"It rains!"

[ladyofastolat]

Pellinor has long claimed that the best way to recognise a primitive civilisation is to listen to what they say when they ask you to follow them to meet their leader. If they merely intone "Come!" they are a primitive people who are ruled by robe-wearing elders, and there is a risk that they will take superstitious exception to your electronic transpondulator, and try to burn you as a witch. If they say "Come with me," they probably have transpondulators of their own, although they may well pose different dangers.

However, the flaw in his theory is that you have to make contact before you can carry out this test. By the time you've heard their "Come!" you are already committed to following your primitive chap to his elders. Fortunately, there is another way to test how primitive your culture is, which can be done merely by listening to the conversation of the natives. It starts raining. "It rains!" cries the primitive culture; "it's raining," says the advanced one. The arrival of a friend is reported. "He comes!" says the primitive peasant. "He's coming," says the advanced one.

What remains to investigate is precisely when this linguistic change happens in the course of a civilisation's technological development. Does it come just before steam engines? Is it a vital development without which a civilisation cannot create computers? And, if so, please can we start researching what new linguistic change is necessary before we can successfully invent transporters?

Comments

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

I think according to this theory Welsh people must be timelords.

[gramarye1971]

*mops up mouthful of tea from keyboard*

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Well, do we have any proof that they're not? :-)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying a word.

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Are they inviting you to meet their leader, or have you asked to meet their leader? I suspect that, linguistics aside, the response will change according to level of primitiveness. Very primitive tribe - "Come!". Rather more advanced tribe - some variant on "No, it's tabu". Advanced civilisation - "Do you have an appointment, and did you remember to bring three different forms of ID, including retinal scan / DNA sample? Yes? In that case just step this way into the security scanner, then we'll show you to the waiting room".

This is because nobody wants to be bothered by supplicants, but the primitive society hasn't yet thought of a way of getting out of it. The more advanced the culture, the more elaborate the excuses and obstacles placed in your way.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

And presumably the very primitive tribes don't last very long, since sooner or later one of the random strangers they invite to "Come!" slaughters them all hideously. Extreme bureaucracy is thus the inevitable result of evolution.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I can't decide whether this idea is sucking or rocking.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

According to this theory, the Stargate Jaffa would be a primitive people, because they never use two words when one would do, and always tell people to 'Come' even though they seem to use electronic transpondulators with much relish.

Possibly they have primitive linguistics because of being a slave race. I will observe carefully as I continue my mammoth rewatch project and discover if they become less monosyllabic once they gain independence.

Of course they are also a sort of small orange and chocolate spongecake, which may confuse the results of the research project.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Certain peoples clearly want to live in Fantasyland, but have accidentally ended up in the wrong genre, sometimes without noticing. Strong and silent warrior types often fall into this category. Klingons, for example, are Dothraki who haven't noticed that their horses have turned into space ships. Mystical orders are similar. Jedi are Fantasyland warrior monks who happen to have ended up in a world with blasters, but who retain their original speech patterns.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Jaffa to judge whether they fit into one of these categories. I do know, however, that they are not biscuits.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

"...because they never use two words when one would do"

I think you're ignoring the vast amount of language communicated by, for example, Teelc (or whatever his name is) using just his eyebrows and lips.

[sally_maria]

Teal'c

I'm wondering if the actual spelling is more evidence that the Jaffa belong in Fantasyland - the apostrophe is a dead giveaway.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Indeed ;-)

Actually, 'indeed' has two syllables, but it's still only one word...

I think the Jaffa are too angsty to be Dothraki/Klingons, but they definitely have that in common with the poor slain Haradrim that Sam sees. Arguably angst a more fantasy than sci fi characteristic anyway ?

[sally_maria]

I'm trying to think of angsty sci-fi, and none comes to mind. Gritty, "realistic" and unpleasant, but not angsty.

(At least, not the commercial kind. There's plenty of angsty Stargate fanfic, but it doesn't tend to be the kind that makes much of the sci-fi basis of the show.)

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I shall test the first part of the theory the next time I watch Classic Who...

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

And what if they describe the imminent rain in complex sentences but including swearing? eg 'Oh eff it's raining and I've left the washing on the line!'

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

In that case, we have no data on whether they're primitive or advanced, but we do know that their story is told on HBO.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

There a development of the theory, which is that it's circular: as civilisations develop even further, they return to the "Come" mode.

This is normally when they've gotten to the mystic robes-and-no-apparent-technology stage of development, at which the cutting-edge transpondulator will be examined in an amused way, with maybe a comment on how quaint it is to see mere matter and non-psychic energy being used. So it may just be a manifestation of that.

On the other hand it tends to be said in a more condescending way, as parent to idiot child, so perhaps the development is that - as with the wafty robes - what *appears* to be primitive and unsophisticated is in fact developed way beyond our comprehension.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Do you think the urge to utter "Come!" is actually caused by the wafty robes? "Come!" is best uttered by solemn-faced people whose hands are lost in wafty robes, after all. I'm sure Jedi Masters would do the "come!" thing, and they wear robes, and civilisations of all-powerful Ancients who litter the universe with advanced technology and seeded races.. Well, let's just say it's hard to imagine them in jeans and t-shirts, saying, "Hey, dude, follow me."

Oh! Oh! And I was wearing my cloak in the cold evenings at Lichfield, and I definitely heard myself say, "It rains!" Today I was in my work clothes, it started raining, and I said, "It's raining." Proof!

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

I always wondered what was fishy about French, Spanish and other languages without a present continuous...