<p>I think the question is not well formulated. Mostly because &quot;language concepts&quot; (e.g. tense-aspect-mood systems, animacy, verbal valence, case systems...) reflect the workings of the <em>human mind</em> far, far more than they could ever reflect the human anatomy. Anatomy/biology of course influences massive swathes of <em>semantics</em>, but I don't think anything other than pure phonetics or sign language is influenced by anatomy.</p>
<p>Facial expressions and body language probably belong there, but tend to have a huge cultural element. Position of the ears, for example, is not something humans make (or can make) use of, but <a href="https://just-ornstein.tumblr.com/post/171382070608/elf-ear-communication-headcannon" rel="nofollow noreferrer">maybe elves could</a>.</p>
<p>Some more semantics example:</p>
<ul>
<li>We make distinctions useful to us <em>at our given size</em>. We cannot tell apart things by smell, or by UV light the way other animals (or measuring instruments) can. We do not tell apart very tiny things by basic names (e.g. ants, mites, sand). If we could sense, say, gravitic variations or psychic energies, we might have entirely different ways to describe position or time.</li>
<li><em>Time is linear to us</em>, cause precedes effects and so on, we cannot watch again a past event. This obviously affects how language models time and mood. Consider the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9xShALLHAU" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Observers from Fringe</a> or any other species with a different perception of time. Their possibly utterly alien perception of time may well be the reason their writing is (apparently) indecipherable.</li>
<li>&quot;Fish&quot; is not a proper biological class (and whether marine mammals are excluded from it in common parlance is debatable!) because we don't feel a need to be any more precise about it, but we would have better concepts for it <em>if we were a marine species</em>! Similarly, plants are divided, roughly, into, flowers, lianas, grass, trees and shrubs. This system is not even very efficient for Earth ecology!</li>
<li>Expanding on the UV thing, <em>color words are constrained by our visual capacity</em>, and typically distinguish a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate" rel="nofollow noreferrer">surprisingly limited number of basics</a>. Forget the hierarchy part, nonderived terms usually stop around 6-8 words, why? A species with different color perception would do things differently. Mark Rosenfelder spends an entire <em>chapter</em> on this point in his <em>Conlanger's Lexipedia</em>.</li>
<li>As far as <em>number base systems</em>, decimal and vigesimal are most common in humans because we have 10 fingers, and 20 fingers and toes. (although a huge number of bases have been documented, I don't think any languages have a binary or ternary one)</li>
<li><em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinship_terminology" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Kinship terminology</a></em> is based off our own reproductive biology (and our gregariousness). What of a species where the embryo must be incubated in a member of a different species? What about a species where reproduction requires gametes from more than two individuals?</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-01T14:47:05.823Z
Thank you for answering what you don't consider a well formulated question. If you have ideas how to formulate it better I'd appreciate it. You make some very interesting points and the Lexipedia sounds very intriguing as well :)
Helmar
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-01T16:28:17.387Z
If you're interested in conlang, the Lexipedia *the* first stop you should be making.
Keith Morrison
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-01T17:57:20.357Z
@Heimar I took "anatomy" at face value. Our brain/mind structure clearly has major influence on the way language functions. However, _the rest of our body_ , though it does affect language, doesn't really affect how syntax, word categories, valence operations etc. etc. function in human language as a whole besides the obvious case of phonetics and sign language.
Circeus
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-03-01T14:16:40.597Z
2024-08-24T04:35:05.223Z
2024-08-24T04:35:05.223Z
Circeus
<p>Just a couple of sci-fi examples:</p>
<p>Niven and Pournelle's <em>The Mote in God's Eye</em> has a race with two small manipulating arms on one side, and a large &quot;gripping hand&quot; arm on the other. Even the humans pick up the phrase &quot;on the gripping hand&quot; to mean a third alternative to two possibilities.</p>
<p>One of Spider Robinson's Callahan's Place stories has an alien species with trilateral symmetry. Having full 360-degree vision eliminates many ideas about distrust- &quot;Blind-sided&quot;, &quot;Stabbed in the back&quot;, etc.</p>
<p>And, going the other direction, L.Neil Smith's <em>Converse and Conflict&quot;</em> has a scene where a human is explaining to an alien how Cold-War-ish Earth politics is causing friction among the multi-national human crew, and the alien observes that, if war breaks out on Earth, the captain</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;...will have a headache on his hands. Can you really say that? What an amazing language!&quot;</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-07T16:08:09.230Z
2021-02-12T15:55:50.080Z
2021-02-12T15:55:50.080Z
Rendu
<p>Much of by is based upon anatomy. Mostly that of Phonetics, and, by extension, phonological change and glottochronology. If you look at the IPA, the various phonemes are based upon point of articulation and such. Dental, Bilabial, Palatal, Glottal, etc. So I would recommend looking at the structure of the mouth of the aliens in question, and looking at the IPA in order to see what sounds would be possible with them and which would be impossible. For example, if they have no teeth, they would not be capable of dental consonants.</p>
<p>This by extension can effect the way in which their sounds change, based upon what sounds are easier for them in any given situation.</p>
<p>The amount of digits can also effect what the most common radix would be for the languages, for example, in Humans the most common radix is 10 due to us having ten fingers. But, it is still not the only one used. Look at:</p>
<p>Mesopotamian: Base-60</p>
<p>Mayan Languages: Base-20</p>
<p>Pamaen: Base-8</p>
<p>Yam Languages: Base-6</p>
<p>Chumashan: Base-4</p>
<p>And so on. But more languages use Base-10 than any other base, due to the ease of counting in Base-10 compared to other bases, due to our ten fingers.</p>
<p>Note: If you want better bases, it is easier to divide and multiply numbers in Bases with a greater amount of factors. This is the main reason behind the Duodecimal Movement, due to 12 being a superior highly composite number, with four non-trivial factors (2,3,4,6) compared to Base-10's two non-trivial factors (2,5). You can find multiple bases and their mathematical properties on wikipedia</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-02T13:33:06.460Z
2021-05-02T13:33:06.460Z
Zoey
<p>Some obvious ones:</p>

