Here's a link to the NASA webpage where you can find a discussion of new discoveries on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. It's not little green men, but a pattern in the distribution of the chemicals hydrogen and acetylene that suggests something might actually be consuming them. Life isn't the only possible explanation, but the data apparently fit quite well with a theory of how "methane-based life" might function.
Interesting stuff; check it out.
Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
Monday, June 7, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Alien Languages - how foreign would they really be?
This post was requested by CWJ, my friend from the forum over at Analog - thanks so much for the question, CWJ! It also strikes me that this may be a timely topic for people who are considering the Na'vi language that was used in Avatar.
CWJ asked:
Now, human languages are very diverse. The most thorough article I've seen on this topic was recently published in the Economist, and you can check it out here.
In fact, it's hard to say how much of human language is innate and how much is learned. Humans are oriented towards language from birth or even earlier; this is well known, as newborn infants prefer to listen to language sounds over non-language sounds, and their mother's native language over other languages (studies measured strength of sucking response!). They also go through a number of language development stages, like early babbling, even if they don't have any auditory language input (say, with non-hearing babies). Non-hearing babies are also known to babble with their fingers. People have also looked at pidgin languages, which tend to take on grammatical structure - and very similar grammar structure - when they're passed on to the second generation, and used this as evidence for a more extensive innate language faculty.
On the other hand...
I've been quite impressed by research which looks at language acquisition from a neural-network point of view. Neural net computers have been shown to learn language patterns like English past tense -ed in much the same progress trajectory as human kids. I've also heard about research that says re-occurrence of phrases may play a larger role than we thought in language acquisition. Certainly human brains are very good at tracking the frequency of occurrence of things (sounds, words, etc.) - a critical skill for language learning. So in the end I'm not personally convinced that grammar is really what's innate and at the root of the drive for language acquisition.
I suppose if there were some kind of universal grammar beneath all human language, then it might be restrictive for the learning of alien tongues. Since I'm not really in the innate grammar camp, I don't think that the primary restriction on learning alien tongues would come from that department.
I think it would come from perception problems. More on this below.
The evolution of language is not simply a matter of brain evolution, but of the co-evolution of the brain, the ear, and the vocal tract as language developed. As a result, they are all well-suited to one another, and babies can hear any language sound from any language in the world, and learn it natively, given the opportunity and a normal course of development. We listen for audible building blocks from the vocal tract that are put together sequentially. Our brains are excellently tuned to process them, and we associate them with physical, temporal and social context in lots of complex ways. But alter these very basic prerequisites, and the problem becomes much harder (even if we assume maximum language-learning ability like that of a child). Sign language shows that the language stream need not be auditory. But what if the language stream is not sequential but simultaneous? Or what if the language producing organs of the alien create a language stream that our eyes and ears are unable, or only partially able, to perceive?
Sheila Finch's stories about the Guild of Xenolinguists speak more directly to the kind of language problems that CWJ mentions - basic problems of auditory vs. visual, processing in the brain and such - than my own. In fact, CWJ, if you haven't read them, you might find them very interesting, because she takes a very Chomskyan approach to her concept of language. She has humans being able to understand all sorts of things, but requiring special drugs to make them forget their existing categorizations of perception, for example. Speak with her in person, though, and she'll tell you - as I will - that any communication with aliens would be next to impossible.
In the realm of animal communication on Earth, we're still discovering things, like the super-low sounds produced by giraffes. We're working hard on the communication of dolphins, too (see a very interesting article on dolphin intelligence, here). We've taught some creatures how to interpret basic signals on a behavioral basis (I remember Mike Flynn having an interesting post on the nature of communication - I'll see if I can find the link). But we haven't really cracked any codes. One of the things that can cause misunderstandings between humans is differences in categorization of concepts - places where the two languages file things differently, as when the Dutch say a picture is "up the wall" instead of "on the wall." A creature that lives underwater and perceives its world through sonar signals will have a totally different way of perceiving the world. It may not even conceptualize the separation of objects as we do. What does it do to language concepts when the means of producing language (sound) is the same as the means for perceiving one's surroundings?
So effectively I think it would be hard to recognize alien language as language at all, and probably harder to try to "break it down," especially in a situation where the physiology of the aliens in question, and their environmental context (not to mention social context) were unknown.
This doesn't stop me from designing alien languages, obviously! As far as constructing the languages goes, I think it really depends on the author's intent with the story, and the nature of the primary language problem in the story. If decipherment is your primary problem, then you can really embrace problems of channel (auditory/visual etc.) and the identification of structure. If your primary problem is one of first contact and code cracking, then you can do some channel stuff, or you can focus on grammar or phonetic dificulties, pronunciation difficulties, etc. If your primary problem has to do with cultural issues and misunderstanding, then it's helpful to create a language and assume that humans have already cracked the code, which allows you to place the focus where it really belongs.
Wow, that became a long post! I hope you find it helpful. I welcome any questions, followup, "what-the-heck-did-that-mean-can-you-explain-this-bit-again-please," etc.
CWJ asked:
-
Juliette, I'd like to hear more about (constructing) non-human languages. In particular, if Chomsky's idea of universal innate grammars is correct, does that mean there are only certain avenues down which humans can go, which might be different from aliens? That is, maybe there are some concepts or constructs that would be difficult for humans to truly conceptualize. Or the other way around. In short, I am interested in the possibility that communication may be very difficult.
- This is a complex question, so I'll take it a bit at a time.
Now, human languages are very diverse. The most thorough article I've seen on this topic was recently published in the Economist, and you can check it out here.
In fact, it's hard to say how much of human language is innate and how much is learned. Humans are oriented towards language from birth or even earlier; this is well known, as newborn infants prefer to listen to language sounds over non-language sounds, and their mother's native language over other languages (studies measured strength of sucking response!). They also go through a number of language development stages, like early babbling, even if they don't have any auditory language input (say, with non-hearing babies). Non-hearing babies are also known to babble with their fingers. People have also looked at pidgin languages, which tend to take on grammatical structure - and very similar grammar structure - when they're passed on to the second generation, and used this as evidence for a more extensive innate language faculty.
On the other hand...
I've been quite impressed by research which looks at language acquisition from a neural-network point of view. Neural net computers have been shown to learn language patterns like English past tense -ed in much the same progress trajectory as human kids. I've also heard about research that says re-occurrence of phrases may play a larger role than we thought in language acquisition. Certainly human brains are very good at tracking the frequency of occurrence of things (sounds, words, etc.) - a critical skill for language learning. So in the end I'm not personally convinced that grammar is really what's innate and at the root of the drive for language acquisition.
I suppose if there were some kind of universal grammar beneath all human language, then it might be restrictive for the learning of alien tongues. Since I'm not really in the innate grammar camp, I don't think that the primary restriction on learning alien tongues would come from that department.
I think it would come from perception problems. More on this below.
The evolution of language is not simply a matter of brain evolution, but of the co-evolution of the brain, the ear, and the vocal tract as language developed. As a result, they are all well-suited to one another, and babies can hear any language sound from any language in the world, and learn it natively, given the opportunity and a normal course of development. We listen for audible building blocks from the vocal tract that are put together sequentially. Our brains are excellently tuned to process them, and we associate them with physical, temporal and social context in lots of complex ways. But alter these very basic prerequisites, and the problem becomes much harder (even if we assume maximum language-learning ability like that of a child). Sign language shows that the language stream need not be auditory. But what if the language stream is not sequential but simultaneous? Or what if the language producing organs of the alien create a language stream that our eyes and ears are unable, or only partially able, to perceive?
Sheila Finch's stories about the Guild of Xenolinguists speak more directly to the kind of language problems that CWJ mentions - basic problems of auditory vs. visual, processing in the brain and such - than my own. In fact, CWJ, if you haven't read them, you might find them very interesting, because she takes a very Chomskyan approach to her concept of language. She has humans being able to understand all sorts of things, but requiring special drugs to make them forget their existing categorizations of perception, for example. Speak with her in person, though, and she'll tell you - as I will - that any communication with aliens would be next to impossible.
In the realm of animal communication on Earth, we're still discovering things, like the super-low sounds produced by giraffes. We're working hard on the communication of dolphins, too (see a very interesting article on dolphin intelligence, here). We've taught some creatures how to interpret basic signals on a behavioral basis (I remember Mike Flynn having an interesting post on the nature of communication - I'll see if I can find the link). But we haven't really cracked any codes. One of the things that can cause misunderstandings between humans is differences in categorization of concepts - places where the two languages file things differently, as when the Dutch say a picture is "up the wall" instead of "on the wall." A creature that lives underwater and perceives its world through sonar signals will have a totally different way of perceiving the world. It may not even conceptualize the separation of objects as we do. What does it do to language concepts when the means of producing language (sound) is the same as the means for perceiving one's surroundings?
So effectively I think it would be hard to recognize alien language as language at all, and probably harder to try to "break it down," especially in a situation where the physiology of the aliens in question, and their environmental context (not to mention social context) were unknown.
This doesn't stop me from designing alien languages, obviously! As far as constructing the languages goes, I think it really depends on the author's intent with the story, and the nature of the primary language problem in the story. If decipherment is your primary problem, then you can really embrace problems of channel (auditory/visual etc.) and the identification of structure. If your primary problem is one of first contact and code cracking, then you can do some channel stuff, or you can focus on grammar or phonetic dificulties, pronunciation difficulties, etc. If your primary problem has to do with cultural issues and misunderstanding, then it's helpful to create a language and assume that humans have already cracked the code, which allows you to place the focus where it really belongs.
