First of all, I'd like to apologize for the lack of posts made within the last two months. I had an absolutely amazing experience playing Hamlet in a local production with Band of Brothers Shakespeare, and it ate up most of my free time. Now that I've finally settled back into Pittsburgh, it's time for me to give my blog a jump-start!
A long time ago... in a galaxy far, far away... there was a little blue astromech droid by the name of R2-D2. R2's charming beeps and buzzes have made a permanent mark on the film industry, and he has become one of the most beloved sci-fi characters of all time. Growing up with the Star Wars franchise left a huge impression on me. My brain couldn't help but pour over the vast possibilities for a future bedazzled in astounding technology... would humans ever invent the light saber, blaster, protocol droid, or starship? Ironically enough, none of the fantastical things in the Star Wars universe struck me as particularly impossible... save for the fact that every humanoid character could understand R2-D2 or Chewbacca. All I could hear were indistinguishable beeps, buzzes, roars, and gurgles. How could anyone possibly interpret these as language?
It wasn't until learning a thing or two about linguistics that I even considered these "languages" they spoke to be anything but mere fantasy. I never understood how these beeps and buzzes could ever function as language. When I found out that all of the languages in Star Wars were approached not as constructed alien languages with grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, but as exploitative and even racist sound design projects, my hopes were dimming; Bill Hader and Ben Schwartz played the 'voice' of BB-8 in The Force Awakens, which was apparently made by JJ Abrams messing around on an iPad while Bill and Ben spoke into a talkbox. This process was very similar to how Ben Burtt created the original sound for R2-D2. However, there is some legitimacy to the concept of Droidspeak, and that is a real-world parallel: whistled speech.
Whistle languages are exactly that: natural languages consisting of high-amplitude whistles that encode nearly the same amount of information as spoken language does. Whistle languages act almost like auxiliary modes of speaking; they rely on a concept in phonology called functional load. Essentially, functional load refers to how important certain features are in making contrastive distinctions and encoding information. Certain features of speech will have a higher functional load in some languages as opposed to others (and having a high functional load means that if these features are missing or obscured, the message is more difficult to interpret). Let's unpack that a little more:
English relies heavily on its vowel qualities to encode information. There are many sets of words in English that differ only by a vowel. For example: pin, pen, pan, pawn, pine, pwn, and pain all differ by vowel sounds only. Consonants in English carry a lighter functional load; how can speakers of American or British English still understand someone speaking with a French accent? We can still understand exactly what is being said, even if all their "th" sounds turn into "z"s, and even if their "r" sounds are all uvular instead of alveolar. As long as the vowels retain much of their phonemic quality, the same message can be accurately conveyed through a very different encoding. Intonation in English, however, carries very little functional load. Utterances spoken in a monotone voice in English still carry almost the same information (save any emotion or sense of inquiry).
Tonal languages like Mandarin, however, rely heavily on what are called suprasegmental features (phonological features which "attach" to more salient features such as consonants, vowels, syllables, etc.) to encode information. Mandarin, like many tonal languages (essentially, in a tonal language, the same syllable can be interpreted as a completely different word depending on what pitch contour is used on that syllable), carries a very heavy functional load in its tones. Basically, if someone were to speak Mandarin in a monotone voice, it would be almost completely unintelligible because the tones carry most of the information in this language. Other suprasegmental features across languages include vowel length, intonation, stress, or even nasality.
Going back to whistle languages, most whistle languages have come out of languages which have a robust tonal system. It's like stripping down the language to nothing but its tone contours. All you get is the suprasegmental features -- the tones, duration differences, and stress... no vowels, no consonants. However, many whistle languages such as Silbo Gomero (the most commonly whistled language today) do not come from tonal languages. These whistle languages instead mimic the change in frequency of the second vowel formant, the f2. Vowel formants are amplified frequency bands produced when speaking which are amplified by the vocal tract (oral and nasal cavities). These amplified frequencies help our brains to interpret vowel qualities; they help us determine the difference between "ee" and "ah". In Silbo Gomero, for example, there are two proposed vowels: "i" and "a". The difference between these two is marked by a higher or lower pitch, respectively. The reason why is because for the vowel /i/, f2 is much higher in frequency than the vowel /a/. Get it?
So, if humans can whistle a tonal melody and convey to each other the same amount of information as speaking, why can't BB-8 beep and buzz and speak a robust complete language to Rey on Jakku? The legitimacy of such a language existing in this fantasy universe lies in these real-world examples of whistled speech. R2-D2's buzzes and whistles have the possibility to carry an extraordinary amount of information... enough that other organic creatures can understand exactly what the little droid is trying to say. Not to far, far away after all, is it?
May the force be with you all,
Dante <3
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