Re: illithid phonetics

Yoon Ha Lee sikayal:

> On a not very related note, Piers Anthony suggests in _Omnivore_ (okay,
> it isn't the greatest SF, but it's better than a lot of his more recent
> stuff) that a telepathic species would actually have a *dis*incentive to
> "invent" (spoken) language.
I've always thought that, myself.  However, any real scientific theory of
telepathic species would actually imply a "mental language".  The
telepathic signal would take the form of electromagnetic pulses,
presumably, and there would have to be some form of input/output protocol
within the species, which would ultimately be the same thing as a
language.  The only difference is that it would be transmitted through a
different medium.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

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