Wow, that became a long post! I hope you find it helpful. I welcome any questions, followup, "what-the-heck-did-that-mean-can-you-explain-this-bit-again-please," etc.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Metabolism and Daily Time Organization
Did you ever think about the workday? 9-5, they typically say, even though there's generally an additional half-hour to an hour included for lunch, which changes things around a bit.
Now think about the things that can cause variation in this schedule. There are places where work has to continue 24 hours per day, so that people come in in shifts. There are places which have a lot of connections in a different time zone, so they shift their daily schedule earlier or later to have better rapport with the other location(s). There are places where the lunch hour is extra long to accommodate the main meal at noon, or the main meal plus a nap (potentially).
Of course, it wasn't always an eight-hour day. Historically, people used to work brutal hours - fourteen hours a day, etc.
Humans have the ability to keep working for long periods of time. This makes sense given our size, our warm-bloodedness, etc. We have our ebb moments, which are ideal for siesta time.
What might change that?
I look around at the animals of the world for inspiration. Tiny mammals like mice tend to have very high energy for short periods of time, and then flop down for a rest, and then go back at it. Cats have incredibly high intensity sometimes, but sleep a lot. Some animals have stamina for hours, and some don't.
This is useful to consider, because for whatever world you're creating, it's good to consider how they organize their daily time. Especially if you're dealing with aliens, it might be useful to ask yourself how their energy levels translate into work patterns. The difference between a nocturnal creature and a diurnal creature is obvious, but there are more subtle things you can do to make a big difference.
As my friend Janice recently asked me when I was working on something for my otter story, "These are otters. Why would they sit while working?"
It was a wake-up question. I'd recently seen a video of a baby otter playing with toys in someone's home, and one of the things the film said was that the human was a specialist working with the otter while it was out of its natural enclosure - not someone keeping the thing for a pet. If you'd seen the energy of this thing, you'd see why. It would get bored one day and tear your house apart.
Mind you, my aliens are big, and this tends to change metabolic rates (whales and elephants move more slowly than rats and mice!). However, I figure they could still be on the otter side of the metabolic pattern relative to humans, and come across as very energetic.
It changed the way I thought about the organization of their days, and also about the organization of their work spaces, and all kinds of things.
I encourage you to consider this if you're doing something similar.
Now think about the things that can cause variation in this schedule. There are places where work has to continue 24 hours per day, so that people come in in shifts. There are places which have a lot of connections in a different time zone, so they shift their daily schedule earlier or later to have better rapport with the other location(s). There are places where the lunch hour is extra long to accommodate the main meal at noon, or the main meal plus a nap (potentially).
Of course, it wasn't always an eight-hour day. Historically, people used to work brutal hours - fourteen hours a day, etc.
Humans have the ability to keep working for long periods of time. This makes sense given our size, our warm-bloodedness, etc. We have our ebb moments, which are ideal for siesta time.
What might change that?
I look around at the animals of the world for inspiration. Tiny mammals like mice tend to have very high energy for short periods of time, and then flop down for a rest, and then go back at it. Cats have incredibly high intensity sometimes, but sleep a lot. Some animals have stamina for hours, and some don't.
This is useful to consider, because for whatever world you're creating, it's good to consider how they organize their daily time. Especially if you're dealing with aliens, it might be useful to ask yourself how their energy levels translate into work patterns. The difference between a nocturnal creature and a diurnal creature is obvious, but there are more subtle things you can do to make a big difference.
As my friend Janice recently asked me when I was working on something for my otter story, "These are otters. Why would they sit while working?"
It was a wake-up question. I'd recently seen a video of a baby otter playing with toys in someone's home, and one of the things the film said was that the human was a specialist working with the otter while it was out of its natural enclosure - not someone keeping the thing for a pet. If you'd seen the energy of this thing, you'd see why. It would get bored one day and tear your house apart.
Mind you, my aliens are big, and this tends to change metabolic rates (whales and elephants move more slowly than rats and mice!). However, I figure they could still be on the otter side of the metabolic pattern relative to humans, and come across as very energetic.
It changed the way I thought about the organization of their days, and also about the organization of their work spaces, and all kinds of things.
I encourage you to consider this if you're doing something similar.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Scientific American Takes On Aliens
Here's an article about the likelihood - or lack of it - that any aliens we encounter in the universe will look like us. Many thanks to Doug Sharp for pointing this one out to me! I hope you enjoy it.
Will E.T. Look Like Us - Scientific American
Will E.T. Look Like Us - Scientific American
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Measures of Intelligence
The other day I went to the Ardenwood Historic Farm, which isn't far from our house. It was peak season there, with a corn maze and pumpkin patch and lots of great animals at the farm. One of the key attractions was a pair of pigs - huge creatures, which we were told had only been born this spring. The friendly farm volunteer asked us if the pigs looked intelligent. Some folks, mostly kids, said no. Some sagely nodded their heads, having been told previously that pigs were quite intelligent. Then the volunteer explained to us that one of the big signs of porcine intelligence was this: they might spend a lot of time lolling around and digging their heads and bodies in muck, but they keep the location where they defecate constant, separated from the location where they sleep, and the location where they eat. Other animals at the farm don't do this.
It got me to thinking. What are the cues we use to measure intelligence?
This is a question that is quite relevant to science fiction, because in the science fictional arena, you quite often find situations where one alien or another is casting aspersions on another species' intelligence (or possibly admiring it). But it's not just for alien scenarios. When we think to portray a character to our readers - just generally - we need to make sure their impressions of that character's intelligence agree with our own, and it's useful to think about what kind of cues to use.
We might be able to run a dog, or an alien, through a maze, but that's a bit less plausible for humans.
A lot of the way we assess intelligence comes down to behavior. A creature or person who is keenly attentive to his surroundings, and purposeful in his movements, can easily come across as more intelligent than one who is not. Restraint and good manners are often taken as a sign of intelligence. Someone can show intelligence in the way she organizes her belongings or the space she occupies. In a conversation between speaking entities (not necessarily human!) a shorter lag time before beginning a response can indicate intelligence. People who speak faster can often be seen as more intelligent - and I've even seen this measure used (naively) to cast aspersions on speakers of dialects that have a slower rate of speech. Another sign of intelligence in speech is lack of redundancy - either the lack of reiteration in one's own speech, or the ability to build on another person's contribution to a conversation rather than simply recasting it.
These measures can be useful - and the expectations associated with them can be used to the writer's advantage in description and dialog. However, they are heavily influenced by culture and context, and should be considered highly fallible.
A person isn't unintelligent if she speaks with a slow dialect. Leaving a pause before you respond to what someone says could be interpreted as a lack of alacrity - or as thoughtful pondering of a response. Good manners are just that - good manners. And we know that all sorts of people get crazy once in a while!
Misunderstandings in this arena can provide great opportunities for stories. In the story I'm currently working on, the group of aliens has an unusual criterion for "higher intelligence" that humans don't happen to share. The pigs at Ardenwood farm are a great example of how a behavior that might seem senseless to us - digging around in mud with one's nose - can make perfect sense to another species and have nothing at all to do with that species' level of intelligence.
It's something to think about.
After reading through the links that Mike Flynn volunteered in my comments section below, I heartily recommend his taxonomy of aliens, which can be found here.
It got me to thinking. What are the cues we use to measure intelligence?
This is a question that is quite relevant to science fiction, because in the science fictional arena, you quite often find situations where one alien or another is casting aspersions on another species' intelligence (or possibly admiring it). But it's not just for alien scenarios. When we think to portray a character to our readers - just generally - we need to make sure their impressions of that character's intelligence agree with our own, and it's useful to think about what kind of cues to use.
We might be able to run a dog, or an alien, through a maze, but that's a bit less plausible for humans.
A lot of the way we assess intelligence comes down to behavior. A creature or person who is keenly attentive to his surroundings, and purposeful in his movements, can easily come across as more intelligent than one who is not. Restraint and good manners are often taken as a sign of intelligence. Someone can show intelligence in the way she organizes her belongings or the space she occupies. In a conversation between speaking entities (not necessarily human!) a shorter lag time before beginning a response can indicate intelligence. People who speak faster can often be seen as more intelligent - and I've even seen this measure used (naively) to cast aspersions on speakers of dialects that have a slower rate of speech. Another sign of intelligence in speech is lack of redundancy - either the lack of reiteration in one's own speech, or the ability to build on another person's contribution to a conversation rather than simply recasting it.
These measures can be useful - and the expectations associated with them can be used to the writer's advantage in description and dialog. However, they are heavily influenced by culture and context, and should be considered highly fallible.
A person isn't unintelligent if she speaks with a slow dialect. Leaving a pause before you respond to what someone says could be interpreted as a lack of alacrity - or as thoughtful pondering of a response. Good manners are just that - good manners. And we know that all sorts of people get crazy once in a while!
Misunderstandings in this arena can provide great opportunities for stories. In the story I'm currently working on, the group of aliens has an unusual criterion for "higher intelligence" that humans don't happen to share. The pigs at Ardenwood farm are a great example of how a behavior that might seem senseless to us - digging around in mud with one's nose - can make perfect sense to another species and have nothing at all to do with that species' level of intelligence.
It's something to think about.
After reading through the links that Mike Flynn volunteered in my comments section below, I heartily recommend his taxonomy of aliens, which can be found here.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Story Focus (with Aliens)
I have a pet peeve about stories with aliens. It's when I read about aliens that are described in loving and extensive detail as incredibly, immeasurably different from humans - and then they have a recognizably human culture. My brain rebels, and I feel I want to apologize to the author for being unable to stay in the story, after this person went to all the trouble to give these creatures the marvelous alien science, the ecology and physiological background. But if I can hardly comprehend the alien physiology, then I feel I should hardly be able to understand their sense of self and culture, either. If I can, there's a problem.
