Enter the Immortal Cultivation

Finally, Taifu Fengze called Zi Xuyi.

"Hey, brother Zixu." Wang Qi nodded: "We meet again. Now, you are the best at writing and learning in the Yu clan, right?"

"It's just that I have cherished and loved words since I was a child, so I have a little understanding of them and use them to compose poems and compositions." Zi Xuyi smiled modestly and said, "It's all trivial."

Zi Xuyi can be regarded as the most progressive among the Yu clan survivors. He worked very hard to learn human knowledge and arithmetic, and even his mastery of human language was extraordinary.

When Wang Qi was writing the history of arithmetic, he had also collaborated with him. Occasionally, he would come to the Yu clan to catch young men and let Zixu Yi ghostwrite some fragmentary things.

He did not expect that Zi Xuyi was the only remaining writing master of the Yu clan.

Zi Xuyi led Wang Qi to a basement. This place is filled with books and cultural relics. Zi Xuyi said: "During the great retreat, Your Majesty asked us to take with us this Tianjia dictionary that has been passed down from generation to generation by King Wen. This is the most complete dictionary of the Yu clan. If you really want to learn it, sir, This is the best place.”

Wang Qi nodded with satisfaction; "Very good, very good..."

Zi Xuyi said: "What do you want to learn, sir? Training? Exegesis? Or..."

"Why do you all start with this?" Wang Qi waved his hand: "No, you must learn, but before learning, I want to ask you a question."

Zi Xuyi was stunned: "Sir, please tell me."

“Do you know the ‘signified’ and ‘signifier’ of language?”

This question is what every college student majoring in linguistics on the planet learns in the first class after college.

Its root is the Swedish linguist Ferdinand de Saussure - the father of modern linguistics. Saussure's "Course of General Linguistics" completely rewrote the existence of the discipline of "linguistics". Before Saussure, the study of linguistics was within the scope of history, Chinese language, and comparative studies. Starting from Saussure, linguists began to study the structure of self-speaking language.

"General Linguistics Tutorial" talks about the basis of methods for studying natural language structure.

Language is a two-sided system. A word has a referent and a signifier. The "signified" points to an abstract concept, while the "signifier" points to the language of this word.

According to Saussure, there is a collection in the world. Each element in this set corresponds to one or several concepts in the objective world. Each word in any language corresponds to an element in this set. This concept is similar to Plato's view of the "ideal world".

For Saussure, the "structure" of language is an objective matter.

This is "structuralism" - linguistic structuralism that is different from the mathematical level structuralism of the Bourbaki school.

It is precisely with these basic structures and mathematical concepts with axiomatic properties that they naturally lead to Saussure's ideas.

It is possible to reduce language activities to strings of symbols produced according to some formal rules, and the symbols are linked to meanings in an idiomatic and arbitrary way.

In fact, the use of mechanical language is completed under the guidance of this idea.

In this world, however, this view would have been hard to come by in the early days of civilization.

Because, in this world, monks have very powerful mobility. Even in the early days of civilization, monks were enough to undertake the task of "communication". Within a species and a civilization, there are at most two or three languages, and the rest are dialects.

Without this contrast between different languages, it would be much more difficult to understand this level.

Moreover, under normal circumstances, there is no need to think like this - after all, a civilization only has one or two languages, so just learn one.

Because Wang Qi was interested in "structuralism", he threw out this structural linguistics when the human race came into contact with the Chen race.

In fact, the Chen people's rope-knotting method can also be divided into "signifier" and "signifier". The "signified" is the meaning of the knot, and the "signifier" is the structure of the knot in the three-dimensional space and the voice it represents.

This is still true even in the Chen language.

After listening to Wang Qi's explanation of the principles of "signified" and "signifier" and accepting the idea of ​​"semiotics", Zi Xuyi almost fell to the ground in admiration and said with shame: "After decades of reading, I have learned so much." I have been writing for decades, but I don’t even understand the essence of this ‘symbol’. If I hadn’t been enlightened by Mr. Wang Qi, I would have kept everyone in the dark... It’s a shame to kill me, it’s a shame to kill me!”

Wang Qi had a mouthful of old blood stuck in his throat: "Brother Zixu, don't kill me one by one like this. This makes it difficult for me to study!"

"How can students have the dignity to teach Mr. Wang Qi?" Zi Xuyi said, "Don't dare to make a fool of yourself..."

"How can you be so generous as to make people laugh?" Wang Qi said: "In terms of my extensive understanding of words, I am really not as good as you..."

