
A Mother-Son Duo Translating Astrophysics Into Blackfoot - bookofjoe
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/translating-astrophysics-into-blackfoot
======
knolax
It's inspirational to see speakers of a minority language adopt modern
technical terminology to their language. Every language is a unique
perspective; the death of a language through irrelevancy leaves entire groups
without the ability to view themselves through their own lens.

~~~
microcolonel
> _Every language is a unique perspective; the death of a language through
> irrelevancy leaves entire groups without the ability to view themselves
> through their own lens._

My ancestors probably spoke various Gaelics and Old Norse, their descendants
did science in Latin even though it was not their native language, and now I'm
speaking English.

What perspective is lost? Astrophysics is the same in English, Gaelic, and in
Blackfoot.

I would understand this thinking when it came to poetry, prose, songs, etc;
but astrophysics in Blackfoot is just astrophysics without a common vocabulary
with astrophysicists.

~~~
kaitai
While not really discussed in the article, it's interesting to look for
instance at Robin Wall Kimmerer's "language of animacy". She makes the point
that the pronouns used to refer to people vs objects influence the directions
your scientific thoughts may go, because of fundamental assumptions carried in
the form of address. Her language is Potawatomi if I remember.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis remains controversial, but it's a well-known
linguistic hypothesis that language available influences thought.

(Totally different and yet related: Heard Kimmerer on a podcast recently and
she proposed something I don't even have words for. We created neural networks
inspired by the way we understand mammalian brains to work, right? But plant
communities have a distributed chemical method of communicating and
'learning', across organisms rather than within one. What would the machine
learning equivalent of that be?)

~~~
microcolonel
> _The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis remains controversial, but it 's a well-known
> linguistic hypothesis that language available influences thought._

As far as I'm aware, it wasn't even a hypothesis, it was a shower thought.

It's probably right in some limited ways, but until somebody shows me the
exotic grammar in their language which makes it dramatically simpler to
express the discoveries of the field of astrophysics, I'm not convinced
there's much there.

There are a handful of languages whose speakers express radically different
views of numeracy from indo-european and asian language speakers, but as long
as you're expressing the same concept with broadly similar power, it's not
clear that the language itself informs the concept. There's nothing profound
about a numeral, especially a numeral for "1", and there's mostly nothing
special about words like "ennui".

> _We created neural networks inspired by the way we understand mammalian
> brains to work, right?_

Not exactly, no. The neural network metaphor is broadly related to all things
with neurons, and based on a specific simplification of the concept of neurons
which is general and abstract enough that it maps about as well to plant
signaling as it does to insect or mammal signaling.

~~~
kaitai
I have to say I'm disappointed in your reply. Neurons only occur in animals,
and the concept of neural signaling is not directly analogous to plant
signaling in communities. Plants have a much wider vocabulary than electrical
activation.

I appreciate that you're trying to stick to astrophysics and the numbers one
through three, but you have failed to engage with the "language of animacy"
concept, which makes this sort of a pointless reply. In addition, "it's not
clear that the language itself informs the concept" \-- yes, that's the point
of there being a hypothesis, and that's the point of this discussion. I don't
propose that the truths of astrophysics are going to be different in
Blackfoot. I do propose that languages carry fundamental values and concerns
of societies. These values and concerns of course influence scientific
inquiry. Now, it may be that language, choices regarding directions of
research, and approaches to scientific inquiry are all just results of
underlying drivers, but that's the interesting part of the discussion.

~~~
microcolonel
> _Neurons only occur in animals, and the concept of neural signaling is not
> directly analogous to plant signaling in communities. Plants have a much
> wider vocabulary than electrical activation._

Are some integers impossible to express in binary?

------
throwaway213123
Two people doing what the second most populated country can't. Kudos to you
sir, and madam!

~~~
saagarjha
Second largest by area, maybe.

~~~
thaumasiotes
That is also China. (Or apparently Canada if you want to count internal
water.)

