Whistle While You Work

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?"

Comments

Example

[CowboyRobot]

Here is an example of Silbo: http://www.agulo.net/silbo/silbo.mp3

I can't tell which are the 8 language elements as described in the article, but they seem to use at least duration and rising vs. falling pitch as 'letters'.

Signing

[kid-noodle]

I'd suggest it would be more profitable for him to learn ASL, since that's a relatively widely used language - plus, he'll be able to communicate with deaf people.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Anonymous Cow herd]

A small quibble, but according to cognitive science, I believe that it's not actually redundancy built into language that allows us to pick out someone talking over static, but rather the sophisticated pattern-recognition mechanisms in the brain that compensate for this. This is also the reason that spotting typos can be tricky without careful reading... the brain tends to autocorrect for defects, so in effect you're "seeing" the correct word, in spite of the typo (a similar mechanism allows us to see a "complete" visual field in spite of the blind spots created on the retina where the optical nerve connects) However, IANAL(inguist) so I could be off on this. Interesting idea, though.

Re:Imagine this other African language.....

[corbettw]

"I'm all for the preservation of culture and language, but, c'mon -- the Navajos were valuable but it's not like they were a crucial part of the war effort, like radar."

Others disagree.

From Navajo Code Talkers: World War II Fact Sheet:

"Praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." Connor had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. Those six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error." (emphasis added)

Considering how important Iwo Jima was to winning the war in the Pacific, I think it's safe to say that without the Navajo code talkers, the war would've dragged on much longer, with a questionable outcome.