Timeline for answer to How many unique sounds would a verbally-communicating species need to develop a language? by user4574
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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23 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 18, 2023 at 6:05 | vote | accept | maisaur | ||
| Apr 18, 2023 at 6:05 | |||||
| Apr 18, 2023 at 6:04 | vote | accept | maisaur | ||
| Apr 18, 2023 at 6:04 | |||||
| Apr 6, 2023 at 22:14 | comment | added | Æzor Æhai -him- | @user4574 Yes, that's my point, that "optimal encoding" is not a good answer to the question because the question asks about biological language faculty | |
| Apr 6, 2023 at 13:44 | comment | added | AmiralPatate | @Mary People always forget silence has meaning in Morse. | |
| Apr 6, 2023 at 4:54 | comment | added | user4574 | @AzorAhai-him- You are probably right that one can't go as far as a totally optimal encoding. Spoken language often relies on some redundancy. And the probability of one letter following another is not uniformly random, as is mentioned in Shannon's papers on information theory. It's a matter of how far one can push it, and what mechanisms would evolve in the language to make sure the correct information is conveyed. | |
| Apr 6, 2023 at 3:37 | comment | added | Mary | Morse code actually uses three because you need pauses to tell whether you did dot dot dot or dot - dot -dot. | |
| Apr 6, 2023 at 1:41 | comment | added | Æzor Æhai -him- | @gene Yes, but this proposal is too make the most common words as similar to each other as possible. My point is you can’t optimize biological language that far | |
| Apr 5, 2023 at 18:32 | comment | added | Gene | @AzorAhai-him- While that's true, it's probably not that big an impediment to understanding. Our languages now have many collisions a.k.a. homonyms (Japanese is particularly bad!) but aside from the occasional misunderstanding it's not a big deal. And it allows for great puns and wordplay! | |
| Apr 5, 2023 at 18:31 | comment | added | user4574 | @RonJohn It should be noted that morse code operators achieving 60 WPM are doing so using words composed of an alphabet, which is not the most efficient encoding. As I stated in the answer, one could probably double that by encoding words directly rather than letters. | |
| Apr 5, 2023 at 13:07 | comment | added | RonJohn | @AlexanderThe1st how is that relevant? | |
| Apr 5, 2023 at 11:57 | comment | added | fraxinus | I just listened carefully to my domestic cats as they swear towards a bird they can't catch. It is pretty much a pulse-width-modulated constant frequency sound (just like Morse code is generally listened to). Cat's voice apparatus is pretty simple, but if something like a human brain is constrained like this, it's livable. | |
| Apr 5, 2023 at 9:41 | comment | added | Alexander The 1st | @RonJohn: That's still 20 words per minute more than the average typing speed - and that's using the qwerty keyboard (With English's 26-character language). With Morse Code keyboards, they probably can communicate much faster, even if there's a bit more processing on the other end. | |
| Apr 5, 2023 at 7:51 | comment | added | Mark Morgan Lloyd | Obviously noting that the two symbols might be "sound" or "absence of sound" rather than "sound A" or "sound B". This gets complex if the length of "absence of sound" symbols is significant: by any measure Morse code has at least three symbols (dot, dash, and pause) and it arguably has four if inter-letter and inter-word pauses are considered distinct. | |
| Apr 5, 2023 at 2:27 | comment | added | Æzor Æhai -him- | The problem with the most common words being shortest is the number of near-collisions. Unlikely to be stable if "XX XXX XX" and "XXX XX XX" mean completely different things and are produced biologically. | |
| Apr 5, 2023 at 0:57 | comment | added | RonJohn | @fraxinus and fast talking competitions exist, too. | |
| Apr 4, 2023 at 21:45 | comment | added | fraxinus | @RonJohn 60wpm is rather the standard and below it you are not considered a Morse code operator. Competitors regularly go as high as 150. | |
| Apr 4, 2023 at 18:00 | comment | added | Michael | @DarrelHoffman memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bynar | |
| Apr 4, 2023 at 17:31 | comment | added | RonJohn | "Ham radio operators can routinely send morse code at up to 60 words per minute." Which is still half as fast as the rate at which people speak. | |
| Apr 4, 2023 at 16:14 | comment | added | anon | This is surely the correct answer, yet I suspect that no evolved organism would stay at two. If communication is important enough for speech level communication to evolve then it is also important enough to evolve the ability to produce more sounds. Even 3 or 4 sounds would massively improve communication. | |
| Apr 4, 2023 at 15:58 | comment | added | Pelinore | @DarrelHoffman If they were descended from bats that or something quite similar wouldn't be such an unlikely sound for a language, ever heard a recording of bat sonar? > skip ahead to 1:19 in the video. | |
| Apr 4, 2023 at 15:26 | comment | added | Darrel Hoffman | Now I'm just imagining a race of people whose language sounds like the dial-up noises on old modems... | |
| Apr 4, 2023 at 7:32 | history | edited | user4574 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Apr 4, 2023 at 7:04 | history | answered | user4574 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |