Heptapod B
An analysis
by jan Olipija
in collaboration with jan Isk
Started: 25/01/2021
Background
Heptapod B is a writing system created for the Heptapods, a race of aliens from the film Arrival in 2016. It is circular and nonlinear and this plays a key part in the story.
There is apparently a 100 word dictionary for the language but that has never surfaced on the internet as far as can be found. An Analysis of the language with incomplete data.
The findings of this analysis are speparate from but concordant with Language & Film’s findings in; Reading Your Future: A brief analysis of Heptapod B ("nonlinear orthography" from the film Arrival).
What is Heptapod B, linguistically speaking?
Heptapod B is an unfinished conlang (constructed language). Just enough examples were made to get a gist of the language. It is primarily artistic, made with a clear aesthetic and monetary goal (to look good in a film), but can be read and reproduced as a language for the limited set of examples known. It is, as previously stated, nonlinear. Beyond that it is largely unanalysed, which I will expand on with this document.
What is the point of this document and project?
This is a project to study what little Heptapod B we have available and to finish it off a little more as a conlang. This document is the first step in that; the analysis.
Example of Heptapod B circle: Humanity
Overview
Each circle or logogram can be analysed as such:
Base - The base is the circle which characters (aka; splodges) rest. They are completely round, although may vary and the line may vary in thickness, neither of these seem to affect meaning. A base may be broken at various points which may have grammatical meaning but has no semantic meaning.
Character - A character rests on the base, it can be made up of many different parts. It is roughly synonymous to an individual word or phrase. Two or more characters can be written on a base, and can overlap, but are often separate possibly for clarity.
Name - A name is a type of character that refers to an individual. The distinction is arbitrary but useful to make note of. Names are unique and do not seem to use previously established characters or recombine characters. (except here)
Particle - A particle is a type of character that can be written on the outside of a circle or inside of a circle. They seem to have to connect to a base somewhat and augment a character. They do not seem to be able to appear alone on a base as a circle.
Circle - A circle is a combination of a base, character(/s) and any particles. A character (or name) may appear alone on a circle, usually in answer to a question. A particle may not. Multiple characters may appear on a circle, at which point it may be considered a sentence or phrase.
I use the terminology circle because I find it the clearest name for one unit of Heptapod B. They are often called logograms but it is uncertain whether logogram refers to a character on the circle, circle as a whole or both.
Method
The primary method was to divide the logograms in the sheet pictured right and others similar into morphemic units.
It is a list of circles individually labelled with meanings.
Each circle was cross-referenced against other circles with similar translations. If something appeared multiple times and seemed to correlate consistently with one word in the English translation it was tagged as a character.
This image was cropped it down to isolate varius identified characters
Here is an example:
In these 4 circles the only commonality is that the translation includes “Abbot” and the character in the top left. It is also attested as a name on its own on the left. Therefore it can be deduced that the top left character is “Abbot”.
Isolated it looks like this:
What elements are relevant to this specific character is a hard question to answer as characters are similar but different in every reproduction and it's hard to know precisely what effects particles and the base affects have had on the rendition of the character. The images have been cropped in a way that attempts to include all core parts and disclude parts which are external. If you reproduce most of the features of this character it can be understood as “Abbot”.
Characters
It cannot be determine whether a character can be across multiple splodges, or whether this would be a sign of multiple characters or additional particles. However we will assume that it can be due to a number of characters having seemingly disconnected parts that are present across examples.
Stable identified characters
Characters with multiple attestations, which the translation for can be narrowed down. OR has strong attested meaning/s.
Rough Order = Biggest - Smallest
Character - Time
(note: The three splodges on the left, right and top seem to be the core of character.)
Character - Earth
(note: The top right and bottom left seem to be the core. It's uncertain how widely the concept of Earth applies. It may be a name for our planet, or a character to refer to any planet. Each may be separate parts or all together.)
Character - Weapon/Tool
(note: The tail is slightly cut off and one of the tendrils at the head is the base intersecting with the character having looped around.)
Character - Solve
(note: The swirl of the top left seems repositionable relative to the main nucleus.)
Character - Human, Person
(note: It's not clear whether anything not on the top left is part of the character or not, but across both used examples all parts seemed to be present. Likewise the precise meaning is uncertain, it seems to refer to an individual or our bodies.)
Character - Heptapod
(note: It seems to refer both to the species and language.)
Character - Humanity
(note: It seems to refer to us collectively, perhaps as a society or culture, or as a mind/s.)
Character - Choose
(note: none)
Character - Dead
(note: none)
Unstable identified characters
These are characters which there is only a small number of references, and are less well attested. It may be that they appear less often OR that it is not certain if the translation is entirely correct.
