Dissecting the alien language in 'Arrival'

One of the coolest bits from from Arrival isn't the sci-fi movie's Lovecraftian aliens or its stunning cinematography (although, to be fair, those are both great), it's the Heptapods' language. Figuring out a way to communicate with beings without provoking a war is central to the first-contact story's plot. While their spoken language is basically a series of low-frequency grunts and groans, the inky "written" version of it resembles an ouroboros that's written and read from left to right and right to left, simultaneously. Throughout a series of tweets recently, writer/producer Eric Heisserer explained not only how the circular speech symbols came to be, but also the "bespoke logogram analytic code" that translated the language when the cameras were rolling. "In several shots in the film, the analytics you see are working in real-time to dissect a logogram," Heisserer writes.