Cecily's Reviews > Arrival
Arrival
by
![](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1474206029i/20567805._SX540_.jpg)
“Reading is nothing; comprehension is everything”.
Sarah Richards
I read the title short story while away at a conference for technical writers. The quote above came from a presentation about transforming the Government Digital Service, but the issues of communication (context and audience) that are at the heart of this story are key to technical writing and had echoes in many of the presentations. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Ted Chiang is also a technical writer.
Note: This review is just the title story. I've reviewed the others in this collection HERE.
Same Old, Same Old? No
Aliens arrive. They are suitably weird-looking: radially symmetric, with seven eyes and seven limbs on a barrel-shaped body, topped by a puckered orifice, but with no face and no front and back. They seem keen to communicate via devices humans nickname looking glasses. The military take charge. Of course they do. That’s what always happens. Then things escalate...
But this is different. Linguist Dr Louise Banks tells, in linear fashion, how she and colleagues learned the alien languages. But that narrative is interspersed with non-chronological episodes from her daughter’s life.
The heptapods’ spoken and written languages are unrelated to each other, and the latter has strange properties that affect Louise’s consciousness, specifically her perception of time and free will. This shapes the telling and curious grammar of her daughter’s story, “I remember [past tense] what it’ll [future] be like to…” It is a Borgesian paradox.
Linguistic Relativity - Sapir-Whorf
The story is underpinned by the idea that the structure of a language can affect the cognition of those who use it: Linguistic Relativity.
Heptapod A (spoken) is relatively straightforward and uninteresting; it “sounded vaguely like that of a wet dog shaking the water out of its fur”.
But Heptapod B (written) is very different. It is a totally separate language: the symbols don’t relate to individual spoken words (logographic) or objects (picture writing), and there is no word order, in part because there are no words as such. Heptapod B has its own visual syntax (semasiographic), akin to mathematical equations, some sign languages, and the notation of music or dance.
It is written in a single smooth, sinuous, and rippling style that reflects the heptapods’ own physical movements. It’s also described as an Escheresque lattice and being like psychedelic posters. More significantly, it is not sequential. This seems to reflect the heptapods’ modes of thought and it certainly comes to affect Louise’s perception of the world and the way she tells the story of her daughter’s life.
China Mieville's sci-fi novel, Embassytown, also features aliens with a totally different sort of language to those known to humans. I reviewed it HERE.
Orwell takes the idea of linguistic relativity to an extreme with Newspeak making “thoughtcrime literally impossible”. See Nineteen Eighty Four, reviewed HERE.
Fermat’s Principle of Least Time
Fermat, Sapir-Whorf, free will, and Heptapod B are intricately connected. At times, I wondered if the linguistics and maths/physics was getting too esoteric, but it didn't quite jump the shark and it all wove together brilliantly.
The detail below is for reference, and is spoilered, because understanding this is what the story is about (on the page, though not on screen).
(view spoiler)
UPDATE re Film
A good film, but not a great one, imo, and it makes more sense if you've read the story first. It was released in November 2016: Arrival. I feared, from the trailers, there would be very little linguistics, physics, or philosophy, and that it would be mostly a standard CGI-heavy, alien-action movie, with the world at risk, and a Hollywood ending.
The soundtrack is slightly ethereal, but not distractingly so, and Heptapod B looks beautiful and equally ethereal. There were some new and heightened plot threads, which is OK when adapting for a different medium (a new, dramatic intervention, and more international geo-political stuff).
I liked the way it didn't shy away from some of the technicalities of the linguistics, but what was really odd was that Ian's position as a theoretical physicist made no sense, because he never explained, or even mentioned, the maths/physics stuff about perception of time that was key to it all (see spoiler re Fermat’s Principle of Least Time, above)!
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised, though people wanting standard Hollywood fare might be disappointed.
There's a really informative video about what changes were made for screen, and how those decisions were reached: here. It's 13 minutes, with captions if you can't listen.
Other Links
I read this story thanks to Apatt, whose excellent review is here.
This is the title story of a collection that I reviewed HERE.
That collection includes a story with a non-linear, ideogramatic language, Understand, which I reviewed here.
Posts about the linguistic aspects on Language Log (one of the few sites where it’s worth reading comments):
1. Language is Messy (includes film trailer)
2. Language is Messy part 2, Arabic script
3. Alien Encounters
See also this interview about the linguistics in the film with Prof Betty Berner.
NY Review of Books on the book, the film, and the physics: here.
Other sic-fi books with a linguistic theme on this GR list.
Thoughts to Ponder
• If you could read a Borgesian Book of Ages that records every event, past and future, would you?
(Overview of JL Borges stories reviewed HERE.)
• We know we’re all going to die, but would you knowingly choose (view spoiler) ? Except that knowing the future and having free will are mutually exclusive, which presumably means you have no choice in the matter.
• So, if you had a choice between knowing the future and having free will, which would you choose?
• “The rabbit is ready to eat.”
Who will be eating what? Context is all, and one interpretation excludes the equally valid other.
• “The only way to learn an unknown language is to interact with a native speaker… No alien could have learned human languages by monitoring our broadcasts.”
So is there any point in the Pioneer Plaque, illustrated at the top, or Carl Sagan’s Arecibo Message?["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>
by
![1199525](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p2/1199525.jpg)
Cecily's review
bookshelves: scifi-future-speculative-fict, language-related, short-stories-and-novellas
Mar 08, 2015
bookshelves: scifi-future-speculative-fict, language-related, short-stories-and-novellas
Read 7 times. Last read September 13, 2016 to September 15, 2016.
![](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1474206029i/20567805._SX540_.jpg)
“Reading is nothing; comprehension is everything”.
Sarah Richards
I read the title short story while away at a conference for technical writers. The quote above came from a presentation about transforming the Government Digital Service, but the issues of communication (context and audience) that are at the heart of this story are key to technical writing and had echoes in many of the presentations. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Ted Chiang is also a technical writer.
Note: This review is just the title story. I've reviewed the others in this collection HERE.
Same Old, Same Old? No
Aliens arrive. They are suitably weird-looking: radially symmetric, with seven eyes and seven limbs on a barrel-shaped body, topped by a puckered orifice, but with no face and no front and back. They seem keen to communicate via devices humans nickname looking glasses. The military take charge. Of course they do. That’s what always happens. Then things escalate...
But this is different. Linguist Dr Louise Banks tells, in linear fashion, how she and colleagues learned the alien languages. But that narrative is interspersed with non-chronological episodes from her daughter’s life.
The heptapods’ spoken and written languages are unrelated to each other, and the latter has strange properties that affect Louise’s consciousness, specifically her perception of time and free will. This shapes the telling and curious grammar of her daughter’s story, “I remember [past tense] what it’ll [future] be like to…” It is a Borgesian paradox.
Linguistic Relativity - Sapir-Whorf
The story is underpinned by the idea that the structure of a language can affect the cognition of those who use it: Linguistic Relativity.
Heptapod A (spoken) is relatively straightforward and uninteresting; it “sounded vaguely like that of a wet dog shaking the water out of its fur”.
But Heptapod B (written) is very different. It is a totally separate language: the symbols don’t relate to individual spoken words (logographic) or objects (picture writing), and there is no word order, in part because there are no words as such. Heptapod B has its own visual syntax (semasiographic), akin to mathematical equations, some sign languages, and the notation of music or dance.
It is written in a single smooth, sinuous, and rippling style that reflects the heptapods’ own physical movements. It’s also described as an Escheresque lattice and being like psychedelic posters. More significantly, it is not sequential. This seems to reflect the heptapods’ modes of thought and it certainly comes to affect Louise’s perception of the world and the way she tells the story of her daughter’s life.
China Mieville's sci-fi novel, Embassytown, also features aliens with a totally different sort of language to those known to humans. I reviewed it HERE.
