Just because it's a very nice poem, I thought I'd mention that those "it's" should really be "its". . .

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Here, kitty, kitty, kitty...

.

But the idea of phonosemantics is that the associations of other words have an influence on our interpretation of new words.

Mellimor and Kezelmat? Those are great!

Like I said, that was just a simple example. We are only using a few letters in that example. The question is how to "rationally" construct the system for putting together phonemes into distinct units for astronomical data in particular, but in a way that provides the information contained in other systems as well. That is what I meant when speaking of the construction of connectionist models - the subtlety of connecting related ideas without allowing them to fall into the gulf of obscurity and indistinguishability.

No offense to any Brits, but I may be busy July 4. After that I hope to post a few ideas for language schema, if there's interest. It will hopefully demonstrate what it is I mean.

Hi,

I'm still working on this phonoaesthetic schema for naming planets. I have a sort of fundamental ontological question. It is this: Might my aim be to reflect sensory human experience, or to show what exists logically? I'll try to explain what I mean with an example not to be taken as particularly significant..

Let's say a planet is notable for being hot. Let's call it Planet "Heat". "Heat" is a word that just sounds sizzling when it's pronounced. Now let's say another is Planet "Cold". "Cold" to my ear sounds cutting and draining. These words both reflect to some degree an immediate sensation and possibly action resulting from contacting something very hot or very cold respectively.

Now let's think about the actual phenomena. It is often said that cold is just the absence of heat - molecular kinetics. It could be as easily said that molecular kinetics is the absence of molecular stability, but that just doesn't sound as true to experience. We expect things stationary until disturbed. We see kinetic energy as additional to a common and predictable zero state.

So, following this convention, instead of Planet Cold, we will say Planet No-Heat. Let's say the sound "No" is representative of a negative void. In that case, No-Heat means "void from emanating molecular kinetics". What we have lost is the immediate sensation of "Cold", and in its place we are actually instantiating its opposite, "Heat", as we negate it.

So, what do you think: Planet "Cold" or Planet "No-Heat"? And what about for other concepts?

My opinion about the cold/no-heat question is somewhat related to my dislike of so-called philosophical languages (like Loglan). In formulating concepts one has two choices: how human beings sense things, and how we know that nature works. My choice would be for the humanocentric approach. If people feel cold as a real feeling, not simply the absence of heat (and we certainly do), then I would suggest using "cold" and not "no-heat." I could add the caveat that it might be worthwhile looking at other languages than English. If it turns out that a lot of natural languages use "non-hot" to mean "cold", then I could see using it. But every language that I've studied has a separate word for "cold".

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It's interesting also that you started this thread proposing purely Latin names, but now seem to have moved into an a priori naming scheme. It sounds like maybe you are looking for something "pure," that you don't really like the current hodgepodge approach.

Edited to add: looking back at the OP, I see that stated specifically that you liked consistency. So I am merely restating that.

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The IAU should design a simple program that randomly generates a dozen names composed of six letters from the International Phonetic Alphabet comprised of three consonants and three vowels or four consonants and two vowels. A lucky lottery winner could then choose their favourite!

We would have trans-neptunian objects called things like a-l-a-n-zh-a or g-r-ai-m-oo-l.

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Yonder is Dubhe seen on Earth tonight as it was in the days of Grover Cleveland's presidency whereas this way is Deneb seen as it was in the lifetime of Muhammed . If one somehow travelled to Deneb at very close to c then whenever you looked back you'd measure Earth as closer to you than the distance you would simultaneously measure between Earth and Dubhe.

Don't they already do something like that with their Minor Planet Centre

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The french word for hot is chaud, which sounds more like the english word cold than hot. Even if we look for a pure sound that evoked an onomatapoietic sound, it may still be culturocentric instead of a human universal concept.

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Is that their "generate ephemerides" application?

