Physiology Shapes Speech
Essay Three in the series: Crafting the Whale's Tongue
If our physiology gave us another channel — say, light instead of sound — how would we even define speech?
This series of essays is designed to discuss how I am crafting an alien language for my WIP, World Beyond the Song, in which an alien race becomes known as the Biet Lagos.
The Biet Lagos, as mentioned in the first essay of the series (Why Invent a Language?), are synesthetes who live on a predominantly oceanic planet.
Last week we explored synesthesia, an important trait of the fictional Biet Lagos. This neurological phenomenon is integral to shaping their language, Threlraan.
I not only find synesthesia fascinating, I imagine understanding it more deeply may serve as a model, yet unexplored, for SETI and others interested in preparing to make first contact in the real world.
But this week we get back to the heart of the series — developing a constructed language for fictional purposes. Specifically, we examine how the physiology and body mechanics of the Biet Lagos drive their multi-modal method of communication.
We’ll look at how the lineage of the Biet Lagos contributes to how they have come to communicate, then drill down a wee bit on how bioluminescence evolved as a vital component.
We’ll also touch on their use of rhythm and clicks, and gestures employed in water vs. space, before rounding up how all these modes of communication interweave and become a ‘language’, i.e., Threlraan.
Jayla will eventually have to learn not just the Biet Lagos words, but their bodies’ way of making meaning.
Bodies shape language first. Tongue, lips, lungs, and vocal cords gave rise to ours. What, then, of theirs?
The Body as the First Language
Tongue, lips, lungs and vocal cords shape human language. As we evolved, we gained a lower larynx, which has encouraged a greater range of vocal sounds beyond the primitive grunts, cries, and exclamations.
As our brain size and complexity increased, it opened the door for fine motor control and processing speed to facilitate a spoken language of vowels, consonants, and other utterances.
We developed language, however, not just because we could, but because it was a response to our environment and our survival. We needed to be able to communicate with our neighbors to coordinate activities and share information—some of which would be life-saving.
The Biet Lagos are not human, but like many, if not all, other species, they are a cooperative species. A species designed for cooperation and mutual benefit. Like most species, they have a genuine concern for others. They adhere to social norms and possess a willingness to act ethically, even with strangers.
Like most species, the Biet Lagos developed with a need to communicate, and like most species, their evolution responded to their environment.
The Biet Lagos live on a world called Mycte. It’s a predominantly oceanic planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. These ocean-thriving beings did not live in a world that seemed practical to develop ‘speech’ as a primary mode of communication.
They can live on land and, for a limited time, in space as well, but their historic and primary existence calls back to the ocean.
Humans ‘speak’. It is perhaps their main mechanism for exchanging information, meaning and understanding. The Biet Lagos have the same need to exchange information, meaning and understanding, but they don’t speak.
Where humans speak, the Biet Lagos emit — pulses of light, resonant clicks, and deliberate gestures. Expression flows outward through the whole body, not just a mouth.
They emit pulses of bioluminescent light from their skin, audible clicks of rhythmic syllables via their thuln, a phonic lip-like organ, and gesture with flips, flops, and spins depending on the mood or demands of an event.
Before we dive into the bioluminescence, clicks, and gestures that weave together the Threlraan language, it might help to get a ‘real’ look at the Biet Lagos and explain their lineage—without spoilers.
Not exactly as I imagined the Biet Lagos, but close enough for now. Totally ignore the human hands—yikes amighty!
Bioluminescence as a Form of Pulse “Speech”
Remember that the Biet Lagos homeworld is an ocean-dominated planet, with sparse land, and vast deep pelagic zones.
Light penetration diminishes sharply in the ocean, and in deeper waters, vision is limited and sound carries much differently than on Earth. Predation and survival depend on detecting, signaling, and coordinating across distance in murky or dark waters.
Mycte is very different from Earth, but as writers we should be able to draw sensible parallels.
For instance, we know that many deep-sea organisms developed bioluminescence independently to compensate for the darkness. Bioluminescence developed in the Biet Lagos along a similar trajectory as we have seen on Earth.
