The alien language in ‘Arrival’ is pretty weird, right?
The 2016 sci-fi movie that actually revolves around linguistics. Spoilers ahead.
Arrival, in my opinion, is a movie worth a second watch. Adapted from Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, the movie moves away from the book’s political premise and more towards human connection, the mind, and of course, language. Along with its stunning scenes and thought provoking storyline, it shows the audience an accurate view of linguistics and what it looks like in the field.
A highly abbreviated version of the story goes as follows: Linguist Louise Banks’s daughter dies from a terminal illness. Then, twelve alien vessels perch themselves at various points across the planet with the various countries they landed in sending in teams to study them. Banks, along with physicist Ian Donnelly are recruited to this effort. As they study the round symbols of the language, they are able to rudimentarily converse with these aliens and learn of the reason for their arrival: “offer weapon”. Banks argues that the word “weapon” could be interpreted as “tool” or “means” instead. Despite this, other countries break off communications with the aliens following this incident. The more Banks learns, the more flashbacks she has of her daughter.
Tensions and anxiety rises as nations prepare for retaliation, giving ultimatums to the alien vessels as communication between countries is lost. Banks discovers that 1/12 of the alien’s message is in the US vessel and the aliens wish for the various countries to unite and share their information with each other. The “weapon” that the aliens give humanity is actually their language, which enables a speaker to experience time as a fluid. The flashbacks that Banks was having of her daughter are actually set in the future. Banks has a premonition of a celebratory UN conference after the aliens depart, learning she was able to stop the conflict by telling the Chinese general his wife’s dying words: “War doesn’t make winners, only widows.” In the present, she follow suit and the alien vessels leave the planet. In the end, Donnelly and Banks fall in love, and although she knows the outcome of their future, she chooses to live it anyways. She’ll have a daughter that will die from a terminal illness, and Donnelly will leave her after he learns she knew it would happen.
So yes, not a cheery movie, but its thought provoking nature makes you want to re-watch it again and again. Thankfully, the film’s producers skipped out on a major flaw many of these sci-fi movies can have: complete inaccuracy. And to do so, they consulted many linguists. Of course, there is some extrapolation done to create these aliens, their ships, and the effect of their language, but it is all rooted in truth. Even if you didn’t know anything about linguistics, just the effort alone make the movie seem much more believable.
In the creation of this language, the writers wanted it to feel as alien and foreign as possible. Production designer Patrice Vermette said, “…it needed to be alien to our civilization, alien to our technology, alien to everything our mind knows. When Louise first sees the language, you don’t want to give it away to the audience that it’s a language.” (Wired). The team knew that they wanted the language to be circular as the alien’s view of time was non-linear, but all of the models they came up with at first looked too code-like and human. Then one day, artist Martine Bertrand, Vermette’s wife, came up with these blotchy swirls and the language was born.
The team developed these drawings into a functional language, all dependent on nuances and complexity of the black tendrils. For instance, “A thicker swirl of ink can indicate a sense of urgency; a thinner one suggests a quiet tone. A small hook attached to one symbol makes it a question.” (Wired). A single symbol can represent one word or a complex idea all without the need for the rules of linear syntax and grammar.
Many other aspects of the movie are pretty spot on as well. A phonetics expert was consulted for the alien’s audible language. The elicitation process that Bank’s uses in the film is accurate as well. Sets and costumes were all made in reference to real-world procedures.
As for the effects of the alien language, it may not be all that wild. Studies on different languages and their speakers have shown that languages do indeed affect the way we think. They range from affecting our ability to differentiate colors, to the relationship we have to the space around us, and even to understanding the way we feel. If nothing else, the movie shows that language is more powerful than you think.
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