Orwell takes the idea of linguistic relativity to an extreme with Newspeak making “thoughtcrime literally impossible”. See Nineteen Eighty Four, reviewed HERE.
Fermat’s Principle of Least Time
Fermat, Sapir-Whorf, free will, and Heptapod B are intricately connected. At times, I wondered if the linguistics and maths/physics was getting too esoteric, but it didn't quite jump the shark and it all wove together brilliantly.
The detail below is for reference, and is spoilered, because understanding this is what the story is about (on the page, though not on screen).
(view spoiler)
UPDATE re Film
A good film, but not a great one, imo, and it makes more sense if you've read the story first. It was released in November 2016: Arrival. I feared, from the trailers, there would be very little linguistics, physics, or philosophy, and that it would be mostly a standard CGI-heavy, alien-action movie, with the world at risk, and a Hollywood ending.
The soundtrack is slightly ethereal, but not distractingly so, and Heptapod B looks beautiful and equally ethereal. There were some new and heightened plot threads, which is OK when adapting for a different medium (a new, dramatic intervention, and more international geo-political stuff).
I liked the way it didn't shy away from some of the technicalities of the linguistics, but what was really odd was that Ian's position as a theoretical physicist made no sense, because he never explained, or even mentioned, the maths/physics stuff about perception of time that was key to it all (see spoiler re Fermat’s Principle of Least Time, above)!
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised, though people wanting standard Hollywood fare might be disappointed.
There's a really informative video about what changes were made for screen, and how those decisions were reached: here. It's 13 minutes, with captions if you can't listen.
Other Links
I read this story thanks to Apatt, whose excellent review is here.
This is the title story of a collection that I reviewed HERE.
That collection includes a story with a non-linear, ideogramatic language, Understand, which I reviewed here.
Posts about the linguistic aspects on Language Log (one of the few sites where it’s worth reading comments):
1. Language is Messy (includes film trailer)
2. Language is Messy part 2, Arabic script
3. Alien Encounters
See also this interview about the linguistics in the film with Prof Betty Berner.
NY Review of Books on the book, the film, and the physics: here.
Other sic-fi books with a linguistic theme on this GR list.
Thoughts to Ponder
• If you could read a Borgesian Book of Ages that records every event, past and future, would you?
(Overview of JL Borges stories reviewed HERE.)
• We know we’re all going to die, but would you knowingly choose (view spoiler) ? Except that knowing the future and having free will are mutually exclusive, which presumably means you have no choice in the matter.
• So, if you had a choice between knowing the future and having free will, which would you choose?
• “The rabbit is ready to eat.”
Who will be eating what? Context is all, and one interpretation excludes the equally valid other.
• “The only way to learn an unknown language is to interact with a native speaker… No alien could have learned human languages by monitoring our broadcasts.”
So is there any point in the Pioneer Plaque, illustrated at the top, or Carl Sagan’s Arecibo Message?["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
(ebook Edition)
March 8, 2015
– Shelved
March 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
to-read
March 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
scifi-future-speculative-fict
September 13, 2016
–
Started Reading
September 14, 2016
–
100.0%
"I only have and read the title story. At times, I wondered if the linguistics and physics was getting too esoteric, but it didn't quite jump the shark and was so neat the way it all wove together. I can't quite see how it will work on screen ("Arrival" due to be released in November), but look forward seeing the result. Review of this tba..."
September 15, 2016
–
Finished Reading
September 18, 2016
– Shelved as:
language-related
September 18, 2016
– Shelved as:
short-stories-and-novellas
November 26, 2016
– Shelved as:
scifi-future-specula...
(ebook Edition)
November 26, 2016
– Shelved
(ebook Edition)
November 26, 2016
– Shelved as:
short-stories-and-no...
