Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Fictional Linguistics in _Reading the Bones_

Reading the Bones by Sheila Finch was originally a short story published in 1998. I first came across it in the Guild of Xenolinguists anthology, published in 2007--and only recently discovered that that particular story had in fact been expanded into a novel, published in 2003! (As usual, these are affiliate links, so I will get a cut if you go to Amazon and buy the books through them.)

The novel is in 2 parts; part 1 reiterates the same plot as the original short story, in somewhat more detail. Part 2 is entirely new material exploring some of the consequences of part 1 decades later, and providing some more background information about the alien Frehti.

The plot in each case centers around the ritual significance of the Frehti language. And, unsurprisingly, we get a few examples of romanized Frehti words, whose usage conforms to the framework laid out in previous posts. Narrative Translation is used for a few things, although in the opposite of the usual direction (that is, translating English dialogue into Frehti), to highlight the translation convention (i.e., that although the aliens' speech is presented as English in the text, intrafictionally they're really speaking something else):
"You have found. I am called First-Among-Mothers."
The word she used was Na-freh'm-ya, and he heard a common root in it, but she didn't give him time to think about it.

I do not know how well Sheila Finch actually developed the Frehti language behind the scenes, but it's worth noting that there is indeed a common root in there whose meaning matches up with the English translation, which is later made accessible to the attentive reader. So, kudos for that! 

We also get examples of Making it Irrelevant followed up by Making it Obvious for the words "vragim" (human) and "kipiq" (a physically disabled male Freh who plays a ritual role in female society).

The specific textual usages of Frehti language are not as significant to this story, however, as are the ideas behind the language. While I would be sad to see them go, the story would work just fine with no concrete examples of the Frehti language at all.

The story is ultimately based on the deep ties between language and culture, and the significance of writing as a medium for preserving culture. The titular bones are in fact literal bones on which the defining exemplars of the symbols of Frehti writing are inscribed, with the inscription on bone, and the ritual sacrifice required to obtain the writing material, serving to give authoritative weight to those specific symbols as bearers of the language. This is a neat cultural note, and could serve as a science fictional conceit all on its own; unlike humans, the Frehti did not naturally evolve their written language from simpler recording systems, but rather consciously and intentionally designed it as part of a religious ritual spanning generations. There are, however, additional examples of fictional linguistic science which make this a solid work of linguistic science fiction.

In part one, the viewpoint character Ries Danyo observes

Mixed systems were not unprecedented; Earth had seen several, most notably the Egyptian and Mayan scripts. He wasn't particularly surprised to see one evolving here. But eventually all the languages of Earth had found it more convenient to adopt alphabets.

I cannot imagine that Sheila Finch was entirely unaware of, e.g., Chinese logograms, so can I only assume this represents a bold prediction for the future in which the story takes place!

In part two, we have this bit of exposition:

Older than Indo-European, older than Sanskrit, the ancestor of all human languages had been painstakingly reconstructed over decades in the twenty-first century,

This, of course, has not been done yet! And in fact, the general consensus among linguists is that it cannot be done; there is simply not enough information left to reconstruct Proto-World, since spoken language doesn't fossilize, putting this speculation firmly on science-fictional grounds. The idea that it could be done, however, is a critical prologue to the intrafictional theory that further comparative reconstruction between alien languages could reveal a common origin for all languages in the galaxy. This could be a cool idea to explore--not exactly plausible in the real world, but subject to suspension of disbelief in the service of good stories, much like Larry Niven's fictional conceit that humans are not native to Earth in his Known Space universe. Unfortunately, without too much much risk of spoilers, I think I can say that the resolution of this particular story could fairly easily have occurred without it. A common feature of all of the Guild of Xenolinguists stories is the idea that specialized psychoactive drugs can be used to make field linguists better able to quickly acquire new alien languages--although some amount of actual fieldwork is still required. At the end of part 2, exposure to this Proto-Galactic language theory is supposedly what allows the returning linguist to Solve a Problem, but honestly, in the circumstances, I think sole reliance on the already-established magic language learning drugs would've sufficed.

I would like to see a sequel that dives into this idea more deeply, thus better justifying its introduction, but so far as I know Reading the Bones is currently a strictly standalone work. But on the off chance that Sheila Finch happens to read this blog post, FYI, you've got at least one customer if you do decide to follow up with another novel!

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Friday, June 4, 2021

Transcription of Nüshu Script

Nüshu is a syllabic script derived from Chinese characters and developed and exclusively used by women of Hunan province who were not afforded education in standard Chinese writing.

When I started researching this script, I discovered that Omniglot, my first-stop source for writing system information, didn't actually have a complete listing of characters or their pronunciations. And in fact, finding this information anywhere was extremely difficult.

Nüshu has been in Unicode since 2017, however, and by piecing together multiple Unicode standards documents (some giving the reference graphics per codepoint, others the romanized transcription), I was able to put together this table of the pronunciations of Nüshu characters. Omniglot reports that Nushu has between 6 and 7 hundred characters, but Unicode 13 encodes 396 characters, ordered by stroke count, phonetic final, phonetic initial, and tone.