So is the solution to take our lovingly crafted aliens and give them a wildly different culture?
Not necessarily.
In any SF/F story, it's important to consider the information burden you're placing on your reader. It's not that readers can't handle complexity - in fact, SF/F readers are generally unusually receptive to complexity and difference - but if that complexity goes in all directions, then you have a problem. The story seems to be all over the place.
So ask yourself, "What is my story about?"
This isn't an idle question. It's an issue of focus. If your alien's culture is the central issue of the story, as it usually is with my stories, then there's no point in distracting from the cultural issues by making their physiology vastly different. The culture and the physiology have to match, but they needn't match precisely - as long as the two can fit together acceptably, that's all you need. So I personally try to use familiar knowledge sets on the physiological front, and build the culture outward from there with the quirks that I want to focus on.
On the other hand, if alien physiology is the central issue, then you don't really need that much complexity in culture - just make sure that the culture fits the ecology and the physiology and don't worry about delving into complexity. Of course, there are happy mediums on both sides.
I would say that my story, Cold Words, is an example of a story where culture is central and physiology is matched to it, but kept relatively simple. An example of a story that focuses on divergent alien physiology is the story "Doctor Alien" by Rajnar Vajra (Analog Jan/Feb 2009). In that story, there are four different types of aliens, each of which has vastly different physiology - but Vajra keeps his focus. How? By making the whole point be "we know nothing about these guys and their culture." The alien merchants are a mystery - tentacles are involved - and though their behavior is adapted to fit ours in a highly amusing way, they're capable of unpredictable and dangerous behavior and you'd better not cross them because we don't know how they think. Oh, and by the way, they're asking the doctor about the behavior of three other aliens, each one with a vastly divergent physiology. Here, Doctor, figure these guys out because we don't know how they think. It works brilliantly, because the divergences are the point. They are the puzzle that the doctor has to figure out. The story is focused.
Think about this as you're designing a story. Don't necessarily shrink away from making the world as complicated as you want to, but when you go setting a story there, keep the focus small. I have some very complex aliens that I'm working with now (otters!), and while their physiology is otterlike and thus predictable in some respects, they have more than one major cultural thread that can influence their behavior. I tried to put both together into a story and it got out of hand. So I changed the whole scenario, so that both of the threads are present, but only one is the source of the main story conflict. Only one is really at stake. I can save the other one for later.
Think through the focus of each story you write. If you can keep all of its complexities matching up in such a way that they serve the story's main conflict, then your readers will be able to tell, and be able to follow better.
So is the solution to take our lovingly crafted aliens and give them a wildly different culture?
Not necessarily.
In any SF/F story, it's important to consider the information burden you're placing on your reader. It's not that readers can't handle complexity - in fact, SF/F readers are generally unusually receptive to complexity and difference - but if that complexity goes in all directions, then you have a problem. The story seems to be all over the place.
So ask yourself, "What is my story about?"
This isn't an idle question. It's an issue of focus. If your alien's culture is the central issue of the story, as it usually is with my stories, then there's no point in distracting from the cultural issues by making their physiology vastly different. The culture and the physiology have to match, but they needn't match precisely - as long as the two can fit together acceptably, that's all you need. So I personally try to use familiar knowledge sets on the physiological front, and build the culture outward from there with the quirks that I want to focus on.
On the other hand, if alien physiology is the central issue, then you don't really need that much complexity in culture - just make sure that the culture fits the ecology and the physiology and don't worry about delving into complexity. Of course, there are happy mediums on both sides.
I would say that my story, Cold Words, is an example of a story where culture is central and physiology is matched to it, but kept relatively simple. An example of a story that focuses on divergent alien physiology is the story "Doctor Alien" by Rajnar Vajra (Analog Jan/Feb 2009). In that story, there are four different types of aliens, each of which has vastly different physiology - but Vajra keeps his focus. How? By making the whole point be "we know nothing about these guys and their culture." The alien merchants are a mystery - tentacles are involved - and though their behavior is adapted to fit ours in a highly amusing way, they're capable of unpredictable and dangerous behavior and you'd better not cross them because we don't know how they think. Oh, and by the way, they're asking the doctor about the behavior of three other aliens, each one with a vastly divergent physiology. Here, Doctor, figure these guys out because we don't know how they think. It works brilliantly, because the divergences are the point. They are the puzzle that the doctor has to figure out. The story is focused.
Think about this as you're designing a story. Don't necessarily shrink away from making the world as complicated as you want to, but when you go setting a story there, keep the focus small. I have some very complex aliens that I'm working with now (otters!), and while their physiology is otterlike and thus predictable in some respects, they have more than one major cultural thread that can influence their behavior. I tried to put both together into a story and it got out of hand. So I changed the whole scenario, so that both of the threads are present, but only one is the source of the main story conflict. Only one is really at stake. I can save the other one for later.
Think through the focus of each story you write. If you can keep all of its complexities matching up in such a way that they serve the story's main conflict, then your readers will be able to tell, and be able to follow better.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
How Children are Like Aliens
Everyone's heard the expressions: "Out of the mouths of babes," or "Children say the darndest things." That is - and isn't - what this post is about. Fundamentally, this post is about how children can shake us free of the view of life that we ordinarily take for granted - and thereby give us insight into the Other.
When you're grown up, you know so many things that it's easy forget how few things you knew when you started out. Kids have to be taught to wave hello. To greet others. To say please and thank you. To shake hands. When to speak up and when to be quiet. Yes, a lot of this is about manners and politeness. But some of it is also about basic understandings of how the world works, too. We have to learn where rain comes from, what money is, and what banks are, and what they're for. We also have to learn how to acquire possessions, how to arrange them in our space, and what "clean" means, and what "tidy" means (and whether the two are different!). We have to learn how to use the bathroom - where toilets are kept, how to clean ourselves when we're finished (both above and below). The list goes on and on - but when you consider that a baby has to learn how to focus its eyes, and how to hold an object, you realize that any one particular thing is tiny in the face of the enormous list of things to learn.
It shouldn't be at all surprising that children misunderstand. We should all stand in awe of how much they do understand, how easily and how quickly they learn.
Earlier this year, I was asked to compose a bio for the conventions (BayCon and Westercon) that I attended. Deciding to go for humor, I included the following lines about myself and my beloved babes:
"Juliette taught alien languages for three years, then moved on to completing her M.A. in Linguistics and Ph.D. in Education before encountering an entirely new species – children. After several years in the thick of linguistic struggle she has achieved successful communication which bodes well for their future on our planet."
It's not far off. And children, who often lack understanding about the things we've learned to take for granted, can give us valuable hints into how strangers to our societies - aliens or just travelers - might react to the things they experience.
My dad uses an expression that I've picked up: "That's one approach." I use it any time when I see my kids accomplishing a task in a way that I never considered. Hey, it might not be the way I'd do it, or even the way I'd suggest they do it, but it works. I use it a lot.
So keep your eyes and ears open when children are around, even if they're not your own. Watch for instances of misunderstanding, of unusually keen insight, of language error, of social faux pas, or of accomplishing a task by an unfamiliar means. Each one of these can provide a view into previously unseen alternatives, and prove a source of story ideas, or of details for an alternate world, or of behavioral details for an alien.
It's a treasure chest of ideas, waiting for you to discover it.
When you're grown up, you know so many things that it's easy forget how few things you knew when you started out. Kids have to be taught to wave hello. To greet others. To say please and thank you. To shake hands. When to speak up and when to be quiet. Yes, a lot of this is about manners and politeness. But some of it is also about basic understandings of how the world works, too. We have to learn where rain comes from, what money is, and what banks are, and what they're for. We also have to learn how to acquire possessions, how to arrange them in our space, and what "clean" means, and what "tidy" means (and whether the two are different!). We have to learn how to use the bathroom - where toilets are kept, how to clean ourselves when we're finished (both above and below). The list goes on and on - but when you consider that a baby has to learn how to focus its eyes, and how to hold an object, you realize that any one particular thing is tiny in the face of the enormous list of things to learn.
It shouldn't be at all surprising that children misunderstand. We should all stand in awe of how much they do understand, how easily and how quickly they learn.
Earlier this year, I was asked to compose a bio for the conventions (BayCon and Westercon) that I attended. Deciding to go for humor, I included the following lines about myself and my beloved babes:
"Juliette taught alien languages for three years, then moved on to completing her M.A. in Linguistics and Ph.D. in Education before encountering an entirely new species – children. After several years in the thick of linguistic struggle she has achieved successful communication which bodes well for their future on our planet."
It's not far off. And children, who often lack understanding about the things we've learned to take for granted, can give us valuable hints into how strangers to our societies - aliens or just travelers - might react to the things they experience.
My dad uses an expression that I've picked up: "That's one approach." I use it any time when I see my kids accomplishing a task in a way that I never considered. Hey, it might not be the way I'd do it, or even the way I'd suggest they do it, but it works. I use it a lot.
So keep your eyes and ears open when children are around, even if they're not your own. Watch for instances of misunderstanding, of unusually keen insight, of language error, of social faux pas, or of accomplishing a task by an unfamiliar means. Each one of these can provide a view into previously unseen alternatives, and prove a source of story ideas, or of details for an alternate world, or of behavioral details for an alien.
It's a treasure chest of ideas, waiting for you to discover it.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Deciphering an unknown language...
This post is a response to Marian's question of a few days ago.
I have seen some of the instances Marian refers to, of humans trying to decipher alien communication beginning with numbers. David Marshall also has a good point about chemistry. In effect, the idea behind these approaches is to try to find understanding by starting with something we know we must have in common.