(ebook Edition)
November 26, 2016
– Shelved as:
usa-and-canada
(ebook Edition)
January 9, 2017
–
Started Reading
(ebook Edition)
January 11, 2017
–
Started Reading
(ebook Edition)
January 11, 2017
–
Finished Reading
(ebook Edition)
January 12, 2017
–
Started Reading
(ebook Edition)
January 12, 2017
–
Finished Reading
(ebook Edition)
January 14, 2017
– Shelved as:
maths
(ebook Edition)
January 15, 2017
–
Started Reading
(ebook Edition)
January 15, 2017
–
Finished Reading
(ebook Edition)
January 17, 2017
–
Started Reading
(ebook Edition)
January 17, 2017
–
Finished Reading
(ebook Edition)
January 18, 2017
– Shelved as:
god-religion-faith
(ebook Edition)
January 18, 2017
–
Finished Reading
(ebook Edition)
February 8, 2018
– Shelved as:
language-related
(ebook Edition)
Comments Showing 1-50 of 171 (171 new)
message 1:
by
Apatt
(new)
-
rated it 5 stars
Aug 22, 2016 06:59AM
![Apatt](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1349239948p1/2457095.jpg)
reply
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![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
Yes, I'm now looking forward to the film, though a little concerned as to how they'll make the heptapods and their writing look.
![Apatt](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1349239948p1/2457095.jpg)
Yes, I'm now looking forward to the film, though a little concerned as to how they'll make the ..."
They will probably turn a bin upside down and add a plunger.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
They'd need more than one plunger...
![Alex](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1633131980p1/3144945.jpg)
I'll see it for Amy Adams. I like when she does actin' stuff. This story wouldn't have leaped right out at me like "This would be a perfect thing to make a movie out of," but hopefully someone knows what they're doing.
![Apatt](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1349239948p1/2457095.jpg)
I believe Mr. Chiang is writing a sequel anthology called "The Story of your Life and ...
![](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1474207812i/20568062._SX540_.jpg)
![Lisa](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480492067p1/32532774.jpg)
I enjoyed every word of it, as it brought back my early university days, sitting in lectures and seminars on linguistics, trying to figure out what language actually is, - mostly by doing exercises involving paradigm changes, or division of sentences into lexemes, morphemes or phonemes, or writing essays on the etymological history of the French word lequel etc, etc. I hadn't thought of that for years, but suddenly, your review made my mind take that leap into the past, while the quote "The rabbit is ready to eat" catapulted me into the future, more precisely to the near future on Monday morning, as I intend to use it for a lesson on historical context.
I guess I am producing something like a stream of consciousness here, rather than a comment - but I really, really liked your review, and I apologise for not being more technically apt at expressing it.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
Probably. We tech writers like to encourage each other. Thanks, Apatt.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
It brought back my early university days...
"The rabbit is ready to eat"... I intend to use it for a lesson...
I guess I am producing something like a stream of consciousness here..."
Thanks, Lisa. I'm happy to conjure happy memories and give you an idea for a lesson. No apology needed for your delightful and fascinating comment, but then I don't think of "stream of consciousness" as pejorative.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
Thanks for the comment. I hope you enjoy the links and go on to enjoy the story.
![Matthias](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1448737319p1/9889835.jpg)
![Lynne King](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1357126217p1/15736557.jpg)
![Mark Hebwood](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1513522869p1/25942645.jpg)
I read another one of the stories published in the volume but your review shows me that I really must read them all. Ted appears to be bright guy and he seems to aim for maximum intellectual angst in the mind of his readers. This story seems to take away the possibility of free will, the story I read removes the foundations of mathematics.
I have a few more thoughts on this but they all relate to the stuff you put into spoilers so I'll share them with you in private.
Again - very interesting review. Brillliant.
![Warwick](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1510406793p1/53165.jpg)
![Dolors](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1691612725p1/18383778.jpg)
![Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1648407601p1/8734459.jpg)
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
Thanks, Matthias. I'm a layman too, albeit one with prior interest in the subject. Don't be put off by how technical it seems at times; the ideas are revisited and clarified. Stick with it, and you will be well rewarded.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
A bit different, yes. It's a brilliant and fascinating story, but certainly not to everyone's taste, and you're probably correct in thinking it's not to yours. Thanks, Lynne.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
I read another one of the stories published in the volume but your review shows me that I really must read them all...."
