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Whistle While You Work

Posted by michael on from the whistling-dixie dept.

kukickface writes "Have you ever watched Star Wars and been amazed that Human beings could understand what R2D2 is saying? An ancient yet almost dead language called Silbo Gomero seems to be reality's closest equivalent. Could this type of language be used in the future to ease natural language processing pains?"

12 of 520 comments (clear)

  1. I tried that Silbo Gomero on a co-worker by Hairy_Potter · · Score: 5, Funny

    you know, a friendly greeting that sounded like a wolf whistle when she walked by, and I got dismissed for sexual harassment. Thanks a lot.

  2. Yeah, little Ewoks amazed me too by whoda · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Have you ever watched Star Wars and been amazed that Human beings could understand what R2D2 is saying?"

    You do realize that Star Wars was a movie, not a documentary, don't you?

    1. Re:Yeah, little Ewoks amazed me too by Shalda · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hey, I can understand Pikachu, and the only thing he ever says is his name.

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  3. Whistling? by macshune · · Score: 5, Funny

    I for one, tweet, tweeeet, tweet, tweettweet, tweet tweet overlords!

  4. Great idea to communicate by whistles, until by unassimilatible · · Score: 4, Funny

    Someone starts eating crackers.

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  5. Puckers up by nacturation · · Score: 4, Funny

    SAN SEBASTIAN, Canary Islands (AP) -- Juan Cabello takes pride in not using a cell phone or the Internet to communicate. Instead, he puckers up and whistles.

    Uh... which end?

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  6. So... by Reteo+Varala · · Score: 5, Funny

    Would this be considered Pigeon Pidgin?

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  7. Dumbfounded by the Feebleness by turgid · · Score: 5, Funny

    Even as a small child when 8-bit micros had speech synthesizers, I wondered why, in the technologically advanced Star Wars society that damned robot couldn't speak in a human (or whatever) language. Look at C3PO. 3 million languages? They had space craft capable of superluminal travel, weapons the size of a moon, and a damned robot that sounded like a ZX Spectrum loading Manic Miner.

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    1. Re:Dumbfounded by the Feebleness by GeLeTo · · Score: 5, Funny

      His OS could not detect the sound card. So he had to resort to the good ol PC speaker.

  8. People didn't understand R2. by Lester67 · · Score: 5, Funny

    C3PO was his interpreter. In the X-Wing, Luke had to read what he was saying from a screen in the cockpit.

    I feel all dirty and nerd-like for posting this. I hope you are happy.

  9. Tone Deafness by merodach · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine unintentionally cussing out your boss, or worse spouse, because you were tone deaf.....

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  10. Re:Translation by MikeXpop · · Score: 4, Funny

    Funny, when I translated it I got

    "Buy more ovaltine"

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