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Yonder is Dubhe seen on Earth tonight as it was in the days of Grover Cleveland's presidency whereas this way is Deneb seen as it was in the lifetime of Muhammed . If one somehow travelled to Deneb at very close to c then whenever you looked back you'd measure Earth as closer to you than the distance you would simultaneously measure between Earth and Dubhe.

I'm not sure, I just assume that as they catalogued NEO's they would have a naming / numbering convention already established.

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They are numbered as they are identified. They are named by their
discoverers, subject to approval. A discoverer could give naming rights
to someone else. I expect that selling the rights would be frowned
upon unless it was for a charitable cause.

I believe someone named an asteroid for a pet dog (Not Pluto), and it
wasn't caught by the committee. They don't want people doing that,
but I don't see anything wrong with it.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

That's a good point. There is always a counterexample in some language, so my example wasn't meant to be too literal. On a wild supposition, I might guess the French are big on gastronomy, as were the Romans, so I could imagine their word for heat might be related to something useful. Chaud might be anciently related to our words for chowder and cauldron - a sort of useful (especially for killing parasites), not painful, heat. A sort of heat that "cuts" through branches and cold, "crusting" bread and "charring" meat to "chew" and to "consume". Like I said, total conjecture to illustrate a point.

No offense to the French, but, it could be argued that, when it comes to Golden Age naming at least, they provide plaster standards. After all, our months are named strangely for gods, emperors, and numerals; chemical elements have rather false "-gen" titles; Neptune was Planet La Verrier.

[addition:]

I just realized I have three threads running all related to the topic, "Something that kills organisms or produces change can be good and useful for the human body in one way, but not in directly-applied larger amounts".

So, do you see this as being something that might change on a word-by-word basis? In other words, might sensory experience be a mask over conceptual knowledge? For something we respond to quickly due to necessity - a person feels fire, and doesn't have time to contemplate the mechanism of heat production - all one cares about is the sensory zero standard of "comfortable sense of touch". Or, in the case of freezing cold, might it be that a person always feels that they need heat, that it is a necessity, and the moment they hear "No-Heat", they respond immediately to this lacking? For concepts that do not require immediate mental processing, words may be expressed differently and in a more precise manner?

I think of that verse every time I see the name of this thread, and even considered referring to it this time. Thanks for posting it!

True, lots of naming conventions that are arbitrary. So, maybe this one could be too, a little. We might follow my own private mantra of "standardization without conformity" and create a base code for the construction of names in a manner similar to what I described above, using sounds that you think are appropriate. Then, the rest of the world can get used to it, if they care enough to think about why the system was setup that way (which the majority of them probably won't).

As for what you and Jens are talking about, with regards to feeling heat, I might offer some insight. IIRC from anatomy class in high school and college, humans detect neither hot nor cold, but delta-T, or a change in temperature. I don't know how fine the resolution is nor what the upper or lower limits are. Moreover, there are other nerve sensations tied into that which are, nevertheless, different sensations and nerves. This might include pain and pressure if the heat or lack of heat causes localized physiological phenomena detectable by those nerves. I suppose that extended hypothermia or hyperthermia can reveal itself more generally via systemic effects as well, perhaps with general malaise if certain nerves at the core, like the vasovagal nerve, are stimulated from those systemic effects.

While I'm on the topic, it might also be interesting to note that other methods of stimulation can result in a sensation of heat, such as certain chemicals (e.g. capsaicin) and pressure. After all, a pinched nerve can also present a burning feeling, which I discovered all too well a few months ago.

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Not on topic either, but I think that's not quite accurate. Maybe it's a simplification. I think that what we feel is actually whether our body is having to expend energy to keep our body temperature up or down. The reason I say this is that air at 35 centigrade feels uncomfortably warm, whereas getting into a bath at 35 centigrade feels cold. I think it's because the 35 degree water drains out body heat, whereas the air doesn't. In any case, I can go outside in cold temperature, and keep feeling cold even if the temperature hasn't changed.