"A knowledgeable person is not knowledgeable, and a knowledgeable person does not know." Zixu Yi said: "Mr. Wang Qi already knows the essence of writing, so why bother to seek exegesis methods without giving up the basics and chasing the last?"

"Hey, let me ask you, does your Yu Clan's philology have nothing more than exegesis?" Wang Qi was unhappy: "How come I'm so familiar with the principles of writing? How dare I say that I'm no better than you?" Is it clear?"

"This..." Zixuyi thought about it and felt that it made sense. Although Mr. Wang Qi was unreliable and had to make up auspicious meanings for the gifts he gave to his friends, his knowledge was always real. Perhaps, he could really see places that he could not see.

Therefore, Zixuyi could only bow again and said, "I understand."

Wang Qi was helpless. If possible, he really didn't want to deal with these literary races. The Yu Clan, the God of Beauty, the God of True Flame, and the Ming Clan, which one didn't make him laugh and cry, and exhausted?

However, he really had to deal with these guys.

How to say it, this is paving the way for "formal linguistics".

Formal linguistics is a discipline that is a sibling of computer science. "Touré Grammar" and "Word Problem", one of the early achievements of formal linguistics, are exactly one of the computer languages. This is the earliest attempt by mathematicians to perform mathematical operations on language, and it is a natural extension of Saussure's modern linguistics.

Going a step further is Chomsky's "Syntactic Structures".

"Syntactic Structures" is hailed as "the greatest achievement of linguistics in the 20th century", but in fact, its influence has transcended the concept of "linguistics" and extended to "computer science".

In other words, as a "linguist", Chomsky's universality of linguistics has transcended natural language and penetrated into more basic high-level languages. The Chomsky system will be involved in the basic courses of computer science because it conveys insights into a variety of formal languages.

Biologists also use Chomsky's achievements to explain some biological phenomena. Niels Girne, the winner of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, used Chomsky's generative model to explain the human immune system. He compared "various features of protein structure" to "various components of generative grammar". Girne's Stockholm Nobel Lecture was titled "Generative Grammar of the Immune System".

Of course, after the concept of "central dogma" was established, the concept of information science invaded life science. Concepts of information science such as transcription, translation, and expression have long become part of life science.

But this is the first time for him to enter the field of life science as a "linguist".

He even entered the history of mathematics and biology.

Objectively speaking, the uninformed cooperation between Wang Qi and Ai Qinglan in deciphering the code was a natural application of Chomsky's theory.

And this is what Wang Qi wants to accomplish.

Linguistics above linguistics.

Linguistics that can guide all calculator languages ​​and grammars.

The talisman language that can be applied to the shapeshifting method and even all spells.

And all of this requires the completion of "mathematical operations on text". In this way, linguistics itself will continue to deepen with the study of mathematics - rather than being superficial and exploring the origins of history and humanities.

In Shenzhou, any concept bound to "mathematics" means "the gate of all methods will not be destroyed, and the orthodoxy will not be lost".

If this step is completed, the calculator language can be further deepened and simplified, and more people can be involved in Wang Qi's calculator research and development, truly "gathering the wisdom of everyone".

Moreover, Wang Qi has the capital to do so.

Chomsky is also one of those great scholars who "can only be compared with the dead". However, Wang Qi has not failed to achieve his achievements independently, and even made some progress in the opposite direction.

The reason is simple, the gift of the goddess of beauty.

The languages ​​collected by the goddess of beauty are vast, and the number of languages ​​is even more than the total number of humans who have ever existed on the earth. One person cannot learn all the languages.

As a linguist, Chomsky cannot learn so many languages.

Moreover, these languages ​​are not only sound wave languages, but also light waves, spiritual waves, electromagnetic waves and many other different forms.

Although, it is not that knowing many languages ​​can make you the greatest mathematician.

However, just like what Wang Qi advocated, "Daily practice of mental arithmetic is the basis of becoming a mathematician". If you are not willing to practice mental arithmetic and cultivate a natural feeling for "numbers", then becoming a mathematician is just nonsense.

The same is true for linguistics. If you learn enough languages, you will naturally be able to produce "insights" that are close to the Tao.

Not to mention that "Language Mastery" is mixed with the insights of the ultimate literary youths such as the goddess of beauty into words.

Wang Qi needs to incorporate these insights into the theoretical scope of mathematics.

The only problem is that Wang Qi's language mastery was given by others. He can only be regarded as knowing the result but not the reason...