Geek Mania

May. 31st, 2006 09:13 pm
bloodyrosemccoy: (Mal Who?)
[personal profile] bloodyrosemccoy
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On Sunday I awoke and my first thought was: SCI-FI! And then I went into a frenzy of writing and world-building, and I only surfaced after I had made up a pile of notes and character and planet backgrounds.
 
And a bit of actual tales, too.

I got a little way further into the the Deaf Aliens story. I’m always bothered by the language cheats in science fiction, although I know they’re necessary to circumvent the linguistic obstacles to get to the juicy bits of the narrative. Even so, in the back of my mind I was always bugged by the general massiveness of the cheats, to the point where stories often suggest that we have less trouble communicating with aliens than we actually do communicating with each other. As always the worst perpetrator of this is Star Trek, which not only has some sort of magical Universal Translator (I’ve never been able to figure out where it is or how it transmits its translations), but also gives alien languages a very English sound system, and with a few famous and notable exceptions an uninteresting grammar. I can forgive Star Trek its horrible discrepancies because the stories are good and half the fun of the show is ripping it apart, but these really grate on me.

More to the point, I am annoyed by the fact that there are no aliens that use some other method of communication than spoken language and in some cases telepathy. Oddly Star Wars, which doesn’t tend to get itself caught up with explanations or the dreaded Treknobabble, seems to have a better grasp of alien linguistics: first of all, some of the languages are not only phonologically different from human languages (not just English), but downright impossible for a human to speak. They have no magical translator device—only some very imperfect protocol droids—and one of the strategies for communication rests in polyglottism—have you noticed how many languages Han Solo or Lando Calrissian understand, if not speak? This actually bothers me less, as the ability to pick up others’ languages if you’re in contact with them for a while isn’t as stunningly difficult as it appears, as long as you give it a bit of effort. It’s acceptable and believable, and it gets rid of the obstacles surprisingly well.

But even that still relies largely on the assumption that all intelligent aliens use an oral (or whatever equivalent)/auditory language. That’s just one possibility.

In this case, I’m trying to make the linguistic obstacles themselves into the juicy bits. Granted, I am in a minority in that I find things like split-ergative syntaxes to be fascinating, but fortunately I’m smart enough to realize that science fiction stories really don’t work if they consist of a bunch of alien grammar lessons. Rather, I’m trying to work linguistic anthropology into viably interesting tales of communication between people. The Deaf story is only a small example of this, suggesting that some aliens are naturally deaf and employ sign language instead of spoken. I went a little beyond and worked out some really interesting means of communication, although they don’t make it into this particular tale  except as interesting side notes. But they may show up later.

And then there’s the other tale, which I keep referring to in my head as When Sex Attacks, although the title refers to only one of the storylines in which a mild-mannered alien suddenly goes into a crazed rampage for reproductive reasons. The catalyst idea for the story was, oddly, the Big Bad Wolf—specifically the one from The 10th Kingdom, but also the general fairy tale one. There’s a bit of Harry Potter’s Professor Lupin in it as well—the nice guy who turns into a werewolf once a month.* I had been wanting to do a story on aliens’ different cultural ideas about reproduction and taboos, but I wasn’t really sure what the focus could be until I was watching the show a few weeks ago and Wolf’s tribulations seemed like a good point to start from.

Plus, it’s a good excuse to work in a lot of daffy stuff on how an interspecies society would work around such things, like when one of the humans dating an alien is presented with a pamphlet on safe sex that includes such advice as “Be sure your partner does not belong to a species that eats its partner after the mating act.”** Because that’s just too much fun to pass up.


*It’s popular to describe women this way, too.

**The More You Know

EDIT: Yes, I fixed the Huttese, because I'm just OCD like that.

Date: 2006-06-01 04:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tiryn.livejournal.com
One day I shall read these things you write, for they sound infinitely intriguing! :D I never really thought about it much, but the Star Trek/ Star Wars thing makes me go...hrmm...yeah! At least in H2G2 they explain it, even if it involves sticking a fish in your ear. =P

Date: 2006-06-01 04:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] padparadscha.livejournal.com
Hee, I considered mentioning the Babel fish, because while it's a cheat, at least he admits it's a cheat.

Date: 2006-06-01 04:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] blackbyrd2.livejournal.com
Octopi.

No signing, no verbal components, but incredibly complex linguistic capabilities with what is essentially a biological billboard.

Then there's pheromones. :)

Have fun. I hope to read some someday soon. :)

Date: 2006-06-01 04:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] padparadscha.livejournal.com
Yup. I have a species with camoflaged skin that acts like that. It's a lot more complex, though ~ a real language. And then there's the electrical signals.

Pheromones could come in handy in both stories. *cackles*

Date: 2006-06-01 04:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] luinmir.livejournal.com
So, let me get this straight. You're writing two stories, one of which focuses on linguistic anthropology and the other of which focuses on culture and sexuality.
...
...
...
Care to donate a gamete?

Date: 2006-06-01 04:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] padparadscha.livejournal.com
And aliens! Don't forget aliens!

... As for the gamete, if I ever put one up for grabs, I'll let you know. ;)

Date: 2006-06-01 04:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cjtremlett.livejournal.com
Oooh, very intriguing.

Somewhere in the Star Wars universe, I remember a reference to a human type person being able to actually -speak- as well as understand Wookiee, referring to how difficult it is for a human to get those sounds right. I always appreciated that.

Date: 2006-06-02 12:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gwalla.livejournal.com
The native language of the Jawas in Star Wars (my grandma in the theater when they first appeared: "Munchkins!") is supposed to involve pheromones alongside spoken sound, which renders it impossible for other races to speak or understand. They also speak Basic (a.k.a. English) for communication with other races.

There's a conlang out there for a race of intelligent alien octopuses that is signed with tentacles. It also intentionally violates a bunch of universals. Rikchik, I think it was called?

Date: 2006-06-02 01:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] padparadscha.livejournal.com
Damn, I didn't know that about the Jawas. But now I'm picturing the Dinks from Spaceballs ... that would explain a lot about their language, anyway. ;)

I remember Rikchik. I do like that one ~ it's very thoroughly done, and has some interesting structures. It's one of maybe two constructed sign languages I've managed to find on Langmaker (the other being the unfortunately unillustrated Kelenala Sign Language by Dave Peterson), not counting the IALs, which I'm never as interested in. But at least there are some out there!

There was one more language I found with a very different medium from speech, and that was Ilish. Understanding that one's beyond my own capabilities at the moment, actually ...

Anyway, if you know of any other cool media for communication, I'm always interested to hear it

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