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Author Topic: Languages?
Bent Tree
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I hate to create an entire thread to answer a relatively simple question, but I need help in chosing a language.

Of course the choice of language is neccesary for a story, but I need to try to determine what is the most advanced. I guess what I mean is which language offers the most in expressing ideas, or shall I say if there were a genetically enhanced human and it were the most inteligent being ever, what would it choose?

My immediate guess is Latin, but, I am in no way a language expert or even close.


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shimiqua
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Telepathy?

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Dark Warrior
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Romulan?
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Bent Tree
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While the being is capable of telepathy, I am looking for a known language...known by current residents of Earth that is.
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babooher
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The English language has the largest vocabulary. It dwarfs any other languages. It might not sound as beautiful as French or be as dead as Latin, but its size helps express ideas and emotions.

Mathematics have also been used in scifi because it is often perceived as being truly universal. However, I think only cerain ideas could be expressed that way.

Saying a language is more advanced is a touchy subject. Language is a strong indication of culture and therefore, you're implying that one culture is more advanced. I'm only adocating English because of the size of the vocabulary.


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billawaboy
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I agree with babooher. But i will go as far as to say English has become our most advanced language primarily becuase it is the main language of the intellectual community and so the most advanced ideas and vocabulary are automatically invented and incorporated into the language. It's why many other languages borrow words like computer and internet. But it also shows that English is inherently a composite language with borrowed words and borrowed grammar from nearly *every other language* - but still flexible enough to be allow new words and even rules to come in.

And English has officially (and I say permanently) become a world requirement. It is the language our very electronic infrastructure is written in. URL addresses, http protocols, C++ languages are all written in English. There's no German Java applets or Japanese HTML code. All programs in the world are in English.

German I think has a way of creating words by concatenating words into one to create a specific description - but the words ended up being huge.

I have heard Sanskrit had a 'scientific' grammar about it's language construction - but I have no idea what that means.

I have always considered that an advanced language allowed you to express your ideas specifically and *exactly* with an economy of words. Even English can't do that - in science we use the word 'force' but have to give it a scientific definition because English is not advanced enough where merely saying "force" conveys the exact meaning simply by stating it.

Perhaps you don't need to literally invent a highly advanced language, but convey how your characters might react to one - by having the perfection of the language manifest itself in the story in terms of preciseness and multifacetedness (real word?) of the idea expressed.

You got your work cut out for ya.

If you have to have something specific you could invent your own language - might take some time, but with specific goals for the kind of language you want - an hour of research a day will give tools for a life time

here are some links:
http://www.zompist.com/kit.html

http://www.omniglot.com/

If all else fails - there's always IgPay AtinLay.

[This message has been edited by billawaboy (edited March 19, 2010).]


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TrishaH24
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I grew up in Italy speaking English and Italian, took Latin in high school, and when I sat down to invent my own language, it was still a pain in the butt. But if you don't have time to learn Latin, it might be easier to invent something. What I did was base the language on the construction of Latin sentences and create my own words loosely based on Latin or Italian words (and in a few cases, Romanian, because it was a language for gypsies.)

Either way, I'd try to get my hands on an old text book. I have several and that made it so much easier to remember what I'd learned in school since it's been a while. Good luck!


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Robert Nowall
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French is said to be the language of diplomacy...or at least it was a century or more ago...

Similarly, Latin is said to be the language of scholarship...similar frame of time...


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halogen
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Possibly a hybrid language, like they do in bladerunner where they choose words from all languages that best suits their need. So the being might start in English, but move fluidly into French or Japanese mid-sentence to convey a specific meaning.
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philocinemas
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I studied English, Spanish, some Latin, and ancient Greek in college.
Greek was the most difficult and expressive in my opinion, though as others have pointed out it did not have the largest root vocabulary (English). With Greek, words take on many various meanings depending on the use of articles, word endings, and the context of other words - this is one of the reasons why there is often so much strong theological differences between Catholics, protestants, LDS, and Jehovah Witnesses on interpretation of the Bible (Reading Greek is not "clear cut"). Also it has a very unique syntax structure - most words can be placed anywhere in a sentence, depending on subject/direct object relationships and attached adjectives, and still have the same meaning.