<p><strong>Phonetics</strong>, be it of spoken or signed language, is obviously constrained by the body of humans - both in the channels (aural, visual) employed and also in how they are employed. </p>

<p><strong>Metaphors</strong> often make use of body parts. Spatial prepositions and adverbs are often derived from relevant body parts: front from face, forehead, nose, chest; back from back or butt; up from head… you get the picture. Basically every organ has been referred to as being the cause of emotions etc as well in metaphors.</p>

<p>Words for <strong>directions</strong> in particular are also somewhat based on human anatomy. We have lateral symmetry (left-right) but an alien could likely have some form of radial symmetry in their bodies, which would make the concepts of leftness and rightness very weird to them. Aquatic beings would also likely have a different concept of directions altogether, probably based more on the orientation of their own bodies than relative to the ground.</p>

<p>Those are the things that come to mind. However, much more importantly, the inner workings of language as a whole would likely be different from a human’s. There are some things in human language that you really wouldn’t assume to be necessary. Just to make two examples: </p>

<p>It seems pretty clear that humans take the raw audio input, break it into <strong>segments</strong> (phones) then further abstract those phones into <strong>phonemes</strong>, which are then in turn used to build more complex words. One could just as well imagine skipping the segmentation step and going directly from audio to meaning. There appears to be evidence however that some songbirds also employ what could be considered phonemes in their songs, so perhaps it is to be expected.</p>

<p>Another thing is in syntax: human language does not appear to allow circular dependencies, that is word¹ A modifying word B, which in turn modifies word A again. From my fairly limited understanding of syntax, human sentences can be structured in a tree structure. It seems plausible that an alien language might have more or less freedom, perhaps allowing cyclic graphs in their syntax… or in the other direction, only linear dependence. An example of an alien conlang playing around with this is <a href="http://jbr.me.uk/euro/index.html" rel="noreferrer">Europan</a>, which I personally consider one of the most interesting conlangs I’ve ever encountered.</p>

<hr>

<p>¹or clause</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-18T14:41:17.613Z
2018-02-18T14:41:17.613Z
Sascha Baer
<p>I'm in the early stages of creating an alien language for a personal writing project. I'm trying to avoid the aliens' language having properties that human languages do that are somehow linked to our anatomy. One of the most obvious examples of such a feature is a numerical system with base ten due to the number of digits.</p>

<p>What are language concepts that are linked to our anatomy in comparable ways that I should find alternatives for when creating a language for aliens who are not humanoid? Any references for links between our anatomy and such language concepts or features are much appreciated.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-22T20:04:05.260Z
I still think this question is too broad. For a discussion see https://conlang.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/89/a-very-broad-question
Sir Cornflakes
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-18T13:40:25.467Z
"One of the most obvious examples of such a feature is a numerical system with base ten due to the number of digits." Well lots of human languages don't use base 10, and an alien language could use base 10 for reasons other than the number of digits...
curiousdannii
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-18T15:36:25.020Z
@curiousdannii you're correct, but those who use that base 10 have likely hand- and finger-based reasons. Cf. https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/8734
Helmar
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-18T18:25:00.267Z
Also, humans have 20 digits, not 10. I wouldn't consider base-10 necessarily anatomically rooted any more than 20 or 5 or 4 or 8. In any event, if you're not against the aliens' language having properties based on alien morphology, then I would suggest not worrying about humans and focus on the nature of the aliens!
elemtilas
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-18T19:37:19.650Z
A lot, probably more than the format of an answer allows: Think of senses, life conditions, life span, body parts, rhythm (hart beat), sexuality and reproduction, ...
Sir Cornflakes
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-19T09:25:32.677Z
Re:Anatomy of numbers, It's even possible to have anatomical roots for as seemingly weird bases as 23 or 27, with an extended body-part system as seen in some Papuan highland languages, where one counts the five fingers, then 5 points up the arm (joints and segments), various paths across the face, chest or collarbone, and then 10 more points for the other arm and hand. This system can then be expanded beyond the base by counting backwards again (though many languages instead loan Tok Pisin numerals in practice).
Gufferdk
<conlang-creation><biolinguistics>
What are language concepts that could be considered to be based on human anatomy?
# What are language concepts that could be considered to be based on human anatomy?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-02-18)

