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Re: Difficult language ideas

From:Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...>
Date:Wednesday, September 20, 2006, 19:55
On 9/20/06, H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 11:55:38AM -0700, David J. Peterson wrote:
> > Regarding this, and idioms, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned > > that Star Trek episode. I can't remember the famous phrase, but > > it's something like "Darmok and Jelad at Tanagra", and that's
> I believe you're referring to the language of the "children of Tama". > Their speech is apparently filled with (or maybe even exclusively built > from) such expressions. See:
The Ascians in Gene Wolfe's _The Book of the New Sun_ have a similar language, which seems to consist entirely of proverbs and aphorisms. There is a chapter in _The Citadel of the Autarch_ where an Ascian POW tells a story in this form and someone else translates it line by line. -- Jim Henry http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry