Sorry dumb question: how to export MOV file [update - you press the SAVE button]

* 100% of any language, be it natural or constructed (pictorial, maths, coding) is historical. Of course, living languages are permanently "updated" by users thereof.
* I suspect that hunting for the mentioned Chüchichäschtli in the tribal homelands of Ceasar´s Helvetii would mostly find current IKEA replicas.
* The same applies to the Hamburgian Hanseatic Hummel, Hummel - Morse, Morse which is mildly vulgar though many Hanseatic speakers may not even know it.
* I am aware that we are discussing pictorial symbols here and not the finer linguistic points of the Wulfila Bible, Arthurian Legends, Beowulf or Willy, the Bard.

* In language consistency is important, otherwise it ceases to be a tool for communication. I have some doubts that some of us can still effectively communicate, largely due to the idiolects deployed by previous / subsequent generations, social strata, politicians and the "simple" jargon used by specialists.
 
Uh, for once I tried to keep it simple ...

For me, language is one of the most important themes existing, because our ability to understand and manipulate symbols of any kind is the basis for any higher thought. As already stated before in other threads, I also believe, like Helmut, that exactly this important ability is weakening in more and more people (it's said, though, that youngsters are more elaborate with icons as a means of communication, but it's not possible to send very complex messages this way).

The horrible orthography you can see in any German message board of the bigger news papers is not the problem, only a symptom. Here around it seems a majority that seem to be communicatively handicapped, especially as they don't seem to be used to longer texts anymore. So I often experience the difficulty of getting over quite simple concepts. I get all too often only bovine stares back (and in German I belong to that fraction of people who like longer, elegant sentences, but on the other hand use 'foreign words' only when necessary (or in use such a long time already that they are not seen as such anymore). I always tried to avoid jargon. When I am not able to get the meaning across, I usually see this at least in the beginning as my fault. I have to find the right language to talk to a specific person and his or her knowledge. But sometimes, I have to admit, I get impatient, especially when I don't know how to say it in still another way. So sometimes I get plain rude and talk in infinity form. When I did this for the first time many years ago (I simply was a bit angry), I really expected getting hit or at least verbal abused, as I had insulted that person more than if I had called him names. Instead he thanked me because now he had understood. Well, I wanted to bang my head on the next wall, but for me this is (another) symbol of how bad it really is. And yes, some of those people are plain stupid as bricks, but most are of at least average intelligence, some even bright. They just never learned to manipulate symbols that well, out of the reasons Helmut already stated and some others, like the mass media and several concepts of modern education. We also experimented too much.

The problem here is (and that's also why my rudeness worked) the one ground rule of communications that's so basic that it got forgotten by every theory about it I ever read (be that Watzlawick or Schulz von Thun or the dozens of others whose names I happily forgot); True communication is only possible on the same level.

Now all this seems to digress very far from 3d. But in creating pictures or at least models we do communicate and usually try to get a message across, a concept or a feeling. Some of it we do conscious, a lot more is said without us knowing of it (it's said that youngsters understand pictures better than the older generations, but to be honest, I think it's only in a superficial manner. That can be wrong, as a lot of people are not able to express there insights anymore ...). And if one isn't careful, one can have something in a picture or icon, that will be interpreted totally wrong (because we weren't careful), as for example can be seen in some logos where the graphic artist was less then careful (just use the search engine of your trust to see some of this stuff).

So it's never wrong to stick to the (short) tradition in creating icons of any kind. They simple are better understood even if the thing in itself is not really known anymore (our alphabets probably started once as pictorial symbols).

As an aside:
Don't know when the 'chuchichäschtli' was mentioned (for those who don't speak German: It's a smaller kitchen cupboard, a Swiss German word, that Germans and Austrians can't pronounce correctly (especially if the think they do). But Ikea hasn't a big say there here around (I could explain why but somehow that's too much digressing), and it's a word, that Swiss People in reality use sparingly and especially not in several of our dialects (in Bern they call it a 'schäftli', because we usually let the 'chuchi' part away anyway).

And there are are here around a lot of examples where people don't really know anymore what's the real meaning of a word (for example 'grind' for head in some of our Swiss dialects. And never, I repeat, never explain your mother where the word 'mami' (or mama) has it's roots.
 
* Thank you.
* I am mildly aware that Chuchichäschtli is a mildly obsure shibboleth (if you don´t mind me switching to Yiddish, which I grasp as well as any elderly speaker of Viennese).
* I think I fully support most (but not all) of your comments.
* In particular, I disagree that orthography (eg, I C U 2morrow, et al) is relevant. It is just a different, but mutually comprehensible dialect. It may lack complexity, but folks are not discussing Wittgenstein on Twitter.
* I do profoundly object to your hypothesis that communication is only possible on the same level. This would render didactic methods (from the ancients Greeks to teaching babies to any academic institution) useless.
* A major point must be that we (humans, but millions years before this particlular genus evolved lots of other species) have been visual animals. I have read repeatedly that 80% of verbal communication is non-verbal, depending on subtle melodic clues (stress, prosody), visual clues of facial expressions and body language.

