What would an alien language be like?
The new trailer for the film Arrival has got us pretty excited, and there’s even a whole field of study called xenolinguistics. How will we know what to say when we make contact?
Linguist Daniel Midgley explores the final frontier on this episode of Talk the Talk.
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Cutting Room Floor
Ben does his best Daniel accent. Then: Do we swear a lot? (Yes.)
What are our favourite things to do with emoji? Daniel smokes a Facebook prescriptivist.
Kylie’s dreading the Talk the Talk memes that are on the way, because Rule 34. And what would xenopornography be like?
Quite NSFW: Sweary and porny.
Arrival discussion
When the film Arrival came out in theatres, we got together with a bunch of our friends and listeners and watched it. Super fun!
And then we had this discussion. Thanks to everyone who came for a chat! Sorry about the background noise and music, but it’s not too bad for all that.
Also available at https://www.patreon.com/posts/7302625
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Show notes
Try out problems from the International Linguistic Olympiad
http://www.ioling.org/problems/
Apple to replace gun emoji with water pistol when iOS 10 rolls out
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/apple-to-replace-gun-emoji-with-water-pistol-when-ios-10-rolls-out.html
Herhold: Apple got it right in changing emoji to water gun
http://www.mercurynews.com/scott-herhold/ci_30258541/apple-got-it-right-changing-gun-emoji
Microsoft replaced its toy gun emoji with a real revolver
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/4/12382894/microsoft-emoji-toy-gun-revolver-update-apple
Finally, a Hollywood sci-fi alien movie with a linguist as the hero
http://qz.com/761363/finally-a-hollywood-sci-fi-alien-movie-with-a-linguist-as-the-hero/
‘Arrival’: First Full Trailer Further Reveals Denis Villeneuve’s Alien Encounter
http://collider.com/arrival-trailer-amy-adams-jeremy-renner/
Alien Linguists Like Amy Adams’s Character in ‘Arrival’ Exist
https://www.inverse.com/article/19803-arrival-alien-linguist-amy-adams
The Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang (PDF)
https://mathisgasser.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/ted-chiang_story-of-your-life_2000.pdf
Wittgenstein Light: Real Refreshment
https://wittgensteinforum.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/wittgenstein-if-a-lion-could-speak-we-could-not-understand-him-pi-p223/
Humpty Dumpty was a Wittgensteinian?
https://inferential.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/humpty-dumpty-was-a-wittgensteinian/
Why We Would Not Understand a Talking Lion (PDF)
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1811&context=bts
Could We Understand Their Language?
http://personal.bgsu.edu/~swellsj/xenolinguistics/presentation.html
Languages without adjectives
https://linguistlist.org/issues/4/4-442.html
Driverless cars need Australia’s latitude and longitude coordinates to be corrected
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-28/why-it-matters-that-australias-coordinates-are-moving/7668014
What is a Datum?
https://www.maptoaster.com/maptoaster-topo-nz/articles/projection/datum-projection.html
Australia’s GPS Was Off Because the Whole Country Moved
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a22125/australia-gps/
Australia moving up in the world… literally
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-australia-world-literally.html
Language is messy, part 2: Arabic script in “Arrival”
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=27588
Hong Kong netizens rage over Hollywood film ‘Arrival’ poster blunder
http://mashable.com/2016/08/22/arrival-movie-poster-blunder/
Image credit: https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/arrival-movie-4-e1471529984165.png?w=1497
Transcript
We’re working our way back through the archives. If you think we should prioritise a transcript of this episode, let us know!
