MovieChat Forums > The Fourth Kind (2009) Discussion > I really liked the sumerian tie-in at th...

I really liked the sumerian tie-in at the end.

posted 12 years ago by sreagin88
7 replies | jump to latest

This movie didn't impress me or blow me away. I enjoyed it, but probably not enough to watch it a second time. I don't agree with all the hate here on the message boards but i can kind of understand it. Having said that...
I really like the tie-in towards the end with the Sumerian language. When Abby contacted the Professor that specialized in the Sumerian language up through when he was translating the language on Abby's tapes it kinda dawned on me what the writer/ director was getting at. I thought it was a cool little twist that they threw in, that the aliens had visited ancient Sumeria and taught their language to humans. (Keep in mind i understand this is a movie and i don't believe in little green men).
I was going to rate this movie a 5/10 stars because to me it was mediocre and nothing to write home about, but given the last sequence with the Sumerian stuff, i upped my vote a little bit to a 7 because i enjoyed that part so much.
Just wanted to share my thoughts.
Thanks,
Sreagin88 :)

[–] JimSpy 11 years ago

But...but...did it never occur to you that no one alive today or for thousands of years has ever heard Sumerian actually spoken? And thus there is no way to translate it simply by hearing it? That thought jumped out at me so much that I was distracted for the rest of the movie.

==JJS==

[–] Strazdamonas 8 years ago

Noone alive today or for over a thousand of years has ever heard ancient roman and greek spoken, yet we know fully how to phonetically translate them. It would be strnage if there were no theories of Sumerian phonetics.

------------------------------------------------
The spirit of abysmal despair

[–] JimSpy 8 years ago

We can draw a pretty tight linguistic connection from "ancient roman" (which of course is Latin) to today's Romance language family, mainly because so much of it is based on Latin. We may not know how exactly to pronounce it, but something tells me that a Latin professor could go back in time and converse pretty handily with a prætorian guardsman. And ancient Greek is actually even closer, I believe.

On the other hand, I would find it strange if there were a theory of Sumerian phonetics. How would you even begin to derive it?

==JJS==

[–] SirWizard 8 years ago

Cuneiform inscriptions in Sumerian have survived from ancient times. Also, linguists would have derived some basic sounds by examining words common to later related languages and making reasonable inferences about the source language.

[–] Illyngophobia 11 years ago

While I do think the tie-in is interesting (as ancient cultures and language fascinates me) JimSpy has a point and I don't know why that didn't sink in from the start for me.

"I'll go,because I am Cinema!" - Ben (Man Bites Dog)

[–] Theshornwonder 8 years ago

Nobody knew how to pronounce or speak Ancient Egyptian either, but study has presented a few variations. Cuneiform has the same result.

[–] Strannger (2007) 8 years ago

I wish they had shown flashbacks or had the aliens speak it. The sound they made sounded more like gibberish and clicks.