* And finally, for canines: Whilst I don´t spend much of my time sniffing the bums of my fellow humans, this may be another level of communication which replaces language with olfactory markers.
* Needless to add, our body communicates internally (and highly efficiently) using chemical / electrical / biomolecular / possibly quantum vocabulary, grammar and semantics.

:unsure: On a different scale, our Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy next door use a different language, but they still may get married in the distant future.
 
Actually, when you disagree I usually think that I am wrong. Not this time, though.


Orthography:

There's a little misunderstanding. Like I said, it's a symptom, not the problem. And I mean the 'normal language', not other forms and abbrevations but normal texts as you see in comments in news sites (like tagesanzeiger or 20 minuten in Switzerland. That's why i mentioned the newspapers because there you can find very often a lot of examples). So I c u, is maybe not part of the duden but correct in the context as it is a code with it's own rules (I don't see this as faulty orthography). "Standart" on the other hand or "Vater's Auto's" is plain wrong but still understandable perfectly well and could theoretically change to be the new rule in a few decades. But I read some texts over the years where parts were completely, totally and fully incomprehensible because the writer couldn't handle orthography and grammar. This happens very seldom, and actually I think all in all it's a little better then it was some 10 years ago (at least here around), but if you are not able to understand and use the rules, you lose with certainty to a certain degree the ability to express more complex thoughts.

This 'net speak' or whatever you want to call it has it's own, simple orthography. If that gets out of hand, the end result is very fast simple garbage. And I'm not a stickler to the rules, as I don't see any problem with people like Joyce. Ulysses may be not that easy to understand but Joyce broke the rules willingly and with intention (there are others who tried the same with different intentions and especially different success (I don't know anybody personally who ever made it through Schmidt's "Zettel's Traum" (the apostrophe here is the writes choice)).

Wittgenstein is a funny example as he used his own code and signs to express certain thought's (I have to admit, it's a long, long time since I read his tracttus philosophicus).

So all in all, each code has it's own 'orthography'. If this convention is too often broken, it's not possible to get the meaning anymore. The simpler the code, the more it has to stick to the rules, while the human mind can od qiute a lto of eror corecton (even sometimes with a bit of difficulty) in more complex codes.


Communication on the same level:

Again I believe I couldn't get the thougt really across with my limited ability to write in English. I mean level as 'ebene', where one on a 'higher' level (for example someone with more expertise in a certain field) has to address the other ones level to make himself understood. We are able to change our own level to that of the recipient of our message to a certain degree (with knowledge it's downward, sometimes sideways, never upward when you communicate. But I have to know, ideally experienced, the other ones level to do that. Learning is a way to get on another level over time).

I see didactic methods as exactly that: Train the teacher to use language and complexity of the theme that can be understood by the student. It has to be on his level, not on the teacher's. The latter has to translate. That's why books for small children do use very simple, easy language. It's roughly on their level.

So, when I write communication is only possible on the same level, I mean it literally. I can learn from something that's way over my head, but I will not be able to understand it at the moment. I may have to learn first some concepts or meanings of words; but at the moment I plain can't make head nor tail of something that's not on my level. If a six year old reads Ulysses he usually will not get much out of it.

So when you use yiddish, for example, you can't get the thought across because you are not talking on my level. I can understand those words that have their roots in German but not those that stem from hebrew (never heard any yiddish in reality). Shibboleth I have never heard of. I couldn't understand your first sentence without looking it up first in the net. So I have to get on the same level (in this case easy as it's just one word for which I could find easily a translation).

So yes, not being on the same level can start a learning process, but it's not true communication anymore.

And I mean 'level' in any meaning of the word that I know of: language, culture, experience, knowledge, sometimes circumstances, sometimes even gender. You probably know the example of the taste of the strawberry that you can't explain to somebody who has never even seen or smelled one. It's sour and sweet at the same time (which would fit to a description of quite some foods), but there is something very typically about it.

Because of all this, there were people who even went that far to believe (and write) that true communication isn't possible at all. While I disagree, there are for sure some situations where a lot gets lost in translation. There are things you only can get across very roughly.

But this level-concept is the reason why I search the fault first by myself when somebody doesn't understand me. It could very well be that the only problem is the way I try to explain something, not the others inability to get it. I have to find his level of understanding and see maybe something as evident which isn't when you don't have the specific knowledge.

Of course this can be used the other way around. I more then once experienced when somebody talked bullshit in his professional jargon to disguise the fact that he didn't get and couldn't solve the problem. It's funny if you understand the jargon.