I'm in the early stages of creating an alien language for a personal writing project. I'm trying to avoid the aliens' language having properties that human languages do that are somehow linked to our anatomy. One of the most obvious examples of such a feature is a numerical system with base ten due to the number of digits.

What are language concepts that are linked to our anatomy in comparable ways that I should find alternatives for when creating a language for aliens who are not humanoid? Any references for links between our anatomy and such language concepts or features are much appreciated.

**Tags:** conlang-creation, biolinguistics
> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: "One of the most obvious examples of such a feature is a numerical system with base ten due to the number of digits." Well lots of human languages don't use base 10, and an alien language could use base 10 for reasons other than the number of digits...  
> **username_0**: @curiousdannii you're correct, but those who use that base 10 have likely hand- and finger-based reasons. Cf. https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/8734  
> **username_3**: Also, humans have 20 digits, not 10. I wouldn't consider base-10 necessarily anatomically rooted any more than 20 or 5 or 4 or 8. In any event, if you're not against the aliens' language having properties based on alien morphology, then I would suggest not worrying about humans and focus on the nature of the aliens!  
> **username_1**: A lot, probably more than the format of an answer allows: Think of senses, life conditions, life span, body parts, rhythm (hart beat), sexuality and reproduction, ...  
> **username_4**: Re:Anatomy of numbers, It's even possible to have anatomical roots for as seemingly weird bases as 23 or 27, with an extended body-part system as seen in some Papuan highland languages, where one counts the five fingers, then 5 points up the arm (joints and segments), various paths across the face, chest or collarbone, and then 10 more points for the other arm and hand. This system can then be expanded beyond the base by counting backwards again (though many languages instead loan Tok Pisin numerals in practice).  
> **username_1**: I still think this question is too broad. For a discussion see https://conlang.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/89/a-very-broad-question  

---

## 4 answers

### Answer by username_9 on 2018-02-18. Score: 19 | Accepted answer

Some obvious ones:

**Phonetics**, be it of spoken or signed language, is obviously constrained by the body of humans - both in the channels (aural, visual) employed and also in how they are employed.

**Metaphors** often make use of body parts. Spatial prepositions and adverbs are often derived from relevant body parts: front from face, forehead, nose, chest; back from back or butt; up from head… you get the picture. Basically every organ has been referred to as being the cause of emotions etc as well in metaphors.

Words for **directions** in particular are also somewhat based on human anatomy. We have lateral symmetry (left-right) but an alien could likely have some form of radial symmetry in their bodies, which would make the concepts of leftness and rightness very weird to them. Aquatic beings would also likely have a different concept of directions altogether, probably based more on the orientation of their own bodies than relative to the ground.

Those are the things that come to mind. However, much more importantly, the inner workings of language as a whole would likely be different from a human’s. There are some things in human language that you really wouldn’t assume to be necessary. Just to make two examples:

It seems pretty clear that humans take the raw audio input, break it into **segments** (phones) then further abstract those phones into **phonemes**, which are then in turn used to build more complex words. One could just as well imagine skipping the segmentation step and going directly from audio to meaning. There appears to be evidence however that some songbirds also employ what could be considered phonemes in their songs, so perhaps it is to be expected.

Another thing is in syntax: human language does not appear to allow circular dependencies, that is word¹ A modifying word B, which in turn modifies word A again. From my fairly limited understanding of syntax, human sentences can be structured in a tree structure. It seems plausible that an alien language might have more or less freedom, perhaps allowing cyclic graphs in their syntax… or in the other direction, only linear dependence. An example of an alien conlang playing around with this is [Europan](http://jbr.me.uk/euro/index.html), which I personally consider one of the most interesting conlangs I’ve ever encountered.

---

¹or clause


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2018-03-01. Score: 7

I think the question is not well formulated. Mostly because "language concepts" (e.g. tense-aspect-mood systems, animacy, verbal valence, case systems...) reflect the workings of the *human mind* far, far more than they could ever reflect the human anatomy. Anatomy/biology of course influences massive swathes of *semantics*, but I don't think anything other than pure phonetics or sign language is influenced by anatomy.