I believe about half of my class failed - it is very challenging.

It has been over 20 years since I took Greek, but I still have all of my various lexicons and dictionaries. I can no longer read it without having about three other books open to decode it. It is NOT like riding a bike.


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billawaboy
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wow, now I see why they say "It's all Greek to me"! and I thought Russian was tough to learn.
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shimiqua
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What if you think about this differently for a sec. Since this dude is all intelligent, wouldn't they know communication is important?

Why not have the dude speak in whatever the native language the person he is speaking to uses. Then they wouldn't have to find a translator, and I think you could show his intelligence by the amount of languages he speaks.

That's what I say you go with.
~Sheena


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rstegman
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One might phrase this differently

WHO WON THE WAR.

Consider Chinese. they are advancing dramatically in technological capabilities, life style, influence in the world, financially (they own something like half the US debt). They have a culture thousands of years old yet are becoming new again. they have a very advanced spoken language and their written language requires a typewriter with some thousand keys if I remember right.
it would be a language an advanced version of us would love, as their language is so expansive. It is expansive differently than English, which will even change the meaning of a word, or at least the usage of a word, to fit their needs.

Chinese is an elegant language for poetry which does not translate well into English.

I use American English as the standard (American measurements also) I always worked that they were the ones who would reach the stars. Also that is the only language I speak.
To have your higher beings speak a different language, Chinese would be a great alternative. It requires more training to fully read all the symbols of the Chinese language compared to the English with 26 letters. that would be something that a higher intellect creature would find pleasure in.


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Teraen
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Esperanto. Duh.
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Lyrajean
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I agree with the others saying its hard to judge which language is the most 'advanced'.

What you are looking for depends on what you are after. Different languages are strong in different areas.

As others have said English has the greatest vocabulary, but because it got that way by absorbing other languages, it doesn't follow its own grammatical and spelling rules. (Like having 2-3 hundred commonly used irregular verbs!)It can be very hard to learn if one doesn't already speak a related language like German or the Romance group.

Languages that developed in isolation tend to be more obedient of their own structure/rules. Japanese and German are the msot obedient to their won grammar supposedly. Can't speak for German but 'watshi wa nihongo o hanasemasu kara' I'll tell you about Japanese.

Japanese has only 3 irregular verbs and is spelled phonetically. It uses 4 alphabets and has a marvelously complex system of expressing social/hierarchical relationships. It is highly contextual, however and it can be difficult to follow a full conversation unless you are very close to fluent because if the speakers' understand the topic of the conversation, the inclusion of subjects in the sentence structure are optional.

Phonetic alphabets usually developed after pictograms (pictures). Modern computers work better with phonetic alphabets as pictogram ones like Chinese and some Japanese characters have to be input by IME. Fortunately Japanese has 3 phonetic and only one pictogram alphabet to choose from. Chinese has only pictograms and must be entered by selecting the radicals (parts) of the kanji characters. Its basically a question of lanaguge bumping against the logistics neccesary to make a keyboard (easy for a phonetic alphabet of 24-40 character, but impossible for the 10,000 kanji needed to write Chinese).


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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Thanks, Lyrajean. I wonder if it would be possible to create a keyboard for kanji that is based on the angles and directions of the brush strokes and not the kanji themselves. Instead of a shift key, you might use position keys that would indicate where each brush stroke belongs (in a 9x9 grid perhaps?).

I must have dreamed about a presentation on language (I've attended a few conferences lately, and there might have been something, but I can't recall what and where, hence the dream possibility), but my vague recollection was that the language used some kind of clever way to express a huge range of things by combining a few simple elements (like brush strokes in kanji?).

Wish I could remember if I really attended such a presentation and didn't just dream it.

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited March 20, 2010).]


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billawaboy
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There are virtual laser keyboards ( http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/ ) that can be designed to spec, with any layout in the display area. Not sure what programs or fonts to use though....
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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Looks interesting, billawaboy, but one of the things that I would miss is the tactile experience. What's to keep my fingers on the right keys with a virtual keyboard?

And this is getting off topic. Sorry, Bent Tree.