And I misuse this sometimes to check if somebody does fake understanding. I change the level to something where I'm sure the other can't really understand me anymore. If the person still agrees, I can be relatively sure that he or she is acting which I then address (but, dear children, don't do this at home).

So I hope you can agree now with my statement.
 
Part 2 (because I ran into the limit of 10'000 chars ... Sorry about that. But I really think that this is important for any human being and especially for us as 3d artists).

Body language, smell, etc.:

Those are things understood worldwide because they are mostly in our genes. Smell is a very important part of it.

Some parts that are often seen as body language are learned and depend on the culture. But in a strict sense, that's simple a sign language (and again there you have the level problem. (There are people who mean that something is ok or good when thy form a ring with the thumb and the forefinger. One shouldn't do that in Italy). It's still non-verbal, of course.

But people like Aspergers (a mild form of autism) have to learn to understand this ingrained body language actively (facial expression is an important part of it). At least some of them otherwise couldn't see when someone is angry. One described faces to me as white spaces that didn't have any other meaning than identification for him. Again, I probably can't truly understand him and how that feels, because I'm on another plane than he was before learning those things, even if I think so and have some (vague) idea of how that must be.

Smell, unconsciously, seems to have an important role for liking somebody (so deodorant and perfume are a problem sometimes as they hinder communication. Not to use it would create other problems (I really once had to get out of a streetcar (not named desire) because a fat guy stank so horribly, I started to gag immediately when he sat down beside me. I had to walk a little bit because of that and missed my train)). We don't smell our butts but there is still some communication going on through our olfactory senses even in our culture.

Where I don't agree: Stress isn't a signal, the signals convey the stress (smell one of those signals).

So a lot of our non-verbal communication is somehow hindered by the circumstances.

Of course, there are some problems when people, who are not trained for it (and sometimes even those), try to read body language consciously. For example the agreed meaning of folding the arms is simple that someone isn't willing to accept anymore the other's thoughts. He sticks to his meaning (and salesman learn to manipulate the target (or sometimes the mark) so he or she will unfolding the arms. Only then the sales pitch goes on). I for myself sometimes fold my arms when I'm a little bit cold, still being able to accept someone else's thougts and ideas (some people would disagree. With mimicking body language (like smiling or looking angry) you can to a certain degree create the according feelings).

Or the most well known example of somebody showing that he lies when his eyes for a moment go to the left, bill clinton in his hearing aboout the levinsky affair, when he denied everything. That part is often shown as an example (we know that he lies). But first, there are left handed people around where it may be the other way around (not for sure, though), and Clinton looked in my opinion to the left because something was going on there. He seems clearly distracted.

I read that with the 80 percent, too. I'm not sure, if it's not even more, as even specialists don't fully understand it (and that's a dangerous field. It could open the doors to many kinds of manipulation, as they try since the fifties of the 20. century, especially for selling stuff).

So even here is room for a lot of misunderstandings (not all having to do with a different level).

By the way, non-verbal communication includes stuff like clothing, hair styles, tattoos, any form of jewellery, status symbols like cars, music, any pictures, used colors. And there is a second rule of communications: You can't not communicate. We do it all the time, even when we're alone (only without a recipient it can't be true communication at all as nobody is there to understand it).

This is important stuff for several reasons, for one that with art of any kind we do communicate, but almost never get fully the intended meaning across. Another one is that lots of people (for themselves or for entities like firms, partys and so on), try do manipulate us with non-verbal communication. Because a lot of it is subconscious we are a bit more prone to the effects (and for those who think, that advertising or any of the sales tricks in supermarkets etc. never had any influence on them, think twice about it. Because if you think you're immune, you're most susceptible to these techniques).


Aliens:

I'm not so sure if you really mean the aliens with the different galaxies. They will not produce offspring even if they get married, but I'm not even sure if communication would be possible at all. Chemical or mathematical formulas could very well be the only things understood by both civilications (even if they come from our galaxy) because live forms on different planets probably don't have that much in common as we humans usually think.
 
* As to Yiddish: The Viennese dialect is surprisingly rich in Yiddish terms and phrases, mainly Germanic / Hebrew plus a few Aramaic and Slavic bits. Most locals will use such idioms without even realising their etymology. The Swiss Jewry used Western Yiddish which is basically extinct whilst Vienna, due to its neo-absolutist role in the multi-ethnic Habsburg Monarchy had a more varied and richer linguistic culture.
* I guess it is like NYC or Hollywood where Yiddish terms are understood whilst USians in Texas or the Midwest will have no idea. There are quite a number of daily newspapers in Yiddish still being published in NYC.
* Purely speculating, I could imagine that the Amish (Pennsilvania Deutsch) and the Ashkenazy community in NYC may have some common vocabulary.
 
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