Thank you so much for your generous comment, and for the follow-up details.
I have not yet read the rest of the stories in the collection. I've now ordered the book, but it's winging its way to my son at uni first.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
Yes, it's a rather different story from Embassytown, but with some similarities of premise, and yes, I loved that. This, being a short story, might be worth your time, despite your reservations about Mieville's novel.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
SF isn't for everyone, and frankly, if it's not a favourite genre, I'm not sure I'd suggest this unless you have a really strong interest in physics, philosophy, and linguistics. I'm now struggling what else to suggest... Apatt is the expert...
Maybe something with only a little sci-fi like Octavia Butler's historical fiction, Kindred (my review here), Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things (my review here), or Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin (my review here) - except I see you only gave the Atwood 3*. Hmm. Maybe sci-fi is just not for you; there's nothing wrong with that.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
I'm trying to pluck up the courage to try Eco. I've got as far as buying a copy of Foucault's Pendulum, but have not yet opened the pages.
Dolors wrote: "I admire your reading scope, Cecily. There is no genre that puts you off."
Thanks, but there are plenty I avoid: crime, detective, horror, chick lit, and romance all come readily to mind.
;)
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
This was my first, but I was impressed. I will certainly read the others in the book, when I eventually get my copy (see comment #24).
![Jan-Maat](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1407579968p1/5617661.jpg)
really Cecily, there's no need to be afraid of Umberto Eco - a light and comic writer, he's right up your street I'd guess, but since you don't like crime or detective stories you'd best give the name of the rose a miss
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
That's very reassuring. Thank you, Jan-Maat.
I can see that advice, Jan-Maat, but I dislike crime/detective stories and LOVED Name of the Rose for the philosophical-social-religious power politics suggestions. (I liked keeping up with the criticism and praise of Eco, too...so interesting.)
![Apatt](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1349239948p1/2457095.jpg)
SF isn't for everyone, and frankly, if it's not a favourite genre, I'm not sure I..."
Cecily sent me the bat signal (don't know why, I'm not Batman) so here I am inserting an oar.
Basic sci-fi starter kit:
• Asimov's I, Robot
• Wells' The Time Machine
• Clarke's Childhood's End
• The Martian Chronicles
• Fahrenheit 451
• Lesser known classic Simak's Way Station
Free e-books for download or read online
• Anything by H.G. Wells or Jules Verne
• Second Variety by Philip K. Dick http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32032
SF by non-SF authors, so they are sci-fi-ish
• P.D. James' Children of Men
• The Time Traveler's Wife
• E.M. Forester's The Machine Stops
• 1984
• Brave New World
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
More reassurance. Thank you, Christy.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
What an excellent list. Thanks, Apatt.
Another one that came to me was John Wyndham's short stories; light on the aliens, space travel, and warfare, but big on ideas (though a little dated, especially in his view of women):
Consider Her Ways and Others
and
The Seeds of Time, which I reviewed here.
![Kevin Ansbro](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1506848923p1/43579369.jpg)
; )
Remind me never to play you at Trivial Pursuit!
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
Remind me never to play you at Trivial Pursuit! ."
Ha ha, and thanks, but you'll be relieved to know I'm pretty useless at Trivial Pursuit. I know nothing - absolutely nothing - about sport, and not much about popular entertainment. And with the other categories, I'm frustratingly bad at recalling the answers to the ones I (sort of) know.
![Margaret](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1207023483p1/991805.jpg)
This review does it ALL. Thanks so much. And I'll just have to add.
![Mark Hebwood](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1513522869p1/25942645.jpg)
I'm trying to pluck up the courage ..."
