A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)
What bothered me the most is that the way they start the "conversation" with the aliens is by using names and human concepts (walking, eating, etc.). I'm not a trained linguist or anything, but it seems to me they should start with concepts that are universal: mainly numbers. Maybe as a CS guy I'm biased (since my language is symbols and numbers), but literally every conceivable language has to contain numbers of some kind (at the <i>very least</i> the concept of singular vs plural).<p>So start with "one" and "two" or maybe even the concept of nothing vs something. Work your way to vocab words related to space and time (again, I would think these universal concepts considering the aliens traveled with the goal of getting to earth), then get into specific human concepts like me vs you vs third person.<p>They essentially worked through language in the same way you would work through language with a <i>human</i> baby, which I think would get you no where when talking to an alien race (who are "adults" at this point you would assume, and have their own fully developed world views).<p>Just my 2 cents though.