etc

What I'm getting at is that you cannot think of flora as static. It changes over time because it is a 'community' of living things. The same goes with the catalog of human attitudes and gestures etc. Any description can only be a snapshot of a given time or region. As the creator of your story you are able to dictate -- less so in historical stories -- what species of gesture survives, what thrives and what becomes extinct in the setting.

In a more isolated setting (say, a colonized planet some thousands of years after the fall of a Galactic Empire), I figure names and such will develop in specialized ways---there might be a similarity of names to those we know [especially if the writer has fiddled with a more familiar name].

A woman would not do this. She would curtsey, crossing legs at the ankles and holding her dress while inclining the head. She might also hold her dress with only one hand with the other hand only her chest.

Well, as long as Grignak doesn't shrug with someone else's flagellum. That's just rude.

I knew a woman from Colombia who liked to stand an inch away when we talked and would walk so close we brushed shoulders. Nice lady, but made me a nervous wreck.

Edited to spell "Colombia" right. Time to go get coffee...

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to "make a leg" describes a bow. If you have ever taken any sort of Shaksepearian acting class, you learn that a proper male bow consists of extending your leg forward and then bowing forward while crossing one arm across your chest and extending the other arm to the side (possibly holding a cape)

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"Look's like he's makin a leg"

"Doesn't he already have one?"

"No you dummy he's bowing"