Early Biet Lagos ancestors evolved fluorescent proteins to handle oxidative stress. This is similar to Earth’s early hypothesis that light was a byproduct of detoxification of free radicals.
Over time, this incidental glow became advantageous: those able to modulate flashes could signal distress, deter predators, or attract mates. This matches the Earth’s firefly. Originally, it was firefly larvae that glowed as a warning. Today, the flashing firefly is all about courtship.
Bioluminescence served as a sort of camouflage for the Biet Lagos, with its counter-illumination against the faint starlight that filtered through Mycte’s atmosphere. Eventually, in the mid-depth zones of the ocean, the Biet Lagos ancestors began using rhythmic pulses to coordinate shoaling behavior—safety in numbers.
In the continued development, these pulse patterns evolved into rudimentary codes for direction, danger or food—a transition from defense to communication. This evolutionary detour made language not a voice in the air but a shimmer in the dark.
Think of how schooling fish on Earth often rely on synchronized light flashes, or how squid use skin patterns for group coordination—a correlate for the Biet Lagos move from camouflage to communication.
Something totally distinct from humans, though not terribly different from some Earth organisms, the Biet Lagos over millennia developed collective communication. That’s when groups pulse in unison and the message transcends any one body.
It may have had its roots in evolutionary shoaling, but later became spiritualized into a sense of communal consciousness. Think mycelial networks or quorum-sensing in bioluminescent bacteria that hint at group-level signaling (as discussed in Whale’s Song Part 1 - Life is Communication).
Sonic Layer—Rhythm & Clicks
There’s a reason the Biet Lagos have a whale vibe. But that’s another story — far, far away in another galaxy. The whale ‘vibe’, however, does contribute to the sonic component of the multimodal communication system of Threlraan.
As you may know, and as we discussed in Whale’s Song - Part 3, some whales and dolphins use clicks to communicate. In fact, sperm whales have been found to use codas — a specific series of clicks — too identify clans, for instance.
The Biet Lagos also use clicks and codas, but owing to their alien anatomy and evolution, the clicks they emit are generated and used quite differently from Earth cetaceans.
Whale clicks, for example, are produced by forcing air through a nasal complex featuring ‘monkey lips’. The forced air causes the tissue strands of the phonic lips and produces incredibly loud and broadband click.
The thuln in the Biet Lagos is perhaps the closest equivalent to monkey, or phonic, lips in Earth Cetacea. The greatest difference is perhaps in how the clicks are used.
Earth whales use clicks mainly for identity and sonar — as far as we currently know. In the Biet Lagos, clicks became syllables, their rhythms a kind of grammar.
Click patterns, or codas, have become the syllabic building blocks of Threlraan expressed as a recognizable pattern, with a performance structure of clicks acting as punctuation or drumbeats, marking rhythm and boundaries. Some of the earliest clicks remain reserved for sacred rituals.
The Biet Lagos clicks resonate best in water, but have traversed space in the form of percussive bursts driving light-pulse modulations — picture a drum hammer triggering a visual echo.
Clicks work on land, but only since the Biet Lagos have evolved the ability to dial down the amplitude. Still, it is not their preferred method of communication. So on land they rely mostly on light pulses and gestures.
The rhythm of the light pulses and the clicks are the backbone of Threlraan, because they represent the foundations of what would be considered ‘words’ in our world.
Gesture in Water and Space
As a largely aquatic species, some of the most pronounced gestures made by the Biet Lagos come through tail and fin slaps, as might be expected. Such acrobatics are not just display but often more reverently attached to emotional and social meaning — even ritual.
On land, their hand-fins move like our hands, but more fluid, more intentionally. For them, gesture is not decoration but part of the word itself. Not just decoration or habit. Think about how we humans rely on unconscious gesture.
The Biet Lagos commune not only with their world, but the cosmos as well. Intentions are reflected in their words and actions. Their words are never idle.
How the Channels Interweave
Spoiler-ish alert: Jayla will not be able to decode the message from the Biet Lagos by ancient records and textbooks alone. Her presence — full presence — will be required.