I'm not convinced that these things would work in actual practice, simply because they rely in large part on our own perception of the separation of objects.
However, in SF generally there is a degree of commonality embedded in the premise. Sometimes the only assumption is that of common perception of objects and numbers. Sometimes it's greater, as when an author asks you to accept a computer that is able to process and decipher language, or when an author asks you to accept a machine translator (or babel fish!)
In her Xenolinguist stories, Sheila Finch often deals with thorny questions related to how alien contexts and physiologies would influence language form - and in fact, she'll be guest blogging here in the next day or so to talk a bit about her design of the Xenolinguists' universe.
In my own stories, I like to pick up at a point where linguists feel they've already got the language largely under control, and deal with the fine points of culture, dialect, and the significance of language.
But the question was how to get past numbers into deciphering more of a language. The key, I think, is context.
The folks who write about the numbers-based communication strategy are setting up a very hard problem, dealing as they are with signals sent at a distance. This kind of communication, much like writing, is highly divorced from the original context of communication.
Humans tend to see objects as separate from one another and assign words to them. This is the vocabulary, or lexicon. When humans are working in a close context of togetherness and shared activity, often enough only a single word is enough to evoke the correct meaning, as when the doctor says "scalpel" over the patient in the operating room. The further away one moves from immediate shared context, the more language features become necessary to get the message across. This is essentially the origin of grammar - pieces of sound (in the human case) stuck in with the object information to show relation, in cases when the relation is not immediately clear to both parties. Writing takes this phenomenon to an extreme, while transmission of data over interstellar distances pushes it even farther.
Humans have powerful language-processing mechanisms built into their brains. We are able to track sounds with powerful accuracy, identifying separate clicks even when they are delivered at quite high speeds - I saw an article on this in the New York Times while in Chicago a few weeks ago. When light flashes occur at the same rate, the eye perceives it as continuous motion and is unable to separate it.
Another thing humans are able to do is perceive frequency of occurrence. If I were to give you two words, say, "true" and "identifiable," you could probably give me an accurate ranking of which one occurs more commonly in English, right off the top of your head. This is a tremendous advantage in deciphering language, whether it be auditory or visual.
So what we do when we see communication is we try to identify patterns that repeat in similar contexts. If we went to an alien planet, the best approach would probably be to get as close as possible to aliens and begin taking samples of their language with as much contextual information as possible - both physical, temporal, and social. Since those contextual cues may not be the same ones we typically use, having sophisticated sensors and computer power at our fingertips would probably be a great help. Once we figure out correspondences, we can start assigning tentative meanings. Having a local resident to test these meanings on, even if it means playing recordings of things that human vocal tracts find unpronounceable, is an indispensable step.
Even so, this process would certainly take years.
The last thing I'll add tonight is a couple of examples of context and frequency distinctions, from the area of phonology. Linguistics talks about something called a "minimal pair," which is the diagnostic test for a phoneme. It goes roughly like this: if you change one single sound in a word, and the meaning of the word changes, then that single sound is a phoneme. The two words, one with one sound and one with the other, are called minimal pairs.
"bit" and "bat" show that short "i" and short "a" are separate phonemes from each other.
On the other hand, aspirated "t" and non-aspirated "t" both occur in English, but are allophones, or two different forms of the same phoneme, because they can be related by a rule, and don't make the difference between separate words.
"tar" contains aspirated "t"
"star" contains non-aspirated "t" - but the non-aspirated "t" is present because of the "s" preceding it.
These two types of "t" are phonemes in at least one Indian language (I can't cite a minimal pair, however, not knowing Indian languages well myself; perhaps one of my readers could give me an example).
I hope that sheds a little light on this process; I certainly have enormous respect for the linguists who have gone out into the field and taken on languages previously unknown to them. Marian, you can always let me know if you have other questions.
I have seen some of the instances Marian refers to, of humans trying to decipher alien communication beginning with numbers. David Marshall also has a good point about chemistry. In effect, the idea behind these approaches is to try to find understanding by starting with something we know we must have in common.
I'm not convinced that these things would work in actual practice, simply because they rely in large part on our own perception of the separation of objects.
However, in SF generally there is a degree of commonality embedded in the premise. Sometimes the only assumption is that of common perception of objects and numbers. Sometimes it's greater, as when an author asks you to accept a computer that is able to process and decipher language, or when an author asks you to accept a machine translator (or babel fish!)
In her Xenolinguist stories, Sheila Finch often deals with thorny questions related to how alien contexts and physiologies would influence language form - and in fact, she'll be guest blogging here in the next day or so to talk a bit about her design of the Xenolinguists' universe.
In my own stories, I like to pick up at a point where linguists feel they've already got the language largely under control, and deal with the fine points of culture, dialect, and the significance of language.
But the question was how to get past numbers into deciphering more of a language. The key, I think, is context.
The folks who write about the numbers-based communication strategy are setting up a very hard problem, dealing as they are with signals sent at a distance. This kind of communication, much like writing, is highly divorced from the original context of communication.
Humans tend to see objects as separate from one another and assign words to them. This is the vocabulary, or lexicon. When humans are working in a close context of togetherness and shared activity, often enough only a single word is enough to evoke the correct meaning, as when the doctor says "scalpel" over the patient in the operating room. The further away one moves from immediate shared context, the more language features become necessary to get the message across. This is essentially the origin of grammar - pieces of sound (in the human case) stuck in with the object information to show relation, in cases when the relation is not immediately clear to both parties. Writing takes this phenomenon to an extreme, while transmission of data over interstellar distances pushes it even farther.
Humans have powerful language-processing mechanisms built into their brains. We are able to track sounds with powerful accuracy, identifying separate clicks even when they are delivered at quite high speeds - I saw an article on this in the New York Times while in Chicago a few weeks ago. When light flashes occur at the same rate, the eye perceives it as continuous motion and is unable to separate it.
Another thing humans are able to do is perceive frequency of occurrence. If I were to give you two words, say, "true" and "identifiable," you could probably give me an accurate ranking of which one occurs more commonly in English, right off the top of your head. This is a tremendous advantage in deciphering language, whether it be auditory or visual.
So what we do when we see communication is we try to identify patterns that repeat in similar contexts. If we went to an alien planet, the best approach would probably be to get as close as possible to aliens and begin taking samples of their language with as much contextual information as possible - both physical, temporal, and social. Since those contextual cues may not be the same ones we typically use, having sophisticated sensors and computer power at our fingertips would probably be a great help. Once we figure out correspondences, we can start assigning tentative meanings. Having a local resident to test these meanings on, even if it means playing recordings of things that human vocal tracts find unpronounceable, is an indispensable step.
Even so, this process would certainly take years.
The last thing I'll add tonight is a couple of examples of context and frequency distinctions, from the area of phonology. Linguistics talks about something called a "minimal pair," which is the diagnostic test for a phoneme. It goes roughly like this: if you change one single sound in a word, and the meaning of the word changes, then that single sound is a phoneme. The two words, one with one sound and one with the other, are called minimal pairs.
"bit" and "bat" show that short "i" and short "a" are separate phonemes from each other.
On the other hand, aspirated "t" and non-aspirated "t" both occur in English, but are allophones, or two different forms of the same phoneme, because they can be related by a rule, and don't make the difference between separate words.
"tar" contains aspirated "t"
"star" contains non-aspirated "t" - but the non-aspirated "t" is present because of the "s" preceding it.
These two types of "t" are phonemes in at least one Indian language (I can't cite a minimal pair, however, not knowing Indian languages well myself; perhaps one of my readers could give me an example).
I hope that sheds a little light on this process; I certainly have enormous respect for the linguists who have gone out into the field and taken on languages previously unknown to them. Marian, you can always let me know if you have other questions.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Westercon report
It was a whirlwind day yesterday. I got up at 4 am and took a 6:20 flight to Phoenix, whence I found my way to Westercon by around 8:30. If you know how people party on Saturday nights at conventions, you might already have guessed that things were pretty quiet around the place.
I always like to hang around the social rooms, like the green room, to meet people. I've met a lot of very cool authors that way, and I had some great conversations today also. I used some of my extra energy, on behalf of those who had less, to help organize the food in the Con Suite.
Before the panel started, I got to meet Alastair and Marian from the Analog forum who were in the audience. That was fun!
The alien language panel was super-awesome. I think the greatest thing about it was that all three of us - Stan Schmidt, Sheila Finch, and I - were both qualified and excited about the topic of designing alien languages. We talked about them from all kinds of angles. Evolution of language, physiology and its relationship to language form, phonology, morphology, and many other things including how to render alien languages so they're comprehensible in English (always important so people will keep reading your story!).
One of the things that Stan Schmidt brought was a pair of recordings which really added to the depth of the discussion. The first was of animal sounds from Earth - birds, insects, and others. My favorite - and clearly his also - was the willow ptarmigan, a tundra bird that sounds as if it is really speaking a language. That was a striking thing to listen to! He also had a recording of messages in a language he'd created that used vowels, pitch and length to distinguish meanings. What a great example for the group to consider!
I think there were about 20 people in the audience. They were great, too - very engaged, listening well, awake (and on Sunday at a Con, this is no small feat), and asking great questions.
After that I got to eat lunch with my fellow panelists, which was also very enjoyable. We talked a bit about language at that point, and also about stories and about Dr. Schmidt's editing experiences. Fascinating stuff. I promised I would do my best to get a new story out to Analog by October - so I have my work cut out for me now.
It was a great, exhausting day. You're welcome to ask questions if you're curious about anything else.
