Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
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Linguistics

Tags: linguistics, news, reading, writing
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  • 1 comment
siege

siege

September 21 2013, 02:27:59 UTC 7 years ago

While I'm (slowly) working with learning a recalled language rather than a constructed one, I enjoyed this article as a bit of insight into why languages evolve the way they do (and how to analyze one). That also suggests that the structure of a language could suggest the way an alien mind works, or at least an alien culture. What is efficient for the human brain is not necessarily efficient for an alien brain.

For example, does Yoda think in actions or definitions first, and then temporal beings? His word order would suggest it, and in fact suggests that nouns or verbs are tagged with each other in his native language rather than being separate words! "Powerful [he has become]" could be only two words.

Or consider Hindu, which has a root verb of "do" rather than "be": "How do you do?" is a cultural artifact carried from India back to Britain, while "How are you?" is the common American version.