Re: replies to padraic brown and danny wier

On Thu, 5 Jul 2001 21:35:31 -0400, Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

>Dan Sulani wrote:
>>     Are we talking _language_ more or less as humans know it,
>> or other possible alien communication systems?
>>     Charles Sheffield, in his "Heritage Universe" series,
>> has, as one of the main characters, an intelligent alien  something
>> like a giant insect whose language consists of pheromone-like
>> chemicals. By subtle changes in the molecules and mixtures of
>> molecules produced, the alien is capable of extremely subtle
>> communication (with those, of course, who are capable of
>> intercepting and interpreting the chemical signals).
>>     Question: would your idea work for them?
>
>The same way.  They'd chose arbitrary scents for each of the
>"phonemes".  Of course, humans wouldn't be able to understand it.
>However, one could presumably build a machine that would automatically
>"translate" between different systems.  So, it would pick up the
>scent-phonemoids and translate them as sound phonemes.
Would the scent-phonemoids be called pheromemes???

Jeff

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