Reflection on Ted Chiang’s Book:

In this story, the author’s description of the alien’s language and communication habits is very interesting, and the process of the protagonist and the team understanding the alien language is also thought-provoking.

First of all, since the structure of alien language is completely different from that of human beings, it is impossible to directly understand the pronunciation. Not only that, but the written text of aliens is also very different from that of human beings. This difference is not only reflected in the difference in the text but also in the way of use in essence—the text of aliens directly expresses ideas, while the text of humans Most of them have to be combined with spoken language or pictograms. This leads to the fact that aliens can use very similar text to describe completely different concepts, and it will be difficult for outsiders to participate in this kind of communication. For humans, wanting to express emotions and ideas in words at the same time often requires the cooperation of the context, but these aliens don’t seem to need it. Not only that, because of the shape of the alien’s 7 limbs and the ability to predict, they can even express them at the same time. Writing out all the parts of an entire sentence is beyond the reach of the human way of thinking.

Of course, the protagonist’s research on alien communication methods has also affected herself, allowing her to think from the perspective of the present and the future at the same time as an alien. This influence seems incredible, but it is undeniable that when the two are completely different When different communication styles collide with each other, at least one party will be affected considerably. This also reminds me of the science fiction novel “Three-Body Problem”. In the collision of human civilization, they even learned to lie in a fully transparent thinking.

Therefore, I like such stories very much, because I have always believed that the collision between different languages ​​and communication methods will bring about miraculous changes, and these stories always stimulate my imagination.