Note that the sound system encoded by Nüshu is not identical to that of modern standard Mandarin, and the transcription is not pinyin. This document describes the phonetic transcription, but it is not quite IPA. If any sinologists who can tell me the IPA equivalents end up reading this, I would love to update the table with that information! The pronunciation data used in Unicode sources was in turn derived from the book Nüshu Duben.



i5

na33

tsha5

ie21

poe5

swe33

phiu44

u5

cya35

tie42

njie33

toe33

tchye5

fwe13

liu44

siu35

thu35

njyu13

vai42

kai44

khau21

kou21

tciou35

liang35

ciang13

tsheng44

song44

ma5

fa44

la44

thoe21

tsoe42

fwe44

tswe35

ti13

ci21

fu44

fu35

fu13

tcyu35

tcyu21

fai44

hau35

lou35

liou33

tciou44

ciou35

tchyn21

fang44

vang42

sang33

khang21

theng44

neng44

piong13

iong42

va33

khua44

tchya33

nie33

lie21

tcie44

tchie44

njie44

njie42

ie44

ie33

mwe13

vwe33

vwe5

twe33

tswe44

swe42

swe13

tci35

ci35

i5

liu44

njiu33

ciu35

mu13

yu44

tchy21

njy33

y42

pai35

pai35

lai42

ai42

hau35

tou42

liou42

iou13

tsew35

tsew21

suow44

huow42

huow35

nguw33

mang42

thang44

kang44

liang33

tciang35

njiang42

peng44

seng44

piong42

tshiong21

tcing21

pa5

la33

sie35

tcie35

ie21

poe21

loe42

tsoe13

soe5

koe44

khuoe21

ye21

pwe33

pwe5

tchi21

tsiu33

fu42

vu42

khu35

hu5

pw13

fw42

sw5

kw5

hw44

mai42

thai44

sai44

sai44

thau35

lau21

lau21

nou33

kou33

ciou44

sew35

lew44

thuow21

uow33

kuw5

tcyn42

yn35

vang33

tsang44

sang44

khang35

tciang44

iang13

teng42

neng33

piong33

miong33

ciong42

ciong21

njing42

ng13

tsa35

sa21

kua44

kua35

cya5

cie44

phoe35

foe42

loe35

tshoe44

tshoe21

oe44

tchye35

fwe44

tswe33

ni33

tshi5

tshi5

si44

fu33

ngu13

tchyu21

cyu44

phw21

fai42

tsai13

lou42

tsou5

piou44

miou13

tchiou21

njiou33

iou13

nuow42

kuow44

huow21

pang44

ang21

tsiang44

tsiang42

ciang42

iang42

liong42

tshiong35

ciong44

cing35

la13

cya42

poe42

thoe44

noe33

tshoe44

kue44

kue35

kue21

ye42

pwe35

vwe35

thi5

tsi42

tsi42

tci21

tci21

tshiu21

pu33

tsu42

ku21

tcyu44

njyu33

tchy35

pw5

hw35

phai35

mai33

lai35

sai21

hai42

mau33

tshau35

hau33

kou5

ou44

tsiou33

tshiou44

siou44

tciou5

ciou13

thuow44

fang13

vang5

lang44

tshang44

khang44

khang5

liang42

siang44

ciang44

ciang35

neng35

leng42

nong42

long35

liong13

tsiong13

siong44

tcing44

tcing44

cing42

ing21

ng44

va42

sa35

lie42

tshie21

sie5

ie13

moe13

loe21

tchye44

cye44

pi33

ti44

tci5

tsiu44

pu5

fu21

thu35

hu42

tcy13

cy5

pw42

khw5

lai44

sai44

sau35

tsou42

ngou42

tsiou33

njiou13

ciou5

iou42

yn44

tang42

lang42

kang35

hang44

hang42

siang35

tciang13

iang44

meng42

tsiong42

siong21

tchiong44

pa33

tshie5

sie5

tsoe44

koe35

tcye44

tcye42

pwe35

swe44

ti42

i42

tciu42

ciu44

tsu35

tshu35

ku44

lw5

mai42

kau44

thou21

hou33

pang42

fang44

tang13

lang33

meng33

teng42

tseng42

cing13

ing42

tsa33

tsie21

cie21

moe42

li35

tsi5

tci44

i35

mu33

lu21

hu42

cyu33

hw5

tau13

siou21

lew33

tshew5

yn13

tong13

ie35

voe5

tswe21

i21

tu33

lu35

lou33

tsou42

tsuow44

mang13

tciang33

tchiang21

tciong44

tsie33

moe33

ku44

cyu35

pw21

tsiang42

tshai44

nguow13

nong44

fu5

ku5

fang33

tcye21

fi21

Script Subsets

In order to explore the structure of the script, I broke it down into subsets of characters with common initials, common finals, and common tones. Each initial, final, and tone, with the characters that have them in their pronunciation, is listed below.

Initials

Initial: ∅

Initial: n

Initial: tsh

Initial: p

Initial: s

Initial: ph

Initial: c

Initial: t

Initial: nj

Initial: tch

Initial: f

Initial: l

Initial: th

Initial: v

Initial: k

Initial: kh

Initial: tc

Initial: m

Initial: ts

Initial: h

Initial: ng

Finals

Final: i

Final: a

Final: ie

Final: oe

Final: we

Final: iu

Final: u

Final: ya

Final: ye

Final: yu

Final: ai

Final: au

Final: ou

Final: iou

Final: iang

Final: eng

Final: ong

Final: yn

Final: ang

Final: iong

Final: ua

Final: y

Final: ew

Final: uow

Final: uw

Final: ing

Final: uoe

Final: w

Final: ng

Final: ue

Tones

Tone: 5

Tone: 33

Tone: 21

Tone: 44

Tone: 35

Tone: 42

Tone: 13