I always like to hang around the social rooms, like the green room, to meet people. I've met a lot of very cool authors that way, and I had some great conversations today also. I used some of my extra energy, on behalf of those who had less, to help organize the food in the Con Suite.
Before the panel started, I got to meet Alastair and Marian from the Analog forum who were in the audience. That was fun!
The alien language panel was super-awesome. I think the greatest thing about it was that all three of us - Stan Schmidt, Sheila Finch, and I - were both qualified and excited about the topic of designing alien languages. We talked about them from all kinds of angles. Evolution of language, physiology and its relationship to language form, phonology, morphology, and many other things including how to render alien languages so they're comprehensible in English (always important so people will keep reading your story!).
One of the things that Stan Schmidt brought was a pair of recordings which really added to the depth of the discussion. The first was of animal sounds from Earth - birds, insects, and others. My favorite - and clearly his also - was the willow ptarmigan, a tundra bird that sounds as if it is really speaking a language. That was a striking thing to listen to! He also had a recording of messages in a language he'd created that used vowels, pitch and length to distinguish meanings. What a great example for the group to consider!
I think there were about 20 people in the audience. They were great, too - very engaged, listening well, awake (and on Sunday at a Con, this is no small feat), and asking great questions.
After that I got to eat lunch with my fellow panelists, which was also very enjoyable. We talked a bit about language at that point, and also about stories and about Dr. Schmidt's editing experiences. Fascinating stuff. I promised I would do my best to get a new story out to Analog by October - so I have my work cut out for me now.
It was a great, exhausting day. You're welcome to ask questions if you're curious about anything else.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Thoughts on Speaking with Aliens
I was recently directed to this terrific post. If you are interested in the various ways that science fiction authors have dealt with the language problem, it's a great source, because it covers many years and many approaches to language, and it also cites the authors who have taken these various approaches (everyone from Douglas Adams to Vernor Vinge and C.J. Cherryh, etc.).
Take a look, and then go read the books - why not?
Take a look, and then go read the books - why not?
Friday, January 9, 2009
How articulatory phonetics can help you!
Articulatory phonetics deals with how the human vocal tract creates sounds.
Knowing the principles of how the vocal tract works can help science fiction and fantasy writers to create languages that follow naturalistic patterns of pronunciation, thus making created languages that seem more natural.
One of the key assumptions in the following discussion is that we're working with a species which, like humans, can perceive vibrations in the air (whether through ears and hearing or by other means like antennae). While this does restrict us somewhat, it still allows for a lot of possibilities.
Let me begin with a caveat before we begin our tour of the vocal tract. If you've never studied linguistics, this may appear complex - but it's not as bad as it seems. Just because there are a lot of variables you can change about a language doesn't mean you should go about trying to change them all.
Okay, so here we go:
1. Powered by the diaphragm, the lungs emit an airstream that can be shaped by other parts of the vocal tract. This is the power source for the sounds. Change this element, and you'll have a drastically different language, but one that will be a bear to transcribe into English!
2. The vocal cords can vibrate when the airstream passes by them. All vowels are "voiced" sounds, i.e. sounds with where the vocal cords vibrate. So are consonants like b, d, z, v, y, l, r, n, and m. In the case of an alien, it's important to know that this creature possesses something like vocal cords, or at least something able to create a consistent humming vibration, if you're going to use any voiced consonants in transcribing its language. Language sounds without this vibration are called "unvoiced." Whispering is entirely unvoiced.
3. The mouth is a resonating space for vibrating air. In human languages, the quality of vowels is altered when the tongue is used to alter the shape of the mouth space. The position of the tongue is described in two dimensions: height (high, mid, low) and front/back. Here are some examples of the position of English vowels.
[i] as in "feet"=high front [u] as in "hoot"= high back
[E] as in "bet"= mid front [o] as in "boat"= mid back
[ae] as in "hat"=low front
If you go into any beginning linguistics textbook, it's easy to find a graph of the mouth space and the vowels involved; you can also Google "vocal tract." Here, I'd prefer to talk about what to do with them. If you have an alien, try to think about the kind of resonating space it uses to create speech sounds - the length of its muzzle or other factors might change things significantly. You can also think about how it might change the shape of that resonating space (with tongue or other muscles), because this would affect its ability to pronounce human languages.
If you have a human or fantasy human, the problem is easier, but you can still think about how the language pattern might use vowels with different characteristics. Do your people generally avoid mid vowels? Avoid back vowels? Do they tend to pronounce vowels across a word with the same kind of mouth and tongue position (say, making all vowels in a single word high)? Do they generally keep their lips rounded or unrounded? There are lots of options here.
4. The air flow can be stopped or blocked in different ways by the tongue, teeth, and lips. When the air flow is blocked completely, that's called a stop (for example, p/t/k/b/d/g). When it's still flowing but partially obstructed, that can be called a liquid (l/r), an affricate (ch/ts) or a fricative (s/th/f/z/v). W and y are called glides. Consider the "tools" your creature or person has for altering air flow. Where will most of the obstructions occur? Far back in the mouth near the uvula, as with French R? In the front with the lips? At the alveolar ridge behind the teeth where we create sounds like t/d/s/z?
There's more I could talk about, but I don't want to go overboard...
In fact, you'd be surprised how few things you need to change to give an entirely different flavor to the alien words you use. Here is an example of a language that I recently created.
I had an alien with a long muzzle and tongue, so I decided that there were a lot of different kinds of "l" and "r" sounds in this language. In English I decided to use single "l" versus double "ll" and single "r" versus double "rr" to indicate these sounds, even though I didn't know exactly what they sounded like. I also decided to avoid all unvoiced consonants - mostly for the sake of argument, and for giving the language a distinctive "feel." That means plenty of m/n/d/g/b/v, etc., but no p/t/k/s/f.
To my mind, the biggest advantage of using principles of articulatory phonetics is this: if you use natural language patterns to guide your choices, the resulting created languages will seem less arbitrary and more convincing.
Knowing the principles of how the vocal tract works can help science fiction and fantasy writers to create languages that follow naturalistic patterns of pronunciation, thus making created languages that seem more natural.
One of the key assumptions in the following discussion is that we're working with a species which, like humans, can perceive vibrations in the air (whether through ears and hearing or by other means like antennae). While this does restrict us somewhat, it still allows for a lot of possibilities.
Let me begin with a caveat before we begin our tour of the vocal tract. If you've never studied linguistics, this may appear complex - but it's not as bad as it seems. Just because there are a lot of variables you can change about a language doesn't mean you should go about trying to change them all.
Okay, so here we go:
1. Powered by the diaphragm, the lungs emit an airstream that can be shaped by other parts of the vocal tract. This is the power source for the sounds. Change this element, and you'll have a drastically different language, but one that will be a bear to transcribe into English!
2. The vocal cords can vibrate when the airstream passes by them. All vowels are "voiced" sounds, i.e. sounds with where the vocal cords vibrate. So are consonants like b, d, z, v, y, l, r, n, and m. In the case of an alien, it's important to know that this creature possesses something like vocal cords, or at least something able to create a consistent humming vibration, if you're going to use any voiced consonants in transcribing its language. Language sounds without this vibration are called "unvoiced." Whispering is entirely unvoiced.
3. The mouth is a resonating space for vibrating air. In human languages, the quality of vowels is altered when the tongue is used to alter the shape of the mouth space. The position of the tongue is described in two dimensions: height (high, mid, low) and front/back. Here are some examples of the position of English vowels.
[i] as in "feet"=high front [u] as in "hoot"= high back
[E] as in "bet"= mid front [o] as in "boat"= mid back
[ae] as in "hat"=low front
If you go into any beginning linguistics textbook, it's easy to find a graph of the mouth space and the vowels involved; you can also Google "vocal tract." Here, I'd prefer to talk about what to do with them. If you have an alien, try to think about the kind of resonating space it uses to create speech sounds - the length of its muzzle or other factors might change things significantly. You can also think about how it might change the shape of that resonating space (with tongue or other muscles), because this would affect its ability to pronounce human languages.
If you have a human or fantasy human, the problem is easier, but you can still think about how the language pattern might use vowels with different characteristics. Do your people generally avoid mid vowels? Avoid back vowels? Do they tend to pronounce vowels across a word with the same kind of mouth and tongue position (say, making all vowels in a single word high)? Do they generally keep their lips rounded or unrounded? There are lots of options here.
4. The air flow can be stopped or blocked in different ways by the tongue, teeth, and lips. When the air flow is blocked completely, that's called a stop (for example, p/t/k/b/d/g). When it's still flowing but partially obstructed, that can be called a liquid (l/r), an affricate (ch/ts) or a fricative (s/th/f/z/v). W and y are called glides. Consider the "tools" your creature or person has for altering air flow. Where will most of the obstructions occur? Far back in the mouth near the uvula, as with French R? In the front with the lips? At the alveolar ridge behind the teeth where we create sounds like t/d/s/z?
There's more I could talk about, but I don't want to go overboard...
In fact, you'd be surprised how few things you need to change to give an entirely different flavor to the alien words you use. Here is an example of a language that I recently created.
I had an alien with a long muzzle and tongue, so I decided that there were a lot of different kinds of "l" and "r" sounds in this language. In English I decided to use single "l" versus double "ll" and single "r" versus double "rr" to indicate these sounds, even though I didn't know exactly what they sounded like. I also decided to avoid all unvoiced consonants - mostly for the sake of argument, and for giving the language a distinctive "feel." That means plenty of m/n/d/g/b/v, etc., but no p/t/k/s/f.
