Language and Historical Linguistics in Stargate: SG-1

[night_spear1287]

This is intended for people interested in linguistics as they might apply to Stargate SG-1 and its fanworks. It's not a complete primer, by any means, but it's somewhere to get a feel for what kinds of things to think about if you're starting to look at the field of linguistics and the jargon that goes with it, either for interest or for research

Comments

[sg_fignewton]

Whew! I've bookmarked this for further careful reading. Thanks, Nightspear - this is very useful. :)

[night_spear1287]

Hope it comes in handy!

[ansostuff]

Very interesting! I've done some small-scale translating from and into English. Sicne I'm not a native English speaker I always look for ways to better my English - especially if writing fanfiction. I think the series are a bit confusing themselves with what Daniel actually is and does and it's easy to mix the terms.

[night_spear1287]

I think the series has a habit of making Daniel know nearly every kind of science Carter doesn't know...that sort of thing. Which makes things easier when they have to do lots of exposition, but it *is* confusing to me. Hope this is helpful :)

[resurgamlaura]

I'm going to have to come back to this- and that's a compliment

[night_spear1287]

Glad you liked it! It's nice to get some insight from your perspective.
I always wonder what people in certain fields (like Egyptology and Egyptian Archaeology) think of each other--I know that some people tend to think biologists and biomedical engineers do similar things when we in fact often look at each other a little funny :) And writing this made me miss my years of studying linguistics, too :(

[resurgamlaura]

Archaeology from what I've seen is full of strange little cliques, in part because being an archaeologist often doesn't mean that you have a background in history or language. Egyptologists follow in a long tradition which started during early archaeology in Egypt- by folks who had a background in social sciences, history and languages due to their education, etc- so they'll know the language, history and archaeology, but won't be specialists in the latter, so there is a bit of a 'us and them' mentality. There's *definitely* an 'us and them' issue between Roman archaeologists and Roman historians, which is so counterproductive, and there is also a tendency to think that Classicists are airy fairy and up themselves (cheers, guys).

...How exactly do you mix up biologists and biomedical engineers? That's like me calling my chemistry friend a biochemist or something *is puzzled*

[night_spear1287]

Ah, I see. That's really interesting!

There's a bit of that 'us and them' with the biology and bioengineering people (at least where I studied). It's just that we work toward solving similar problems, just from different angles and often side-by-side by necessity, because each side knows different things that we both need. The stereotype here is that biologists know everything there is to know about genetics and the body and whatnot, but they can't deal with the math and modeling, while the opposite goes for the engineers. My boss once said, "oh, a kidney--that's just like a tube with blood vessels around it, right? let's make one" (the med student working in our lab just about freaked :) ).

[sg_betty]

Thanks so much for doing this! Now I'm off to study your work!

[night_spear1287]

Whee-hee! It was more fun than I expected :)

[amberflyant]

This is an amazing piece of work. Like the others, I have book marked this for reference. Can this be recc'd to other sites? With full credit given to you of course?

[night_spear1287]

Glad you think it's helpful! And sure, I don't mind if you link to it or anything :) Cheers!