This sign means 'not allowed,' but it does not correspond to any actual spoken words.

Donnelly by drawing a circle with a line through it on a board. Banks realizes that the logograms should instead be called semagrams, because they are irreducible to spoken words. Banks subsequently realizes that the heptapod script is not separated into words instead, the words are brought together into a single image. However, in the written language, they are portrayed as a single logogram. Banks can differentiate the subject from the verb. In the spectrographs of the spoken language, Dr. Banks discovers that their written and spoken languages are unrelated when she moves on to learning about heptapod verbs. Donnelly nickname the two heptapods they communicate with 'Flapper' and 'Raspberry.'ĭr. The heptapods use a logographic script, which means that they are not phonetically written. She begins to compile heptapod words-both spoken and written versions of the same words. She then moves on to studying heptapod writing, which she hopes will speed up her the learning process. Banks begins by recording spoken heptapod words, including 'heptapod,' 'chair,' and 'yes.' She uses audio recordings because she cannot make heptapod sounds herself, due to the fact that heptapods and humans do not have the same vocal tracts. Donnelly is tasked with learning about their physics and mathematics.ĭr. Banks is assigned the task of learning about their language, while Dr. Donnelly to a 'looking glass': one of the communication devices that heptapods have placed at 112 different locations on Earth. At the beginning of the story, she is approached by a government official, Colonel Weber, and a physicist, Dr. Throughout the story, she narrates the events of her daughter's future life and recounts the arrival of a breed of aliens, referred to as 'heptapods,' on Earth. Louise Banks on the night her daughter is conceived.

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