David's Linguistic Prowess

Very interesting presentation, regardless of whether or not it ties indirectly to Prometheus or David 8. Thanks.

Ok. There will probably be some quick line like, "I can infer what the symbols mean according to my linguistic implant." They shouldn't spend too much time telling us all the nerdy details of how things work if there's going to be any story. By the way, I just want to point out that a "dialect" is a variation of a language and not a completely foreign and new language. It's the difference between American English, British English, and Australian English. We can infer meaning because we have most of the language in common save for a few words. This means that if David were able to read what it says, it would have to be similar to some form of an existing Earth language.

@Freddy67 I'm sure they will be a bit lose about how David can "infer" meaning, but I'm glad that they are spending a bit of time in the viral stuff at least touching on this. Computers do make a tremendous difference in this work in the real world because they are so much [u]faster[/u] at raw pattern matching for new material than we are. @Xenotron They are VERY unlikely to go into any of this in any detail in the film, that's why it's being touched on in the "supporting materials." But, it must be important to the plot, or otherwise they wouldn't be spending any time on it at all. You're basically correct about the difference between a language and a dialect, but in general language is on a continuum—especially in its 'natural' state without the influence of writing. In this video you'll see the example of "belief" spelled "bee"+"leaf". When language is all about sound, mutual intelligibility (the distinction between dialect and language) is a bit more slippery. For example, imagine you are in a tribe along a river in Village 1 where there are 4 more villages downstream. The word in your 'dialect' for boat is "gurat". Village 1: [i]gurat[/i] = boat (any boat) Village 2: [i]guruht[/i] Village 3: [i]nguruht[/i] = Village 4: [i]ngülod[/i] Village 5: [i]nülawd[/i] = canoe/kayak (only) It is common that speakers from Village 1 and 3 understand each other and those from Village 3 and 5 understand each other. But when those from #s 1 and 5 get together they need an interpreter. If David knows all KNOWN (human) languages, then he has a tremendous amount of data to call upon to make inferences. But, I agree with you that the Engineers' written language would have to have SOME genetic relationship to some human language for him to be able to read anything on LV-223 and understand it (correctly). It would also be very supportive of the "ancient alien" storyline in the film if Engineer is related to Sumerian, which is an [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_isolate]isolate[/url] on Earth. It's not genetically related to any other recorded language spoken here now or in the past.

Thanks, sukkal for going more in-depth about that topic. Your example trumps mine. I had a feeling you were a smart guy. Class dismissed everyone.

Interesting. Although the simpler explanation (Occam's razor) is that Engineer writing bears similarities to human writing because Engineers played a hand in developing human civilization. (If the star map that Shaw & Holloway find in all those primitive artworks really do show an Engineer-as-titan/god/king.)

@abiogenesis — I'm sure the fictional context proposes that we got writing from the Engineers, but similarities don't mean that David could automatically read and understand it just because of those. The Indus Valley Civilization script is very SIMILAR to others in that it uses glyphs that are common in other systems (stick figures of humans, fish, etc.), but we don't know which values in which language(s) those represent. It's still undeciphered. In the fictional context of the film, David *should* be able to just look at it and do 5 billion or so (??) operations and be able to GUESS with a high level of confidence (="infer") what it says. What it looks like is only one contributing factor in that inferential engine.

@sukkal You sound like my husband. He is also a colossal nerd for linguistics and computing. And I mean that in the nicest possible of ways. :o) I loved the TED video. Thanks for posting.

@abiogenesis — "Colossal nerd for linguistics" could only be the highest complement! :•) So taken. Send your husband my regards and tell him there's a "conScript in Prometheus presumably based on an undeciphered cousin to Linear A." If that doesn't get him excited about the film, nothing will. :•D LOL Thx. for watching and engaging.

@sukkal Reporting back. He was heaps more excited by those, uh, words that you told me to tell him than he's been about the movie hitherto. SO THANK YOU. This means I don't have to drag him to the theater kicking & screaming.

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