Hm, are you talking about Stargate? I didn't know there was a linguist character in that. Maybe I'll have to check it out. :)
Yep. Daniel is the resident linguist on the team. Technically he's an archaeologist (assuming he only has one Ph.D, that's what it's in) but he's also a linguist and anthropologist. (Likely one of the reasons I'm in love with the character; all three subjects interested me in one way or another before I got into the show.)
Although, to be honest, he's never been called a linguist on the show and I'm not sure that just being able to speak a highly improbable number of languages qualifies him as one, but he also has to do translations and trace modified languages back to their root. (Most languages on SG have some sort of relationship to a real language. Goa'uld--the language of the bad guys--is supposed to be the origin of ancient Egyptian for example. But they've never really done anything terribly interesting with the concept. If you got into the fandom, maybe you could write something to that effect. /pimping *g*)
Part of it is plot device (someone has to be able to translate all the alien text they're always finding), but he gets to show off sometimes which is fun. *g* (Incidentally, he gets to show off a lot less than I'd like because of the way the whole universe speaks English. It annoys me to no end even if I understand the reasoning behind it and there are some (flimsy) ways to fix the gaping plot hole.)
Thanks for the extended explanation of the way language changes. :) I'm studying Italian right now, which is the closest language to Latin (I assume) and one of the things I find interesting is the way you can omit personal pronouns and play with word order due to the verb endings.
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Re:
Date: 2004-02-14 08:34 pm (UTC)Yep. Daniel is the resident linguist on the team. Technically he's an archaeologist (assuming he only has one Ph.D, that's what it's in) but he's also a linguist and anthropologist. (Likely one of the reasons I'm in love with the character; all three subjects interested me in one way or another before I got into the show.)
Although, to be honest, he's never been called a linguist on the show and I'm not sure that just being able to speak a highly improbable number of languages qualifies him as one, but he also has to do translations and trace modified languages back to their root. (Most languages on SG have some sort of relationship to a real language. Goa'uld--the language of the bad guys--is supposed to be the origin of ancient Egyptian for example. But they've never really done anything terribly interesting with the concept. If you got into the fandom, maybe you could write something to that effect. /pimping *g*)
Part of it is plot device (someone has to be able to translate all the alien text they're always finding), but he gets to show off sometimes which is fun. *g* (Incidentally, he gets to show off a lot less than I'd like because of the way the whole universe speaks English. It annoys me to no end even if I understand the reasoning behind it and there are some (flimsy) ways to fix the gaping plot hole.)
Thanks for the extended explanation of the way language changes. :) I'm studying Italian right now, which is the closest language to Latin (I assume) and one of the things I find interesting is the way you can omit personal pronouns and play with word order due to the verb endings.