Mensagens: 147
Idioma: English
ceigered (Mostrar o perfil) 15 de março de 2010 13:30:01
Yeah, totally agree. Plus, the implications of researching this could be enormous in understanding just what makes the human mind click when it firstly sees an object (especially with things that don't make tum-tum noises
), and then associates a name to it, which could then be useful in understanding how people or creatures who don't have languages process internal thoughts or dialogue.Unfortunately I lack any of the skills needed to really research such a thing so all I can really do is hope someone else does it and go "Oh cool!" when I see the results on something like Science Daily
Back @ general conversation:
All the talk of one word languages etc has got me wondering if that's how birds communicate with their songs
(albeit without much complexity, like I doubt birds actually discuss anything much). 
Pharoah (Mostrar o perfil) 15 de março de 2010 14:09:23
On another forum I saw people talking in a one word language, kinda like Puna. The word was "mu". Something like cows >_>Reminds me of this.
trojo (Mostrar o perfil) 15 de março de 2010 15:01:40
jan aleksan:0.k1attack:Computers just use two words: "0" and "1"!1
Computers don't actually use 0 and 1 in the way we think of them. Deep within the billions of transistors on a CPU chip electrical impulses are shunted around. The presence of an electrical impulse we (humans) call "1" and the absence of an electrical charge we call "0". Computers process these signals according to specific instructions (i.e. a program), but have no awareness of zero or one as concepts.
It is no more correct to say that computers understand "0" and "1" than it would be to say that a toaster understands bread.
ceigered (Mostrar o perfil) 15 de março de 2010 15:12:57
trojo:than it would be to say that a toaster understands bread.0.
I'm pretty sure my toaster understands not only bread, but crumpets as well. That said, I prefer pikelets over crumpets, and my toaster keeps on burning stuff.
(But Troj' is right. 0's and 1's are no different to nerve impulses. The difference being that we made computers, therefore we understand them enough to "write" directly what the sequence of "nerve impulses" the computer will have when certain code is processed. With humans, we don't do that, because our nervous systems are too complex.)
Greyshades (Mostrar o perfil) 15 de março de 2010 15:25:02
But does the bread understand the toaster?
jan aleksan (Mostrar o perfil) 15 de março de 2010 16:17:26
JOW:I see what you mean but it still not always the case. Related to the earthquake in Haiti, I learned the word earthquake in dutch: aardbeving. The word sounded strange to me, and I learned it with difficulty, because none of the sounds make me think to earthquake. Compare to TeRRTRRemo and TRRembLement de TeRRRE (not that dutch does prononce R pretty like the americans).
It is very interesting. The difficult issue there, I think, is whether the words resemble each other because of a common ancestry, or if it's a structural issue. I suspect that in many cases, it is a structural thing, though sound symbolism. It's very natural that many languages will have a word for "drum" that has a "t" sound in it, like tom-tom. After all, that's what a drum sounds like (at least expressed in human terms). So ideas like water may have something similar going on, though obviously much more subtle. The word for "suck" has an "s" sound in many language, but it doesn't have necessarily to do with a common ancestry.
Also, the k in akwa (water in proto european), can seem to be a bit to hard for water. If I would have created the word, I wouldn't have put hard consonnant like k.
, qwertz (Mostrar o perfil) 15 de março de 2010 16:56:21
jan aleksan:The german word for "aardbeving" is "Erdbeben". With some fantasy most german should understand this dutch word.
I see what you mean but it still not always the case. Related to the earthquake in Haiti, I learned the word earthquake in dutch: aardbeving. The word sounded strange to me, and I learned it with difficulty, because none of the sounds make me think to earthquake. Compare to TeRRTRRemo and TRRembLement de TeRRRE (not that dutch does prononce R pretty like the americans).
andogigi (Mostrar o perfil) 17 de março de 2010 02:48:51
(Too bad we don't have an emoticon for "tongue in cheek")
ceigered (Mostrar o perfil) 17 de março de 2010 09:07:05
Greyshades:Sed ĉu la pano komprenas la panrostilon?Well, it depends, mostly on humidity and temperature.
But does the bread understand the toaster?
But I suspect toasting bread so *cough* ŝima, that it can communicate with your electrical appliances, might be regarded as animal cruelty.
Donniedillon (Mostrar o perfil) 17 de março de 2010 20:51:11
andogigi:If Binary isn't a language, how come I know how to translate it to hexadecimal?"What I really need is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators."
"Vaporators? Sir, my first job was programming binary loadlifters—very similar to your vaporators in most respects."