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Lyrajean
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Kathleen- basically the radicals are a stroke or two. I imagine the system we have now will persist until they perfect writing tablets that interpret what you write (they have them now but are far from perfect at reading human handwriting, or perfect voice recognition (you talk it enters what you say).

Nintendo DS with the stylus has a Japanese learning program/dictionary where you enter the kanji and it tries to read it and give you the meaning.


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micmcd
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Another good argument for English - it's something of a whore, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Got a bunch of people from another country, and they insist on using their own words? Screw it, add their stuff to the dictionary. Raison d'etre? Rendez-vous? Sushi? Are they even remotely "English" in origin? No problem. Book it, print it, done. English lexicographers must have the most frantic job in the world; it's simply a matter of how many new words they can add by each publishing date. Want to google something? Do you doubt that word will be in the OED in a few years (if it isn't already)? English slang becomes official language, if you could even say there is such a thing as official English language.

The opposite end of the spectrum in that sense would be a language like French, where there is an entire national academy devoted to the purity of the language. For instance, they were not happy when they realized people were starting to call all those new-fangled miracle boxes "le computer" because it contributed further to a sort of English intrusion on the language. Hence the birth of the word "l'ordinateur," which (from what I understand) has become the dominant word today. They lost the battle on "le week-end" though.

If English is in any way more "advanced" or expressive, it's because (IMHO) it's a dirty, dirty whore of a language, and I love it.

That may be an argument against using English, though, since the same phrase can mean so many different things, and no rule of grammar or spelling is complete without a few thousand exceptions.


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Robert Nowall
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quote:
Another good argument for English - it's something of a whore, and I mean that in the nicest possible way

True dat. Name practically any language on Earth or off, and you can usually find some words from it in English.


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micmcd
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If you want a language that would be used by purely logical beings, why not use Lojban or Loglan as inspiration? They are languages engineered to minimize grammatical ambiguity.

Quoting from the site:

quote:

Vizka la Spat. (See Spot.)
(Command) See the-one-named Spot!

Vizka lepo la Spat, prano. (See Spot run.)
(Command) See the-event-of the-one-named Spot, running!

Prano, hoi Spat. I prano. (Run, Spot. Run!)
(Command) Run, O Spot! (And) Run!


[This message has been edited by micmcd (edited March 22, 2010).]


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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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And here I'd always heard that English was a mugger, as in it follows other languages down dark alleys, beats them up, and steals whatever words it wants from them.

I've also heard it described as a "polyglot" instead of a language (meaning that it is too jumbled up and full of words from other languages to qualify as its own language--it's a multi-language--a "polyglot").


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micmcd
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That sounds so much nicer than the way I described it, KDW

Perhaps I lack a certain sense of elegance...


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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Aw, shucks, micmcd. I'm not sure the word "elegance" applies to me, either.


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Tricia V
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A bit late to the party, but English is the bastard language. French is one of her parents.

Arabic, at least Modern Standard Arabic, is ridiculously logical. In practice, everyone speaks one dialect or other that (in my opinion) is the child of Arabic and whatever folks used to speak before Arabic arrived. Every Arabic dialect claims to be closest to "true" Arabic.

Vocabulary is generated in arabic from roots that can be inflected as verbs, nouns, and adjectives. So they use the same root for school, learn, and study and another for write, book, library.

And maybe they will win the war. Not saying they should, but they could. However, if you go with Arabic you are going head to head with Dune so you better be able to write better than the devil himself.

P.S. Though Star Trek has used enough Arabic that it may not be the sole province of Dune anymore.

[This message has been edited by Tricia V (edited March 26, 2010).]


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Teraen
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I just thought of another spin, which may not be appropriate for YOUR story, but is interesting nonetheless... at least to me...

If your alien is learning a language, he (it) wouldn't view it as English, Chinese, etc... They'd probably be trying to learn "Human." They may be so advanced it hasn't even occurred to them that there are different languages, and so your alien would speak them all, using whatever vocabulary and grammar system works best to express the idea. Only later does the alien learn that not all humans speak that way. It would be sort of a case of so-intelligent-as-to-miss-the-obvious.


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