Facial expressions and body language probably belong there, but tend to have a huge cultural element. Position of the ears, for example, is not something humans make (or can make) use of, but [maybe elves could](https://just-ornstein.tumblr.com/post/171382070608/elf-ear-communication-headcannon).

Some more semantics example:

* We make distinctions useful to us *at our given size*. We cannot tell apart things by smell, or by UV light the way other animals (or measuring instruments) can. We do not tell apart very tiny things by basic names (e.g. ants, mites, sand). If we could sense, say, gravitic variations or psychic energies, we might have entirely different ways to describe position or time.
* *Time is linear to us*, cause precedes effects and so on, we cannot watch again a past event. This obviously affects how language models time and mood. Consider the [Observers from Fringe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9xShALLHAU) or any other species with a different perception of time. Their possibly utterly alien perception of time may well be the reason their writing is (apparently) indecipherable.
* "Fish" is not a proper biological class (and whether marine mammals are excluded from it in common parlance is debatable!) because we don't feel a need to be any more precise about it, but we would have better concepts for it *if we were a marine species*! Similarly, plants are divided, roughly, into, flowers, lianas, grass, trees and shrubs. This system is not even very efficient for Earth ecology!
* Expanding on the UV thing, *color words are constrained by our visual capacity*, and typically distinguish a [surprisingly limited number of basics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate). Forget the hierarchy part, nonderived terms usually stop around 6-8 words, why? A species with different color perception would do things differently. Mark Rosenfelder spends an entire *chapter* on this point in his *Conlanger's Lexipedia*.
* As far as *number base systems*, decimal and vigesimal are most common in humans because we have 10 fingers, and 20 fingers and toes. (although a huge number of bases have been documented, I don't think any languages have a binary or ternary one)
* *[Kinship terminology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinship_terminology)* is based off our own reproductive biology (and our gregariousness). What of a species where the embryo must be incubated in a member of a different species? What about a species where reproduction requires gametes from more than two individuals?

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you for answering what you don't consider a well formulated question. If you have ideas how to formulate it better I'd appreciate it. You make some very interesting points and the Lexipedia sounds very intriguing as well :)  
> **username_6**: If you're interested in conlang, the Lexipedia *the* first stop you should be making.  
> **username_5**: @Heimar I took "anatomy" at face value. Our brain/mind structure clearly has major influence on the way language functions. However, _the rest of our body_ , though it does affect language, doesn't really affect how syntax, word categories, valence operations etc. etc. function in human language as a whole besides the obvious case of phonetics and sign language.  

---

### Answer by username_7 on 2021-01-07. Score: 6

Just a couple of sci-fi examples:

Niven and Pournelle's *The Mote in God's Eye* has a race with two small manipulating arms on one side, and a large "gripping hand" arm on the other. Even the humans pick up the phrase "on the gripping hand" to mean a third alternative to two possibilities.

One of Spider Robinson's Callahan's Place stories has an alien species with trilateral symmetry. Having full 360-degree vision eliminates many ideas about distrust- "Blind-sided", "Stabbed in the back", etc.

And, going the other direction, L.Neil Smith's *Converse and Conflict"* has a scene where a human is explaining to an alien how Cold-War-ish Earth politics is causing friction among the multi-national human crew, and the alien observes that, if war breaks out on Earth, the captain

> "...will have a headache on his hands. Can you really say that? What an amazing language!"


---

### Answer by username_8 on 2021-05-02. Score: 4

Much of by is based upon anatomy. Mostly that of Phonetics, and, by extension, phonological change and glottochronology. If you look at the IPA, the various phonemes are based upon point of articulation and such. Dental, Bilabial, Palatal, Glottal, etc. So I would recommend looking at the structure of the mouth of the aliens in question, and looking at the IPA in order to see what sounds would be possible with them and which would be impossible. For example, if they have no teeth, they would not be capable of dental consonants.

This by extension can effect the way in which their sounds change, based upon what sounds are easier for them in any given situation.

The amount of digits can also effect what the most common radix would be for the languages, for example, in Humans the most common radix is 10 due to us having ten fingers. But, it is still not the only one used. Look at:

Mesopotamian: Base-60

Mayan Languages: Base-20

Pamaen: Base-8

Yam Languages: Base-6

Chumashan: Base-4

And so on. But more languages use Base-10 than any other base, due to the ease of counting in Base-10 compared to other bases, due to our ten fingers.

Note: If you want better bases, it is easier to divide and multiply numbers in Bases with a greater amount of factors. This is the main reason behind the Duodecimal Movement, due to 12 being a superior highly composite number, with four non-trivial factors (2,3,4,6) compared to Base-10's two non-trivial factors (2,5). You can find multiple bases and their mathematical properties on wikipedia


---

