I didn’t want to pick one specific language. Jessica Coon: I really loved foreign languages, but when I got to college I knew that I didn’t want to major in Spanish or German. OLB: Where does your passion for studying lesser-known languages come from? Throughout the film, you see small things like this whiteboard or alien logograms with my scribbles on them, and even the books from my office! Go!” I had to think about how we would use the tools of linguistic analysis to decipher an alien language, which was definitely not something I’d done before. You have a team of the world’s best linguists and cryptographers working with you, and you need to write the to do list on this whiteboard. In one interaction with the set designers, they said, “Imagine that you’ve just been brought here to decipher this alien language. They wanted to know what linguists do, how they analyze unfamiliar languages and even what a linguist’s office would look like.
Jessica Coon: Arrival was filmed in Montreal, and the filmmakers were looking for a local expert to advise them on Adams’ role in the movie. OLB: Tell us about your experience working as a consultant on the set of Arrival. Translators, on the other hand, obviously need to be very strong in the languages they work in but may not be interested in analyzing the nitty gritty components of grammar. But linguists don’t necessarily speak the language or languages they study, and plenty of linguists will tell you they’re terrible at learning foreign languages. Linguists are interested in studying the abstract and structural properties of human languages, as well as similarities and variation across languages.
#Alien language translator professional
People assume that translators are linguists and vice versa, but while people in both professions probably came to their work through a love of languages, they don’t necessarily share the same skill sets, interests, and professional training. Jessica Coon: There’s a lot of confusion about the difference between linguists and translators, and you even see some of this in the film Arrival, despite my best efforts.
Our Languages blog (OLB): Can you explain the difference between a translator and a linguist? Naturally, we jumped at the chance to interview this linguistic superstar! She also speaks English, German, Spanish and Ch’ol (Mayan), and is working on her French. Coon is an associate professor of linguistics at McGill University where she teaches students of all levels about syntax and linguistic fieldwork, and is involved in both theoretical and revitalization work with Indigenous languages. You may know Jessica Coon from her consultant work for the film Arrival, starring Amy Adams as a linguist recruited to decipher an alien language.
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