Character - Save
(note: Occurs twice. Once in “Abbot choose save Ian Louise” and once in “There is no linear time”. The use in the second one has not yet been analysed.)
Character - Didn’t/Can’t/Not
(note: Occurs twice but the usage and meaning is confusing in both.)
Character - Life
(note: Occurs once. Seems to require a name attached on the clockwise side to be completed.)
Character - Go(Imperative?)
(note: Occurs once. Incomplete character. Should be recut.)
Character - Nonlinear
(note: Occurs once. Used in the phrase “there is no linear time”. May be a complete mistranslation on my part.)
Character - Offer
(note: Occurs once.)
Character - Question
(note: Occurs once.)
Character - Responsibility
(note: Occurs once. Used in “solve on you now”. “On” has been interpreted as “responsibility”. [solve] was placed in the middle of the character, [humanity] (aka 'you’) is to the anticlockwise side of this character. There may be particles here also.)
Character - Walk
(note: Occurs once. Is alone and clear. But what the concept of walking means to Heptapods is uncertain.)
Character - Where/Place
(note: Occurs once. It is used in the phrase “Where is Abbot”. Not sure whether its a question word or a more general character meaning place.)
Character - Write
(note: Occurs once. Is used in “Louise Writes Hepto” and clearly identified as the corresponding character to “write” in that circle. Is not used in “Co-written Logogram”, “Heptopod Writes real time” or “Use Marker Write”. The precise meaning is therefore uncertain.)
Character - Duality
(note: Occurs once. Is used in “Weapon tool duality”. May be a phrase of multiple characters.)
Character - Learn (Imperative?)
(note: Occurs once. May be a phrase of multiple characters.)
Phrases
These are phrases that are identified made of probably multiple characters that cannot be separated due to a lack of data. These may also be singular characters. All occur once.
Phrase - Must + Learn
(note: May be a singular character.)
Phrase - Duality, Two + Things.
(note: May be one character.)
Phrase - Eat + Apple
(note: Likely two characters. Order unknown.)
Phrase - Louise + Life
(note: This is kind-of a single character composed of life and louise. It suggests that the character “life” is incomplete without a name or other character attached.)
Phrase - Message + Here
(note: Its highly uncertain as to if this is a character or a phrase.)
Phrase - Send (….) message
(note: It's highly uncertain as to if this is a character or a phrase. It likely needs a compliment as to the type or content of the message.)
Phrase - Use + Marker + Write
(note: Highly likely to be two characters. I believe the tendril into the middle may be a particle meaning ‘using’.)
Phrase - Ship + Grounded
(note: the whole circle contains the character ‘Heptapod’ and ‘Don’t/can’t/not’. These are character(/s) of the same circle that cannot be identified. Likely to be two characters at the most.)
Names
Names are unique characters to refer to individuals. The distinction from the other character set is arbitrary, and mostly to allow for easier processing, analysis and reference.
Name - Abbot
Name - Costello
Name - Ian
Name - Louise
Particles
Particles may be added onto characters or circles in order to modify them.
Particle - Question
(note: This particle goes on the inside of a circle. It seems to turn any circle its attached onto into a question. It seems to be attached to the animate, important or agent part of the circle.)
Particle - Possessive (Had/Have/Has/Will-have)
(note: This particle goes on the outside of a circle. It seems to apply to both physical and metaphorical possession. It seems to be placed above the thing which is being possessed (e.g. the object))
Phonemes and Phonotactics - Elements and Composition
The words 'phone(eme/tactics) is used as 'phone-' does not necessarily just refer to sound - it is simply the minimal unit of information used for minimal pairs. For instance in sign language a handshape can be a phoneme because it is not a different concept from that of the phoneme in a spoken language. Therefore the words will be interpreted liberally. Also use ‘element’ and ‘phoneme’ will be used interchangeably, along with ‘photoactics’ and ‘composition’, although the second should be interpreted a little more broadly.
Elements - Phonemes
Phonemes in Heptapod B seem to be freeform. Isolating individual phonemes, and phoneme/element reuse is difficult and I have only managed to observe it once (here). What it would mean if a phoneme is reused and if said phoneme reuse correlates to morpheme reuse is questionable. However some patterns are observable.
Therefore it is posited that phonemes are essentially unique but break down into three categories.
