Re: Art is when someone says 'Now' -- or is it?

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 4:32 PM, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:
> I imagine it might be something like that crazy
> language Leia speaks at the beginning of Return of the Jedi
> when she's rescuing Han: a language where you say the exact
> same thing twice, but it means something totally different the
> second time round.
I wonder if that was the language spoken by the folks who designed the
starship in Episode II with the one big button that meant "call for
help" one time and "take off" another time... :)

But to be fair, that happened with Klingon, too - according to the
subtitles, {jonta' neH} meant "engine only" the first time Kruge said
it, and "wanted prisoners" the second time.  Dr. Okrand managed to
modify the language to make it work, but it was a bit of a kludge.

Also, most real languages are context-sensitive to some degree anyway.

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>