The narrator can see the future( use future tense?)
The alien has a system for speech and written language. Their written language can be rotated, and they’ll still understand the word. It looked more like graphic designs. Their bodies have no forward direction, and so is their language. The heptapods use a logographic script. Eventually, Dr. Banks realizes that the logograms should instead be called semagrams. They discover that heptapod speech contains free word order and center-embedding of clauses. They also learn that the way in which semagrams are written(rotating or orientation) changes their meaning.
This reminds me of Chinese characters. Chinese characters are like pictures. From what I remember, there are 6 types of Chinese characters. One type of it would be the pictograms. In this group, the characters look like the objects they represent. In compound ideograms which is another type of group, the characters are created by the combination of two or more pictograms but more abstract. When I was reading through the passage, these two types of groups were what I use to help me imagine what the alien’s language is like.
“For the heptapods, all language was performative. “This led me thinking that acting is also a way to communication. Facial expression or gesture is way to communicate. It doesn’t have to be through words. I think sometimes our psychical gesture can indicate what we’re feeling. If we want to reject someone or something but don’t know how to reject them, it’s obviously through our physical gesture.
Throughout the readings, the narrator talked about the time with her daughter “when you cry, you’ll become outrage incarnate, every fiber of your body employed in expressing that emotion. It’s funny: when you’re tranquil, you will seem to radiate light.” I try to find a similarity between how an infant learn language and express themselves and the alien’s language. I feel like they are very similar in terms of being very performative to convey messages.