Suzette Haden Elgin's Blog, page 14

Poem; "Foundling"...

Foundling

It was a surprise:
finding a tiny cherub,
sucking its small thumb,

out on our doorstep
in a white wicker basket.
It was a puzzle.

How do you do it?
How do you raise a cherub?
Do you tie it down?

What do you feed it?
Can it fly now, right away,
or does it first crawl

and then walk, then fly?
Is it a boy, or a girl,
or something other?

Can it learn English?
Is it hard-wired for language?
How do we begin?

Do we report it?
And if so, who do we call --
a social worker,

or perhaps a priest?
Can humans keep a ch...

Personal note; a very strange day...

This past Thursday was as strange a day as I've ever spent in my life...

After last January's humungous ice storm [see http://ozarque.livejournal.com/573430.html and http://ozarque.livejournal.com/573613.html ], we immediately bought a much bigger and more powerful generator than the little one we'd had before. George put in a lot of advance time doing sub-assemblies so that he could hook it up more quickly, and that was wise of him. But getting it done meant that he had to turn off all the e...

Recommended link; whistle language...

Recommended: "Shepherds Whistle While They Work And Brains Process Sounds As Language," at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050106112603.htm .

Linguistics; ET languages; your comments (4)...

In a comment, kelsied asked two questions. First, this one:
"What feature would (or did, in your story) make rests qualitatively different?"

Here's an edited excerpt from "Honor Is Golden" [Analog, May 2004:] where Oka -- one of the two USCOL linguists sent to analyze the Goldens' language -- is explaining things to the U.S. Senate, in a hearing:

=====
The Senator closest to her frowned, and rubbed at his forehead with the palm of his hand.
"I don't get it, Professor," he said, so...

Linguistics; ET languages; your comments (3)...

I am guilty of having done a post here that could only have been understood by cybertelepaths. I had all the backstory for my new novel in my head, I had all my linguistics-stuff in my head, so I just went blithely along with that post as if you [youall:] were similarly encumbered. I am greatly blessed that houseboatonstyx came to my rescue with a comment, and -- with that resource in hand -- I am going to do my best to straighten up the mess I made. Here's the first paragraph of the comment:

"...

Linguistics; ET languages; your comments (2)...

The second batch of your comments I want to tackle -- about a possible "third class of meaningful sounds" in an ET language -- is those that propose various kinds of noises. The noises described in your comments included percussives [sounds that could be made with drums, rattles, and the like:]; crackling; clicks; whistles; burps and belches; teeth-clicks; farts; squeaks; squeals; and more.

Those of you who've complained that I didn't define my terms -- neither "vowel" nor "consonant" -- are a...

Linguistics; ET languages; your comments...

The first batch of your comments on my ET phonology question that I want to tackle is the batch that doesn't try to answer my question. I don't know whether it's because I didn't make myself clear, or because the question was perhaps read too quickly, or because the commenters just preferred not to color inside the lines. In any case...

My question was narrow and specific:
Suppose the ET language we're dealing with has three classes of meaningful sounds: vowels; consonants; and something else...

Linguistics; ET languages, continued...

In a recent post, I said:
"Suppose you encounter a language that has three basic classes of meaningful sounds: vowels, consonants -- and something else. The question then is: What could that 'something else' be?" Now I'm not quite sure what to do with the blogmonster I managed to create with that question.

One possibility is to take up each of your comments, one at a time, and respond in detail. That means finding a way to explain a great deal of basic information about phonetics and phonology...

Writing science fiction; new novel, page 1...

[Note: This will go through another fifty drafts, but I can live with this one. Here's page 1 of Draft 17, as promised.]

CHAPTER ONE

It's not fair.

That was the thought that consumed her, never mind how aware she was that it was childish and whiny. And unjustified. What had happened to her was what would have happened to any USCOL candidate who had failed her final exams. Still, it had all her attention. And there were other, even less seemly, thoughts tangled in with it...

"But I worked so hard....

Linguistics; ET languages...

SF writers trying to describe an ET language in their fiction tend to lean toward languages made up of colors or smells or textures or musical notes or some such thing. But a Terran language could easily work that way.

What you need to identify a language as extraterrestrial is some feature never before observed in any Terran language. For example, suppose you encounter a language that has three basic classes of meaningful sounds: vowels, consonants -- and something else. The question then is...