To my mind, the biggest advantage of using principles of articulatory phonetics is this: if you use natural language patterns to guide your choices, the resulting created languages will seem less arbitrary and more convincing.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
If Aliens were like Cats
Right off the top of my head I can think of two examples of aliens based on cats: Larry Niven's Kzin, whom I've read about in Paul Chafe's novel, Destiny's Forge, and Anne McCaffrey's Hrruban from Decision at Doona.
There's something about cats, isn't there? Having two new kittens at my house, I can testify to this.
Okay, so what about making them into a group of aliens?
My thought is this: don't stop with physiology and its immediate consequences.
With the feline physiology you get great hunting capabilities and a carnivorous diet. But in case you were thinking that these aliens would only eat raw meat, think about the little kitties eating kibbles in your house. If they have an advanced society, they would also have a sophisticated sense of cuisine, at least among the wealthy. Maybe raw meat would be a delicacy - or maybe it would be associated with poverty, because these people couldn't afford fire to cook. Either way, it should have a localized cultural meaning.
So then, what about social structure? A lot of times people will come up with structures that are elaborate and cool but somewhat arbitrary relative to the species in question. That's fine, as long as you can make your felines fit into it without going against their native ways (and you can always alter the felines!). However, if you want to match more closely, you could always work with a very social group of felines, like lions. They've got prides with dominant males and hunting females; that would be fun to work with.
I'm going to challenge myself a little by working with housecats - or at least, a group of cats that is very territorial, typically not hanging with other cats unless they are siblings or mates. This can still translate into a societal structure for a civilization.
Imagine a society of semi-nomadic feline hunters that guarded its core territory, yet possessed a superstructure of civilization and government based largely on the interactions of mates and siblings. An individual would have a compound where he/she lived with a mate and their juvenile children, but siblings would be welcome and would probably live in territories nearby. Those territories would be linked to the first by blood ties to create small interlocked communities. Intergroup marriages would take on great importance, especially between larger linked groups - like the marital interactions of the European royals. At the same time, siblings would have very close relationships and would add to the possible links. It might be that the only way to get "into" a rival group would be to marry off one of your daughters or sons, because then that other group would not be able to deny access to that person's siblings, and thus information might travel.
I can see thorny political plots growing already. And therein lies the story.
There's something about cats, isn't there? Having two new kittens at my house, I can testify to this.
Okay, so what about making them into a group of aliens?
My thought is this: don't stop with physiology and its immediate consequences.
With the feline physiology you get great hunting capabilities and a carnivorous diet. But in case you were thinking that these aliens would only eat raw meat, think about the little kitties eating kibbles in your house. If they have an advanced society, they would also have a sophisticated sense of cuisine, at least among the wealthy. Maybe raw meat would be a delicacy - or maybe it would be associated with poverty, because these people couldn't afford fire to cook. Either way, it should have a localized cultural meaning.
So then, what about social structure? A lot of times people will come up with structures that are elaborate and cool but somewhat arbitrary relative to the species in question. That's fine, as long as you can make your felines fit into it without going against their native ways (and you can always alter the felines!). However, if you want to match more closely, you could always work with a very social group of felines, like lions. They've got prides with dominant males and hunting females; that would be fun to work with.
I'm going to challenge myself a little by working with housecats - or at least, a group of cats that is very territorial, typically not hanging with other cats unless they are siblings or mates. This can still translate into a societal structure for a civilization.
Imagine a society of semi-nomadic feline hunters that guarded its core territory, yet possessed a superstructure of civilization and government based largely on the interactions of mates and siblings. An individual would have a compound where he/she lived with a mate and their juvenile children, but siblings would be welcome and would probably live in territories nearby. Those territories would be linked to the first by blood ties to create small interlocked communities. Intergroup marriages would take on great importance, especially between larger linked groups - like the marital interactions of the European royals. At the same time, siblings would have very close relationships and would add to the possible links. It might be that the only way to get "into" a rival group would be to marry off one of your daughters or sons, because then that other group would not be able to deny access to that person's siblings, and thus information might travel.
I can see thorny political plots growing already. And therein lies the story.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Pain
Last Thursday evening I took my husband to the emergency room at 2:30 in the morning because he was experiencing intense pain in his left arm. The interesting thing about pain is, although it's adaptively very important because it lets you know that something is wrong, it doesn't always let you know what is wrong, because internal pain is hard to pinpoint and describe. My husband strained a muscle; but for all I knew at the time, he could have been having a heart attack.
It's made me think about describing pain. I remember seeing a TV show once where the host was taking typical descriptions of pain - in particular, I remember "stabbing pain" being featured - and trying to debunk them. Or at least, that's what it seemed like he was trying to do. The show talked about the phrase "stabbing pain" and then went and talked to people who had actually been stabbed to ask if it hurt and what it felt like; then it pointed out that this didn't match the idea of "stabbing pain" at all.
I took issue with their conclusion. "Stabbing pain" doesn't have to mean "pain like that of a stabbing"; it describes the way that the pain is experienced, the way that it seems to move quickly and sharply through the body. Then of course we have "thudding," "throbbing," "pinching," "stinging," "aching," etc. etc. I honestly don't think they all have to follow the same type of derivation. Pinching probably is "pain like that of being pinched." Lots of different experiences of pain lead to lots of different types of description.
This of course makes me think of aliens and fantasy peoples. How would aliens experience pain, and where in their unusual bodies? How would fantasy peoples describe their pain? Even if they felt it the same way we do, their alternate histories and backgrounds could lead them to describe pain with completely different metaphors. A description of pain could show a reader a lot about how a group of people conceptualize the internal organs of the body, and where health comes from.
Short entry today because I've been stressing out, for obvious reasons. My man's feeling better, so that's good, but he's still got his arm in a sling. And I'm starting to feel pain in my head... I wonder how I could describe it...
It's made me think about describing pain. I remember seeing a TV show once where the host was taking typical descriptions of pain - in particular, I remember "stabbing pain" being featured - and trying to debunk them. Or at least, that's what it seemed like he was trying to do. The show talked about the phrase "stabbing pain" and then went and talked to people who had actually been stabbed to ask if it hurt and what it felt like; then it pointed out that this didn't match the idea of "stabbing pain" at all.
I took issue with their conclusion. "Stabbing pain" doesn't have to mean "pain like that of a stabbing"; it describes the way that the pain is experienced, the way that it seems to move quickly and sharply through the body. Then of course we have "thudding," "throbbing," "pinching," "stinging," "aching," etc. etc. I honestly don't think they all have to follow the same type of derivation. Pinching probably is "pain like that of being pinched." Lots of different experiences of pain lead to lots of different types of description.
This of course makes me think of aliens and fantasy peoples. How would aliens experience pain, and where in their unusual bodies? How would fantasy peoples describe their pain? Even if they felt it the same way we do, their alternate histories and backgrounds could lead them to describe pain with completely different metaphors. A description of pain could show a reader a lot about how a group of people conceptualize the internal organs of the body, and where health comes from.
Short entry today because I've been stressing out, for obvious reasons. My man's feeling better, so that's good, but he's still got his arm in a sling. And I'm starting to feel pain in my head... I wonder how I could describe it...
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Absolute and Relative Direction
Did any of you out there have difficulty learning the difference between right and left? Have you ever gotten confused over "my left" and "your left"? What about north, south, east and west?
Both of these are senses of direction. Right and left are relative, and orient relative to the position of the speaker unless otherwise specified. North, south, etc. are absolute directions, and orient independently of the movement of the speaker. No surprise to anyone, because in English we have both of these types of orientation words.
Interestingly, though, at least one Australian aboriginal language doesn't use the relative positioning words - only the absolute ones. So that they would never say "my right foot"; they would say something like "my northward foot" or "my southward foot" etc. I think you can see that it's awfully critical to maintain an absolute sense of direction if you're going to be speaking of about parts of your own body differently depending on which direction you're facing.
I would love to see a group of aliens with only absolute direction words - or, to take the concept further, only a set of absolute words to refer to something we generally use relative expressions for, like pronouns. Imagine how confused an alien from this society would be to hear every human referring to him or herself with "I." They would probably construe it incorrectly as a proper name.
While I'm on this topic, I'd like to mention the Japanese words "kochira" "sochira" and "achira," which can be roughly translated as "this direction" "that direction" and "that direction over there." Like English "this" and "that," "left" and "right," "I" and "you" they are relative terms, which take their meaning from the identity and position of the speaker. You can probably guess from the translations, though, that they aren't defined quite the same way.
The ko- prefix indicates a direction or an object associated with the speaker (or more precisely, in the speaker's in-group). The so- prefix indicates something associated with the person that the speaker is talking to - the other guy in the conversation. The a- prefix indicates something that is associated neither with the speaker nor the other guy in the conversation, but is outside both of their circles.
I mention the Australian and Japanese examples because I think it's fascinating to consider other methods of organizing reality. Also, though, I want to bring attention to our own way of organizing reality: organizing it around ourselves. If you look around, the English language is full of expressions that are relative (I, he, this, that, here, there, today, yesterday, just to name a few).
Never forget that relative expressions are your allies in the construction of point of view. If you are trying to create a close point of view, try looking around for opportunities to use relative expressions instead of absolute ones. You may find more than you expect.
Both of these are senses of direction. Right and left are relative, and orient relative to the position of the speaker unless otherwise specified. North, south, etc. are absolute directions, and orient independently of the movement of the speaker. No surprise to anyone, because in English we have both of these types of orientation words.
Interestingly, though, at least one Australian aboriginal language doesn't use the relative positioning words - only the absolute ones. So that they would never say "my right foot"; they would say something like "my northward foot" or "my southward foot" etc. I think you can see that it's awfully critical to maintain an absolute sense of direction if you're going to be speaking of about parts of your own body differently depending on which direction you're facing.