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We have sensory nerve endings in the dermis (the layer between epidermis
and hypodermis) that respond to "hot" and others that respond to "cold".
"Hot" and "cold" are defined by the sensory mechanisms. The parts of the
brain which interpret the signals from these nerves at a low level aren't
aware that "hot" and "cold" are actually parts of the same continuum.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Good point, Jeff. I can't seem to find my human perception book. Maybe it's bad form, but I'll go by the Wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoreceptor. It states (with poor grammar)..

So, apparently, specific pain receptors are involved, explaining the likeness to other pain perceptions you described, Ara. Why pinched-nerve pain feels hot over cold, I can't say. [ed: Maybe pain receptors tend to kick in more quickly or frequently for the case of heat.] In the case of the bath experiment you described, Jens, I'd guess this feeling is due to a relatively constant temperature difference (in a very large bath), as the water draws away the heat by Newton cooling, while your skin maintains approximately the same specific heat capacity. This wakes a person up initially, then becomes eventually draining.

[ed: I just reread your post, Jens, and remembered you were talking about a particular temperature of 35 degC. Oops.]

In this case of two different types of low-level response mechanisms, hot and cool, it would seem that sensory response is to be the measured quantity, instead of measuring a certain maintained amount of heat energy in the skin. So, "No-Heat"associates to No-Hot-Response and therefore does not seem as emotionally powerful or representative as "Cool-Response".

I keep trying to imagine that No-Response normally means atomic particles of air and skin moving and colliding at an almost continual rate. But I don't know how easy it is to internalize this idea. It seemed cumbersome, until I started trying to think about things relative to absolute hot [ed: which is possibly equivalent to absolute zero]. "Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions" (OWHolmes).

What do these last few posts have to do with the choices of names for planets?

Yes, we're using two hypothetical planets "Hot" and "Cold" known for being extreme in temperature to try to determine what sensory experience and cognitive processing might say about a best-naming scheme. Hopefully, if we could pin down at least this little example in a way that is satisfactory to us, a little light might shine on other examples. Temperature is not really the focus, in fact it may be a terrible way to describe a planet. But its consideration could say something important about language, memory, and sense.

Maybe the universal symbol for cold is not the "cold" phoneme but the "burr" phoneme.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

I had opportunity at one time to give names to California reservoirs if not named.

If historical they were named historically found out and named, but if not I named out on the giant reservoirs, after me , my parents and my girl friend.

So on the map there, but just four.

Never get off map now.

Ara, IMO, that's brilliant! (Although I'm not sure why you use the term "phoneme".)

It seems to me what you've done is to focus on the physically acting portion of the perceiving-acting cycle (PAC). That was exactly what I was ignoring by focusing on sensation/sense memory and representation/cognition/memory.

The reasoning, it would seem, is that it is difficult to form a clearly defined and commonly understood phonemic-sequence expression for a perception or cognitive representation; a physical act, however, is easily measurable.

But on a more philosophical note, it is the human response to the situation. Vibrating the lips and cheeks and breathing heavily are ways to keep heat in the face.

So, it seems you are assuming..
1) There is a common human response to cold
2) It involves making a sound with the mouth
3) The sound made is common
4) The common sound is representable

It seems also that we now have 5 methods of possible phonemic construction:
1) A physical sound at the source - eg, ice cracking, "k"
2) A nonauditory sensation interpreted as sound - eg, painful cold, "ow"
3) A cognitive representation interpreted as sound - eg, knife cutting, "k"
4) A physical reaction producing speech - eg, "brr"
5) A physical reaction sound interpreted as speech - eg, rubbing hands, "shh"

There are various perceptual and cognitive mappings along the way, but these seem like the basic categories to me.

It seems as if we are discussing two different things in this thread. One is how to name stars, the other is a more technical discussion of sound symbolism, related to a proposal for naming stars. I'm very interested in the issue of sound symbolism, and the idea of using "brrr" for cold is something that I find interesting, specifically for use in a sort of international pidgin language.

