I won’t attempt to write nearly as extensive an essay as my sister’s guest post from a while back, but I will make a few simple remarks and addenda about language.
A being with a radically different anatomy would probably have some words that were difficult to translate back and forth into English. Consider the following:
A cat has, like a human, a number of different positions or postures it can take.
- A cat can stand. For a cat, this is standing on its four legs, as opposed to a human’s standing on two.
- A cat can lie down. This description has two meanings for a cat-lying so its feet are all in contact with the ground, or lying on its side or back or curled into a ball. Note that humans have no direct equivalent to the first type, and it’s not really an accurate description, as this is a ready position for a cat instead of an awkward one.
- A cat can sit. For a cat, this is most equivalent to the human crouching position. (A crouching cat is either equivalent to one lying down, or is standing with a different body orientation.)
- A cat can rear up on its hindquarters or its hind legs. These are most equivalent to human sitting and standing.
Note that only one meaning of one English term for a cat’s posture matches the term for the human equivalent!
When an alien has a different anatomy, even in the simple way that a cat does from a human, it can create unexpected linguistic oddities and tricks.
Also, never assume an alien language would use the same terms for different things that your own first language does-in German, for instance, “taking a picture” is “making a picture.” This is a minor idiomatic thing, but other languages can and do have radically different internal relationships between their words. This is also why puns translate badly between languages-rarely do two languages have consistent homophonic relationships with each other.
-Signing off.
Tags: Aliens, Language, World Building