- Nucleus (aka Splodge or Bouba)
- Tendril (aka Line or Offshoot)
- Dots (aka Splatter)
Nuclei are thicker splodges, usually rounded but not circular. They are like ‘bouba’ from the ‘bouba kiki experiment;
[Pictured right is a picture of the two objects named bouba and kiki. The right-most one is kiki and the left-most one is bouba. Kiki is not used in Heptapod-B, but is presented as the opposite of the nucleus shape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect]
Tendrils are usually line forms similar to;
[Pictured right is an image of inky lines, similar to those of tendrils, although tendrils tend to curve and change directions often]
Dots are usually small and come in groups. Dots do not contact the base.
[Pictured to the right is a splatter of dots, please note that these are of varying sizes, but are all small. Dots are not a widely used feature in characters but are present in many.]
The precise division between these is not always clear, in which case two terms can be compounded (i.e ‘a splodgy-offshoot’) or it can be referred to as a quasi-tendril/nucleus/dot.
Composition - Phonotactics
The composition of a character seems to be structured:
- Minimum required composition.
All characters have a nucleus and tendrils. Not all have dots. Particles so far identified can be composed of only tendrils.
- Nucleus/Tendril-Base interaction.
The vast majority of nuclei and tendrils make contact with the base, or make contact with other elements which in turn contact the base.
Examples:
There are one or two violations of this trend:
[pictured to the right is the semi deciphered; ‘message here’ phrase where on the bottom character has a small floating secondary nucleus/bouba, however it could be analysed as a large dot]
[pictured to the right is the name character Costello that has a small nucleus or large dot separated from it]
- Dots and Base interactions
Dots are separated from the base the majority of the time and would seemingly cease to be dots if they were connected to a tendril/nucleus.
Examples:
- Phrases
When compositing a circle of multiple characters characters may overlap but some consideration for space and readability is made. Characters seem to form compound meanings when they overlap and more independent meaning when they don’t.
Examples:
Grammar
There is very little information on the grammar. In the footage of Heptapods, a single circle is often presented individually as something approximating a sentence, but circles are also presented in groups. There is also a suggestion that reduplication and space is used, where the number of repetitions and spaces between said repetitions is important.
However on a more down-to-earth analysis with the material on hand: not much can be determined about Heptapod B grammar, bar individual facts.
Pronouns and Referents
Heptapod B does not seem to have any pronouns or referents. The English translations do use pronouns, but every time a pronoun was used in a translation, the full character for the noun being referenced by the pronoun is used.
Example A:
Can be broken down into:
- humanity
- solve
- responsibility
Literal translation: Humanity Responsibility Solve
The most uncertain of these is responsibility, it may contain characters or particles that make it clear that humanity is a referent. However regardless of this, the 'you' here is a referent to Humanity, and therefore in Heptapod B the character [humanity] is given in full.
Example B:
Can be broken down into:
- Louise
- Choose
- (Phrase - Louise+life) Louise’s life
OR
- Louise x 2
- Choose
- Life
Literal Translation - Louise choose Louise’s Life
Here there is no place where a pronoun or referent could be hiding. The most uncertain character is ‘Life’ but there is no commonality between this and the previous example.
Multiple Subjects and Objects or Grammatical Shipping
In multiple cases the names Louise and Ian can be seen sitting together on the circle, overlapping in various ways to show that they both do a verb or have a verb/adjective apply to them both.
This is either a feature of the language which allows for all multiple subjects or objects to be treated the same way. Or a feature of Heptapod that these two people (or objects) who are a couple can be considered one unit.
Example A:
Can be broken down into:
- Abbot
- Save
- Choose
- Ian
- Louise
Here ‘Ian’ and ‘Louise’ are compounded together to show that they are both recipients of the verb ‘save’, and are therefore both the object.
Example B:
Can be broken down into:
- Ian
- Louise
- Didn’t/Not
Again Ian and Louise are compounded into a greater whole as to make it clear that they are both the subject of the phrase.
Example C:
- Ian
- Louise
- Go (imperative?)
The names ‘Ian’ and ‘Louise’ are more separated here but they are still close together and overlap a little.
Unresolved issues:
Reuse of elements within characters
There is little evidence of reuse of elements/phonemes of characters. Every character seems unique except for a small set of characters. No trend within the elements of individual characters was found and even the few that share elements seem to be done in a non-systemic way.
- The name Abbot and the character Life share some elements, namely on the inside of the circle. Said features are mirrored between each occurence.
Untranslatable circles
There are certain circles with no characters or parts that can be isolated with ease.
- The only identifiable character in here is ‘choose’ at the bottom:
- We were unable to identify any parts or characters within this:
- We were unable to identify any parts or characters within this:
Corroboration
Reading Your Future: A brief analysis of Heptapod B ("nonlinear orthography" from the film Arrival)
The channel Langauge and Film has done an analsysis of his own, which overlaps significantly with the analysis done here!