“[Heptapod A] didn’t follow the pattern of human languages, as expected, but it was comprehensible so far: free word order, even to the extent that there was no preferred order for the clauses in a conditional statement, in defiance of human language ‘universal.’ It also appeared that the heptapods had no objection to many levels of center-embedding of clauses, something that quickly defeated humans. Peculiar, but not impenetrable.”

“Linguist George Lakoff believes that metaphors have the power to create reality for us. “Since most of our social reality is understood in metaphorical terms and since our conception of the physical world is partly metaphorical, metaphor plays a very significant role in determining what is real for us.””