- In Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life,” Heptapods possess a unique language and communication style. Their spoken language appears to have a structure with nouns and verbs, but their writing system is non-linear, using intricate conglomerations of logograms. This fluid approach to writing reflects their different perception of time. As Dr. Louise Banks attempts to decipher it, she faces challenges due to its context-dependent nature. While the Heptapods, dubbed “Flapper” and “Raspberry,” cooperate in linguistic sessions, their writing suggests various implications about their technological advancements and cognition. Due to the Heptapod’s multi-directional nature their writing can be read from any direction unlike the human language which usually has an order of direction that must be maintained
- Humans are four-limbed, bipedal, hairless mammals–all four features of which has significant impact on our methods of communication. For one, we use only half of our total limbs for basic ground movement, allowing our hands to express love by interlocking our fingers with someone else’s, anger by balling them into a fist, numbers by lifting and putting down specific fingers, and many more. The positioning of our faces and the lack of hair covering the entirety of it allows our facial expressions to be very clearly read by other members of our species
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