However, I think the idea of using some kind of sound symbolism for naming celestial objects is not a good idea. I think a system basically like we have now, of cataloguing objects and giving stars names based on a constellation and letter or number of some kind, is the most practical. And it performs very adequately for what it's supposed to do. After all, it is only people with a serious interest in astronomy who have any interest in the names of all but the most prominent stars in the sky.

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But I think that it's a more generalized shivering than a labial fricative. I don't know if the distinction makes a difference.

Jens may be right, but as we discover more exoplanets, it might be a good idea to have a better way for naming than the current system of I-saw-it-first, apotheosis, and whim.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

I'm assuming we are talking about a sound approximation, eschewing bizarre sounds that lie close but generally exist outside the range of clear speech. (Technically, it may be something like "brhbrbrhhhh".)

Agreed; what is a constellation but the most powerful symbolism that can be attributed to a group of dots? I think it is exactly because this is an example of celestial hermeneutics that it should be maintained. And if it is possible to relate the constellations in a consistent way to one another as a whole, then that is preferred. And if it is possible to identify the most significant and outstanding characteristics of bodies within a constellation, then that is to be preferred, also. I have only recently taken up an interest in astronomy, so I will beg ignorance of the systems out there for naming the dots in the sky. It seems obvious that planets orbiting our Sun would be more intimate than planets in another system. It doesn't seem obvious that visibility should be the only measure for ranking intimacy, however - a huge body relatively near to us may be darker than one far away.

I think it is important to include the history and evolution of celestial bodies as part of their characteristic. In other words, what is known of their past and what is expected in the future course of events - explosions, movements, etc - should affect their names. Also, our envisioned journey through the future could affect their names; if we expect to spend much time on Mars, then perhaps Mars should have a close relation to human events.

An interesting point is that the bodies near to us we know the most about, so a name might be given to convey much information. On the other hand, a close body is also likely to be intimate, so that a short name is preferred, due to the frequency of referring to the body. Maybe a constellation should have about the same level of intimacy as a planet. And perhaps a large planetary feature should have about the same level of intimacy as a visible star.

To be honest, I don't find anything wrong with the current system, even the whim and apotheosis (how do you know such a word? It means naming things after gods?).

When I first started studying Japanese a long time ago, there was something that fascinated me (being the easily fascinated type). I found out that the days of of the week were named after "elements" of the ancient kind, and that incidentally the planets were too. And because my second language is French, I knew that it was pretty much done the same way (moon for monday, mars for tuesday, etc.) First, I assumed that the Japanese had borrowed the idea from Europe during the Meiji restoration, but not so. The sysetm was borrowed from the Chinese, who borrowed it from the Indians I think, who borrowed it from the Babylonians, and I'm under the impression that it goes back to the Sumerians. So here we have this intriguing historical story.

So when things are done at whim, then we build up this sort of historical story of names. Why are some stars (in English I mean) named after their Arabic names, and others their Greek names? There's a cultural story or something there, and changing the names to some kind of a priori system would seem to take away from that.

I know a guy, a language designer, who seriously believes that the names of countries should be changed to a word based on the latitude/longitude of the capital of the country. To be that is rational but (I don't want to say stupid, but I'm not sure what word to use). The country names we have now have a cultural significance.

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It seems that your story reinforces the idea of influential common language schema. I certainly would never claim to be able to understand anything at all close to the entirety of language. That is why I would walk with the best railing I can find - that being a systematic search for meaning. Now that is not to take on hubris, claiming the grail of rationality, and losing all humility. Language is a magical thing, just look at how involved the "Hot"-"Cold" example has become.

I think of it kind of like simulated annealing. We begin with some broad constraints as we knock around ideas. Eventually, though, due to the fact that only a few people are working on developing a system to represent a large range of meaning, the systematics must take over and allow a straightforward development process. Luckily there is a wide range of data available on a variety of languages to show just how "representative" any constructed language really is in the end.