I would love to see a group of aliens with only absolute direction words - or, to take the concept further, only a set of absolute words to refer to something we generally use relative expressions for, like pronouns. Imagine how confused an alien from this society would be to hear every human referring to him or herself with "I." They would probably construe it incorrectly as a proper name.
While I'm on this topic, I'd like to mention the Japanese words "kochira" "sochira" and "achira," which can be roughly translated as "this direction" "that direction" and "that direction over there." Like English "this" and "that," "left" and "right," "I" and "you" they are relative terms, which take their meaning from the identity and position of the speaker. You can probably guess from the translations, though, that they aren't defined quite the same way.
The ko- prefix indicates a direction or an object associated with the speaker (or more precisely, in the speaker's in-group). The so- prefix indicates something associated with the person that the speaker is talking to - the other guy in the conversation. The a- prefix indicates something that is associated neither with the speaker nor the other guy in the conversation, but is outside both of their circles.
I mention the Australian and Japanese examples because I think it's fascinating to consider other methods of organizing reality. Also, though, I want to bring attention to our own way of organizing reality: organizing it around ourselves. If you look around, the English language is full of expressions that are relative (I, he, this, that, here, there, today, yesterday, just to name a few).
Never forget that relative expressions are your allies in the construction of point of view. If you are trying to create a close point of view, try looking around for opportunities to use relative expressions instead of absolute ones. You may find more than you expect.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Pick your species/Pick your tech?
This is such a common thing that I don't think I really have to point it out to anyone, but here it is, a phenomenon common to both science fiction and fantasy to varying degrees:
People pick established species on which to base their alien races, and established time periods on which to base their technology.
There are a lot of great reasons to do this. One excellent reason is an idea I talked about earlier, that of the conceptual "set." If you pick a preexisting set of characteristics for an alien and its technology, one that people are familiar with, then readers will not have to work as hard and they can use their instinctive expectations to guide them in understanding the story. A related reason is that the alien and its behavior will seem more "natural" if you match behavior to species and physiology and extrapolate it into the realm of culture.
On the other hand, as a writer you don't have to feel bound by these constraints. Not necessarily.
Sure, if you're pulling features of physiology, behavior, culture and technology from all over the place, it'll feel like a hodgepodge and not make any sense. That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm just saying that there are novel combinations of elements that can be used with internal consistency.
How do you go looking for a new way? I'd suggest starting with the understanding that physical setting influences physiology, and also influences culture, which also influences technology. As long as it's all connected, you can play around. Changing one aspect of physical setting will create ripples throughout the system. Changing an aspect of technology can be linked back to cultural preferences.
Let the elements of the world grow together organically and they can change each other. Let there be a reason for every departure from the set, and you may find your readers will trust you all the way.
People pick established species on which to base their alien races, and established time periods on which to base their technology.
There are a lot of great reasons to do this. One excellent reason is an idea I talked about earlier, that of the conceptual "set." If you pick a preexisting set of characteristics for an alien and its technology, one that people are familiar with, then readers will not have to work as hard and they can use their instinctive expectations to guide them in understanding the story. A related reason is that the alien and its behavior will seem more "natural" if you match behavior to species and physiology and extrapolate it into the realm of culture.
On the other hand, as a writer you don't have to feel bound by these constraints. Not necessarily.
Sure, if you're pulling features of physiology, behavior, culture and technology from all over the place, it'll feel like a hodgepodge and not make any sense. That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm just saying that there are novel combinations of elements that can be used with internal consistency.
How do you go looking for a new way? I'd suggest starting with the understanding that physical setting influences physiology, and also influences culture, which also influences technology. As long as it's all connected, you can play around. Changing one aspect of physical setting will create ripples throughout the system. Changing an aspect of technology can be linked back to cultural preferences.
Let the elements of the world grow together organically and they can change each other. Let there be a reason for every departure from the set, and you may find your readers will trust you all the way.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Doors and their Keepers
I'm obsessed with doors.
Okay, not really. But I do find I mention them a lot when I'm writing, sometimes so often it gets ridiculous and I have to start cutting. The thing is, doors are just so useful.
Doors and aliens: the shape and mechanism of a door will tell you a lot about the physiology of a species, even when they are absent. If a door gets narrower than a certain width, human beings will shift their shoulders sideways to go through it even though it may be wide enough to admit them without the shift. So what about aliens? How do they go about entering a space? Do they slither and need just a tiny hole, or are they enormous? Do they manipulate a handle to open the door? Does the door have hinges or does it slide? Does the door lock? These questions will illuminate local technology. Another question relevant here is how to know who is on the other side of the door. Is there a peephole to allow the apartment-dweller to see who is outside? Or will the individual on the inside use hearing or smell to determine who the visitor is?
Doors and power structures: who gets to sit behind a door? And who gets to sit, or stand, in front of it? These are things that can reveal a lot about the status structure of your society. If the people behind the door are knowledge keepers, then maybe a great deal of value is placed on certain types of knowledge, and this is then kept secret from others (I'm thinking of bureaucrats, but also religious knowledge and others can fall into this category).
Doors and manners: there are rules about how doors must be treated. In the US, an open door is seen as friendly. In Germany, it's seen as sloppy. The French see open doors and worry about draughts in the house. Whether the door is kept open or closed does not always say the same thing about the person inside. Maybe it says "do not disturb," but maybe it says "I maintain appropriate aloofness but you may approach me." Are people expected to knock to gain admission? And how should they open the door? In my house, where I've often got kids or stuff of various kinds in hand, I open the door any way I can. In Japan, opening a door with anything but your hands is bad manners (don't use your feet or your posterior!). In Japanese restaurants, the servers will put their trays down and remain kneeling to open the sliding door with one hand placed close to the floor.
Doors and point of view: I think this is why I use doors so much. If you're doing close limited point of view, it really helps to differentiate between describing actions from the inside of the POV character, or from the outside for other characters.
For the POV character, a door can mean a lot of different things. It can mean imprisonment. It can mean fear or resentment, that someone in particular might come in. It can mean safety. It can be the last line of protection. A character can approach a door with hesitation, paranoia, eagerness, excitement or apprehension. Or irritation, as Arthur Dent did with the sighing doors of the Heart of Gold spaceship in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
For the non-POV characters, a door can help you show their mental states without actually having to describe the emotion. How does the character approach the door? Quickly? With impatient movement, or with reluctance? Does he or she approach it face-first or back-first? What body part does your character use to knock, or to open the door? How does he or she grasp the handle - with white knuckles, or gingerly, or firmly? What quality of sound or air movement does the opening of the door create? All of these things can broadcast the inner states of a non-POV character, and the writer can choose whether to complete the extrapolation of the associated mental state or not. This means that if you describe how the person handles the door, but without using any direct descriptions of the assumed mental state, the reader can draw two conclusions: first, the reader can extrapolate the mental state of the person who went through the door, and second, the reader can deduce that the point of view character didn't draw the same conclusions, i.e. that he or she may have been unaware of the other person's mental state. And that's one way to show things to your reader while hiding them from your POV character in tight internal/limited point of view.
You gotta love doors.
Okay, not really. But I do find I mention them a lot when I'm writing, sometimes so often it gets ridiculous and I have to start cutting. The thing is, doors are just so useful.
Doors and aliens: the shape and mechanism of a door will tell you a lot about the physiology of a species, even when they are absent. If a door gets narrower than a certain width, human beings will shift their shoulders sideways to go through it even though it may be wide enough to admit them without the shift. So what about aliens? How do they go about entering a space? Do they slither and need just a tiny hole, or are they enormous? Do they manipulate a handle to open the door? Does the door have hinges or does it slide? Does the door lock? These questions will illuminate local technology. Another question relevant here is how to know who is on the other side of the door. Is there a peephole to allow the apartment-dweller to see who is outside? Or will the individual on the inside use hearing or smell to determine who the visitor is?
Doors and power structures: who gets to sit behind a door? And who gets to sit, or stand, in front of it? These are things that can reveal a lot about the status structure of your society. If the people behind the door are knowledge keepers, then maybe a great deal of value is placed on certain types of knowledge, and this is then kept secret from others (I'm thinking of bureaucrats, but also religious knowledge and others can fall into this category).
Doors and manners: there are rules about how doors must be treated. In the US, an open door is seen as friendly. In Germany, it's seen as sloppy. The French see open doors and worry about draughts in the house. Whether the door is kept open or closed does not always say the same thing about the person inside. Maybe it says "do not disturb," but maybe it says "I maintain appropriate aloofness but you may approach me." Are people expected to knock to gain admission? And how should they open the door? In my house, where I've often got kids or stuff of various kinds in hand, I open the door any way I can. In Japan, opening a door with anything but your hands is bad manners (don't use your feet or your posterior!). In Japanese restaurants, the servers will put their trays down and remain kneeling to open the sliding door with one hand placed close to the floor.
Doors and point of view: I think this is why I use doors so much. If you're doing close limited point of view, it really helps to differentiate between describing actions from the inside of the POV character, or from the outside for other characters.