Oh you'll love Foucault's Pendulum. If you are interested in the history of the occult (Templers, Rosicrucians, Freemasons etc) and number symbolism, you will like this. Eco has quite an irreverent take on all this...
But perhaps a more approachable book is "The Name of the Rose". I am super-impressed with that novel. It is a brilliantly researched tale set in the religious and philosophical framework of the 14th century. There is exegesis, religious trials, Aristotle... it's fantastic! It can be a bit hard-going at times, but if you read it, and when you get to the trials, take heart - Eco models pages and pages of painstaking religious debate perfectly after the fashion of actual medieval trials. It's basically the real thing.
![Violet wells](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1442260743p1/4196681.jpg)
SF isn't for everyone, and frankly, if it's not a favourite genre,..."
Thanks for these suggestions, Apatt.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
But perhaps a more approachable book is "The Name of the Rose"...."
Irreverent is good, and I have a copy of that, whereas I don't have The Name of the Rose. Thanks, Mark.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
Thanks, Florencia. I hope you enjoy it - and the others stories in the collection that I have yet to read (but I will).
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
This review does it ALL. Thanks so much. And I'll just have to add."
If I ever write a book, can I come to you for quotes for the back cover? ;)
Thank you so much, Margaret. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Excellent and intriguing review, Cecily. Thank you,
Makes me wonder about the "original" human language from which all the diverse tongues evolved.
Also reminds me that there's one word that is universal to all babies, despite the vast differences in language that exist today around the globe - and that word is mama.
Makes me wonder about the "original" human language from which all the diverse tongues evolved.
Also reminds me that there's one word that is universal to all babies, despite the vast differences in language that exist today around the globe - and that word is mama.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
Makes me wonder about the "original" human language from which all the diverse tongues evolved."
Thanks, and that's an interesting question, though it rather assumes all languages evolved from a single source language. I'm not sure if that's the case.
Anne wrote: "Also reminds me that there's one word that is universal to all babies, despite the vast differences in language that exist today around the globe - and that word is mama."
Indeed, and "dada" or "papa" is equally ubiquitous, but they're rather different from other words. Because they're the two/three words every parent most wants to hear, it's not surprising that the earliest sounds that babies around the world naturally make are readily identified and encouraged.
Cecily wrote: Thanks, and that's an interesting question, though it rather assumes all languages evolved from a single source language. I'm not sure if that's the case.
Good point, Cecily. Scientists are not in agreement. Some support the theory of one proto-human language, others don't.
And the theory of Mitochondrial Eve is no longer universally supported.
But there is agreement we sang before we spoke - the mating call.
Cecily wrote: Indeed, and "dada" or "papa" is equally ubiquitous, but they're rather different from other words. Because they're the two/three words every parent most wants to hear, it's not surprising that the earliest sounds that babies around the world naturally make are readily identified and encouraged.
That's so true, parents light up hearing it.
I think the idea is that mama is related to suckling - an example of form following function.
Good point, Cecily. Scientists are not in agreement. Some support the theory of one proto-human language, others don't.
And the theory of Mitochondrial Eve is no longer universally supported.
But there is agreement we sang before we spoke - the mating call.
Cecily wrote: Indeed, and "dada" or "papa" is equally ubiquitous, but they're rather different from other words. Because they're the two/three words every parent most wants to hear, it's not surprising that the earliest sounds that babies around the world naturally make are readily identified and encouraged.
That's so true, parents light up hearing it.
I think the idea is that mama is related to suckling - an example of form following function.
I forget what this book was about but I like any discussion that includes the mating call, Mitochondrial Eve, and breast suckling. Well done!
![Edward](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1682830786p1/12933866.jpg)
Inevitably the film will be rubbish and nothing like the book, as they always are.
![Veronique](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1651698435p1/12371602.jpg)
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
I guess so. I hadn't really thought of that. It's a shame we don't sing more now.
Anne wrote: "I think the idea is that mama is related to suckling - an example of form following function."
I hadn't realised that either. Thanks, Anne.