Let’s look at how the multi-modal channels of Threlraan work by way of example — at least by example of how things sit currently in my worldbuilding journey.
Let’s take a simple sentence fitting to Starwoven: Beyond the Call and Jayla in WBTS: “We are listening.”
Remember, we’re just looking at how the various modes of Biet Lagos communication complement each other. The actual methodology of Threlrann’s construction will be the focus of a later essay.
“Threlraan is not written. It is woven.”
“We are Listening” - three scenarios
The same sentence changes shape depending on the medium — wormhole, land, or ocean. Yet in each, the rhythm of clicks and pulses remains the backbone.
Wormhole Message
As an interstellar message, “We are listening” would be sent as a repeating series of audio-data pulses. Click rhythm and light pulses only.
What Jayla would receive, for example, would be something like a colored waveform too tight to distinguish unless slowed down and accompanied by what initially sounds like bursts of random static: click—pause—click-click—long pause—click
Her cohorts would consider it random static or even a random cosmic event. With her aptitude for signal, Jayla would quickly identify a structured rhythm —something like Morse code, rather than random noise.
And eventually she will be able to map the beats to …. wait — that’s definitely too much information for now. But you get the idea. The basics of how a Threlraan postcard might arrive at your door.
Land Communication
The statement, “We are listening” as emitted by the Biet Lagos on land would differ from above in the following ways:
the light pulses would be more pronounced and emitted through the skin
the light pulses would not only align with the rhythm of the syllables but the colors would alter in hue, saturation or tint, for example, to reflect grammar, distinguish between noun and verb, or apply a mood emphasis
a subtle hand-fin curl and modest body sway signals intent — the words signal invitation — not threat.
The clicks that augment the rhythm would be reduced to an audible level that also describes the message as invitational rather than an irritant or threat.
Already we can see how the additional channels of information-sharing help convey the truest meaning of the words, and how translation becomes more prone to misinterpretation without these added layers. The intention relayed through gesture, for example, would have perhaps verified the wormhole message was one of invitation rather than warning, allowing Jayla to ensure the Galactic Alliance Polit (GAP) was not under attack by hostile aliens. (But my guess is that GAP is going to see what they want to see. Shhhhh!)
Underwater Ritual
To appreciate the full effect of Threlraan, one might have to observe the full multimodal effect of communication that happens in the oceans of Mycte.
The utterance of “We are listening” underwater would seem like a song and dance by comparison to the stripped-down version of interstellar communication and even the fuller, but less complete version of land communication.
In the ocean, “We are listening” isn’t just communicated — it is embodied and performed. It’s a choreography of sound, light, and meaning.
Clicks are resonant as they boom through the water column. They announce who is ‘speaking’. Bioluminescent pulses line the un-robed body and flare in sync, rippling outward and amplified by water refraction. All know. All hear. And to be sure the words are received as intended, you will witness whole-body arcs, fin sweeps, and tail slaps.
‘Speaking’ for the Biet Lagos is a living ritual. Communication connects their souls — not only to each other, but to the whole universe.
For Jayla, cracking the code will require more than translation fodder.
Closing Reflection - Language as Embodied Meaning
Threlraan is not written. It is woven. It is sung, pulsed, embodied.
Our languages are written in books; theirs are written in bodies. That, at least, we share.
Next time we’ll explore how ritual and law shape the weight of every Biet Lagos word.
Author’s After Note
You may have sensed that not only is writing World Beyond a Song a work in progress, so too is building its worlds. While the foundations of creating Threlraan are fairly solid, the intricate details are still in motion. A perfect example lies in the ‘glyph’ message left at the end of the first essay in this series (Why Invent a Language?). Threlraan has an entirely new set of syllabic glyphs.
So you have been warned: change happens.
I'm just in awe of all the thought that went into creating the language. Absolutely awesome stuff!
This is really interesting stuff! I'm impressed by how much research and thought you've put into this. It really gets my curiosity humming about the characters, worlds, and stories!