a reply to:
Scramjet76
An interesting thing to do. But language in some things and cases is more of a hindrance then anything else, any advanced super sentient entity would
have gotten rid of language as we know it long ago. And besides it can go in different directions, the languages we speak today are merely a mirror
of our surroundings, in space or on other planets they may be meaningless even in translation. What I am saying is that one language while here on
earth can be used or you can use it to piece together translations in another foreign language, I believe that will not be the case in a truly alien
language.
For instance, what language do you believe the grays speak? What would be there word for mother or father or even apple? What if you factor in that
there all made in the equivalent of laboratories and have done so for hundreds of thousands of years, so much so that the concept of self is
nonexistent, what does translating the word mother into there language mean? It would have a totally different meaning, most things when translated
lose there meaning in that translation. We have people even today who are arguing over different meaning and translations in books such as the bible
or other older books which have been translated and re-translated into different languages.
OK lets say we take every word ever written, keep its meaning the same, but we can translate it into a number sequence. For instance what if tree were
452 and what if different types of trees such as a walnut were 452-05 and even the word nut were 21 or even 2353425, what every single thing you knew
from the ground to the sun were made into numbers. What effect do you think that would have on the psyche of a physical being? And what if you did
that for hundreds of thousands of years to were a whole language is made of numbers, they say the language of the universe is math or a numbers game.
What if you come up against a synthetic lifeforms, how do you tell something which has no definition of life as you know it to stop poking holes into
you because that red stuff leaking out is not good? Sure they may be curious to what it is and they may not have quite the same definition for pain as
you do, but what do you do? Maybe you can say in its language that your leaking coolant and may need an infusion of new fluids. Who knows eh, when
we cant even translate the languages which some group of humans made some generations ago.
But what effect even thinking and speaking in numbers would that have on a physical mind over hundreds of thousands of years. It would not be
something you can literally and easily translate into plain ol English it would be pretty alien would it not? and pretty much every concept we have
today would be nonexistent or be meaningless to such a mind and being. In fact even communicating on the internet as we do today is a form of esp or
telepathy, and considering that the whole knowledge of the world around you all of history can be shrunk down and codded in zeros and ones, so yes
telepathy you can exchange great number of data by mere numbers, much more then words can achieve in a much faster way. Even in that you can see that
words and language as you know it is outdated.
But what if its a more visual creature, and can only speak in images and movement? Or what if it evolved with no eyesight and has evolved a
complicated language using sounds only, kind of like a bat only sentient would its language be one of music? Or what if it can speak in radiowaves
because it has evolved to see only certain vibrations which we have not evolved to perceive? Language really when were translating it among different
groups of people, what were really doing is looking for similarities in lifestyles and applying that to our words or gestures or writing. But if none
of that exists if its totally alien and foreign, well what is there to translate, what is there to compare and contrasts if we literally are made of
different things? What if you run up against a non carbon based lifeform?
edit on 4pmMondaypm072014f1pmMon, 07 Jul 2014 16:59:55 -0500 by
galadofwarthethird because: (no reason given)