Story of Your Life blog

Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang

Alien’s communication and language is different from humans in the sense that they don’t have a specific language and each word is just a twist on the last one. Their way of communication is also very different from their writings, no correlations. Either way it was made clear that the aliens do not think there’s any correct way to communicate with each other, as long as communication is done any method is fine.

The human body communicates both verbally and visually. We have body language that can convey messages when verbal communication isn’t what we intend or when verbal isn’t the best way to communicate depending on the situation. However, for the aliens, they communicate verbally via fluttery noises. These noises are made from vibration, and different from humans, they don’t have vocal cords, thus the nosies they make are flutters. These flutters, depending on frequency, are able to communicate different idea, usually with a noun flutter and action. However, there isn’t any actual rules in these flutters and even if there is, it is quite hard to tell. Another thing to mention is that the aliens don’t have a “front” or “back” side since they can ignore orientation. We humans have a front and back and thus we normally face the person talking to us to show that we are paying attention to what they are doing or saying.

Notes:

• It seems that the timeline is very out of order although it’s just the narrator talking about the future.
• The others are more worried about the aliens learning the human language when they are also trying to learn the aliens’ language, very ironic.