For the POV character, a door can mean a lot of different things. It can mean imprisonment. It can mean fear or resentment, that someone in particular might come in. It can mean safety. It can be the last line of protection. A character can approach a door with hesitation, paranoia, eagerness, excitement or apprehension. Or irritation, as Arthur Dent did with the sighing doors of the Heart of Gold spaceship in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
For the non-POV characters, a door can help you show their mental states without actually having to describe the emotion. How does the character approach the door? Quickly? With impatient movement, or with reluctance? Does he or she approach it face-first or back-first? What body part does your character use to knock, or to open the door? How does he or she grasp the handle - with white knuckles, or gingerly, or firmly? What quality of sound or air movement does the opening of the door create? All of these things can broadcast the inner states of a non-POV character, and the writer can choose whether to complete the extrapolation of the associated mental state or not. This means that if you describe how the person handles the door, but without using any direct descriptions of the assumed mental state, the reader can draw two conclusions: first, the reader can extrapolate the mental state of the person who went through the door, and second, the reader can deduce that the point of view character didn't draw the same conclusions, i.e. that he or she may have been unaware of the other person's mental state. And that's one way to show things to your reader while hiding them from your POV character in tight internal/limited point of view.
You gotta love doors.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Politics, Religion, and Pets
My friend Ann Wilkes was telling me recently that she never blogs about three topics if she can help it: politics, religion, and pets. I agreed with her, and then realized when you're doing a blog like this one, the topics are fair game - the only trick is not to localize them. So today for fun I'm going to share a couple of my thoughts on politics, religion, and pets (thanks, Ann!).
Politics:
Why are there so many dictatorships in SF/F? Maybe it has to do with the prevalence of medieval cultural models. I'm certainly not immune - I've come up with some of these types of societies. But the ones I think are more interesting are ones where the authors have really delved into what a monarchy means and how it influences society, or ones where monarchy is only one of the options in the world. I like Jacqueline Carey's fantasy Europe, for example, because she maintains differences in governments that parallel the those of the nations she's fantasizing. And of course I like Ursula LeGuin's approach. The Left Hand of Darkness has two major models, one a monarchy and the other a "commensality" that feels a lot like a communist state. In her Earthsea books she has multiple different types of governments depending on their location in the archipelago. If you're designing a society yourself, I encourage you to ask yourself why the rich are rich, and how they get their money. There are a lot more options out there than one.
Religion:
I usually think of religion in created worlds as a tool. A really, really useful one too. It helps you figure out how people swear (or not). It helps you figure out what kind of activities are taboo. It also helps to link people with their local climate and means of feeding themselves. Even more importantly, I think, it helps you figure out some really basic metaphors that people use to understand their world - because religion is full of symbols. Unity. Duality. Trinity. Multiplicity - it all depends on where you look. You can have a group of gods who bicker like family. Or two groups of warring gods. Or an omnipotent God who is tyrannical, or one who is merciful, and that difference will completely change how his/her/its followers think. Does life end with going to heaven? What do you have to do to get there? Are you looking forward to being sacrificed on the altar? My friend Aliette de Bodard had a great moment in one of her pieces where a person headed off to be sacrificed (rather gruesomely, I might add) was impatient with the protagonists for blocking his way. That is one of the kinds of moments that you always remember. Be it fantasy or science fiction, the more people act in accordance with their localized world view, the more I love it.
Pets:
I actually had a funny moment recently where I had to figure out if members of an alien society I was designing kept pets. The part that made it hard was, these guys are carnivores. I thought at first, why would they keep pets and not eat them? But on the other hand, they're social creatures; they might well keep pets to combat loneliness, for example. People do keep pet rabbits even in places where they are regularly eaten. So the final result was, I decided that some of them might keep pets.
Then there was yesterday, when my kids got their National Geographic Kids magazine and we were reading snippets about amazing cats (part of their Halloween themed issue). My daughter loved it, and so did my son - different cats, for different reasons. Animals are so much a part of our consciousness, even if they're not a part of our daily lives, that the first words we learn in children's books are things like "cow," "horse," "bear," "lion," etc. The list goes on and on, though we may never see these creatures in the wild in our entire lives. What, then, would be the significance of animals to a fantasy or alien group? What kind of behavior would be associated with each? Would fantasy people automatically say that foxes are crafty and snakes loathsome and sneaky, just as we do? I'm not sure.
It's something to think about.
Politics:
Why are there so many dictatorships in SF/F? Maybe it has to do with the prevalence of medieval cultural models. I'm certainly not immune - I've come up with some of these types of societies. But the ones I think are more interesting are ones where the authors have really delved into what a monarchy means and how it influences society, or ones where monarchy is only one of the options in the world. I like Jacqueline Carey's fantasy Europe, for example, because she maintains differences in governments that parallel the those of the nations she's fantasizing. And of course I like Ursula LeGuin's approach. The Left Hand of Darkness has two major models, one a monarchy and the other a "commensality" that feels a lot like a communist state. In her Earthsea books she has multiple different types of governments depending on their location in the archipelago. If you're designing a society yourself, I encourage you to ask yourself why the rich are rich, and how they get their money. There are a lot more options out there than one.
Religion:
I usually think of religion in created worlds as a tool. A really, really useful one too. It helps you figure out how people swear (or not). It helps you figure out what kind of activities are taboo. It also helps to link people with their local climate and means of feeding themselves. Even more importantly, I think, it helps you figure out some really basic metaphors that people use to understand their world - because religion is full of symbols. Unity. Duality. Trinity. Multiplicity - it all depends on where you look. You can have a group of gods who bicker like family. Or two groups of warring gods. Or an omnipotent God who is tyrannical, or one who is merciful, and that difference will completely change how his/her/its followers think. Does life end with going to heaven? What do you have to do to get there? Are you looking forward to being sacrificed on the altar? My friend Aliette de Bodard had a great moment in one of her pieces where a person headed off to be sacrificed (rather gruesomely, I might add) was impatient with the protagonists for blocking his way. That is one of the kinds of moments that you always remember. Be it fantasy or science fiction, the more people act in accordance with their localized world view, the more I love it.
Pets:
I actually had a funny moment recently where I had to figure out if members of an alien society I was designing kept pets. The part that made it hard was, these guys are carnivores. I thought at first, why would they keep pets and not eat them? But on the other hand, they're social creatures; they might well keep pets to combat loneliness, for example. People do keep pet rabbits even in places where they are regularly eaten. So the final result was, I decided that some of them might keep pets.
Then there was yesterday, when my kids got their National Geographic Kids magazine and we were reading snippets about amazing cats (part of their Halloween themed issue). My daughter loved it, and so did my son - different cats, for different reasons. Animals are so much a part of our consciousness, even if they're not a part of our daily lives, that the first words we learn in children's books are things like "cow," "horse," "bear," "lion," etc. The list goes on and on, though we may never see these creatures in the wild in our entire lives. What, then, would be the significance of animals to a fantasy or alien group? What kind of behavior would be associated with each? Would fantasy people automatically say that foxes are crafty and snakes loathsome and sneaky, just as we do? I'm not sure.
It's something to think about.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Translation problems
Tonight I saw a great discussion on Kelley Eskridge's blog about translation: http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/when-you-are-jadeando/
I couldn't help linking it up in my mind with a suggestion from the Asimov's board ( www.asimovs.com ) that I discuss languages that occur in really unusual channels, like chemical odor signals and pheromones.
Here's the thing. No matter what kind of language you're proposing that your aliens use (or your humans, if you include sign language), in order for it to appear in a story in English, it has to be rendered in English!
You can always start by describing your language's transmission, and then put the content of messages in English. But if you want the language to feel real, doing a search-and-replace substitution of "emitted" for "said" obviously isn't going to do the trick! That's when you start looking for other places to put information related to language channel.
One possibility would be working with your descriptions, considering how people receiving this communication might respond to it. You could describe emotional response to this alien "speech" in the way you might describe response to scent signals in our world, for example. You could find every scent-imbued word you can think of or look up, and consider ways to integrate them into the dialogue and surrounding text.
All of this is for interaction that occurs in the scent language, internally to that language with "emitters" and "receivers" who can both understand it. But what about contrast, when you have scent communicators and auditory language speakers in the same story, or the same room?
Suddenly now you have to have two versions of English: English rendering of the auditory language, and English rendering of the scent language. How do you construct the dialogue so the two are sufficiently differentiated? Okay, so you design yourself a sophisticated translator which can pick up the scent signals and give a rough rendition of the language in English - what is going to come out of it? The easy solution is to say that your translator is just so darn good that of course it's going to give you the English equivalent of what the aliens say. But as Kelley Eskridge was discussing, translation isn't ever clean; there's no true "English equivalent," and in fact for a language as completely different as this hypothetical pheromone language we're discussing, I struggle to imagine how precise equivalents might be found for anything!
That's when I'd suggest looking into the idea of cultural and linguistic basic concepts for the alien language. The following will be a sequence of speculations, so I hope it makes sense!
In our scent language, very likely individual speaker identity will be hardwired into any "statement", because scent has a long history of being used for marking territory. Then, on top of that, you might have an ambient layer of the emotional state of the speaker as indicated by his or her scent profile. This might be used to correspond linguistically to English things like "definitely" or "maybe" or "!" which indicate the person's level of commitment to the content of the message. Beyond that I guess it might be a question of which chemicals were emitted when and how they were combined to form concepts.
But on the other hand, scent is less flexible than sound as far as temporal variables, because it's basically impossible (outside of a whipping wind) to emit one scent after another without having them mix. So maybe that very mix, that sequential deepening and complication of scent, would be our main variable rather than just a simple question of which chemicals were emitted. Which leads me to wonder how a species using this mode of communication might conceptualize time and change...
This is all totally hypothetical, of course, but it shows some of the ways I go about trying to tease apart cultural and linguistic concepts that I can use when I'm looking for a prose style for an alien language. So to put the final piece on the end for our scent language, maybe this is one where I'd try to have each piece of dialogue consist of a single initial word, followed by sentences of increasing length which would continue to feature this word but add concepts to it on both ends.
Now how the heck would I make that comprehensible by readers? Maybe I'm lucky that I'm not working with this particular scent language at the moment...
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