The Linguistics of Project Hail Mary

This video takes a closer look at the linguistic aspects of Andy Weir's 'Project Hail Mary'. How is communication between Rocky and Grace established, and how realistic is the presentation of the language-learning process? Concepts such as ostensive communication, iconicity and indexicality, prosody and inflection, and pragmatics and sarcasm shed light on these questions. 00:00 Does the language science check out? 01:17 Four convincing issues, three critical issues 01:47 Establishing communication 02:34 Ostensive communication 04:16 Iconicity 06:51 Displacement 07:58 Indexicality 09:26 Symbols 10:36 A shared vocabulary 14:00 Swadesh list 14:26 Non-linear Eridian 18:42 Rocky does sarcasm 21:30 WAY too fast 23:40 Eridian speech processing 28:06 Figuring out grammar 30:34 Eridian Duolingo 32:38 Final "Question?" 39:21 More Eridian linguistics!