Languages of Aliens and the Voynich Manuscript

Vertigo said:
Which, I think nicely, underlines @Extollager's opening point; without a key (like the Rosetta Stone) we can't even translate a human language so think how much harder it will be to translate an alien one (assuming a nice convenient alien isn't available to help us along). If all you have is a load of words and nothing to help you associate them with things then translation is almost impossible.
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That is not necessarily the case. Given enough source material it is possible to translate a completely unknown script. The prime example is the decipherment of Linear B.
 
I confess to not knowing too much about Linear B but I thought it was a script used for an older form of Greek. In which case the language surely bears some relationship to ancient Greek which in turn would give some clues to the structure of the language which in turn would assist in its translation. Just my thoughts but absolutely not based on any knowledge :oops:
 
Extollager said:
My request is: Can anyone recommend stories that deal plausibly with the real obstacles to understanding an alien language?
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It's not really from the Hard SF end (if that is indeed what you're after) but Embassytown by Mieville. It leans more towards the way aliens think rather than just understanding the language. Also a good read.
 
Reading all through this thread and the translation issues took me waaaay back to the sixties . Eagerly awaited every week was comic Ranger. This featured ( from issue one ) 'The rise and fall of the Trigan empire' . Most people vaguely know it as ongoing adventures on a swords and ray guns planet based on the Roman culture. However the first few episodes were somewhat different, alien craft crashed on Earth with all occupants dead. These guys were super athletic and like eight foot tall. Found amongst the detritus were six thick tomes but nobody could translate. The best brains ( and 1960's computers) tried for years but eventually gave in. The aliens were gradually forgotten about. One young Frenchman , a student, worked most of his life on the six books and had Eureka in his seventies. Finally the Trigan yarn began. Every few years the comic strip would show a liver spotted hand closing a volume with these words "And thus ended the SECOND book of Trigo ( or third etc) . Last read any in 1972!
 
dannymcg said:
Last read any in 1972!
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I started reading it a few years after that in Look and Learn, the very end of the Lawrence/Butterworth years and the whole of Oliver Frey's tenure. I have read the very first episodes you refer to, but I can't recall where. After Oliver Frey's time, Look and Learn also reprinted some old Lawrence/Butterworth stories, including one about a lost city that made a big impression on me at the time and which I'd love to read again. It was a fantastic strip.

I started a thread here for anyone else who remembers it.

Trigan Empire
 
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Two stories in Analog in recent years dealt with 'decoding ' lost alien languages where the civilisation had died out but parts of their civilisation remained.

Each one dealt with a different but universal concept to help decode the language. The first: maths, the second: the periodic table.
 
Well, the days of the 'week' or the names of special days. holidays; the names of many different plants, and the names of all the women pictured, then common words linking it all together. There would be no particular knowledge of math or periodic tables at that time, except maybe the odd alchemicaly-minded folk. But this is a cookbook for special occasions. Those characters at the beginning of sentences look like they can be added or subtracted to and from, so are they the special days, date, or what? It's not going to be easy. If this was a movie, we'd have 48 hrs/ to decode it, to save the Earth.
 
Extollager said:
Here's a manuscript some hundreds of years old that has been studied by code-breakers etc. and which seems likely to be meaningful but which no one has been able to translate.

The World’s Most Mysterious Book

It's datable and someone or some people of this planet devised it, but nobody can figure it out.

My point is that science fiction seems to me inclined preposterously to underestimate the difficulty of translating the language of an alien civilization. My request is: Can anyone recommend stories that deal plausibly with the real obstacles to understanding an alien language?
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Here's a little news about the Voynich manuscript.

Author of mysterious Voynich manuscript was Italian Jew, says scholar
 
I am reminded the Star Trek Next Generation episode "Darmok". Where the Enterprise crew has to communicate with an alien race that seems to speak in "gibberish".
 
Extollager said:
The solution at last?
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The "solution" was debunked a mere three days after Mr. Gibbs (described as a television writer and "history researcher") submitted it.

There have literally been HUNDREDS of claims by people who are supposed to have "solved" it. None have ever proven correct under scrutiny.
 
mosaix said:
Two stories in Analog in recent years dealt with 'decoding ' lost alien languages where the civilisation had died out but parts of their civilisation remained.

Each one dealt with a different but universal concept to help decode the language. The first: maths, the second: the periodic table.
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I bet if the the author(s) of Voynich manuscript could see the all debate and theories of its origin, they would be probably be amazed and amused by all the discussions. The manuscript and it's mysterious cypher could well have been invented by few scholars as a means of sharing information and ideas that the Church and other local authorities might have found both heretical and objectionable. It might be that the cypher to unlock it is still out there somewhere in some old forgotten and musty old manuscript or it could be lost forever . Perhaps the key could be right in from of everyone perhaps in the book itself unrecognized?

It could well be their equivalent of the Internet perhaps? It's just a thought. :)
 
Dennis E. Taylor said:
How to serve man?
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Makes sense.

All those pictures of women in what appear to be baths. Maybe they're actually in stew pots?

And all those illustrations of plants and their preparation---the best herbs and spices for human stew?

It's obviously a recipe book!
 
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