Ted Tales

We are given a list of 14 sets of symbols, including one that is translated in the flavor and one that appears to be the extraction. From the flavor and the title of the puzzle, we can infer that this puzzle is about Ted Chiang, a science fiction short story writer.

The symbols are given in two parts: the left, shorter side is the title and the right side is a summary of the story. This interpretation is confirmed by the title “Seventy Two Letters”, which has 72 . Thankfully (or disappointingly), Ted Chiang hasn't written that many short stories, so we can begin deciphering the symbols using titles and Wikipedia summaries.

Deciphering the symbols

From the given gloss, and assuming subject-verb-object (SVO) order, "A man writes science stories" we understand that the means "man" or "human." The repeats in the symbols for "writes," "science stories" and "letters" from 72 letters. We can infer that means something related to words, language, or writing. Furthermore, symbols can change definitions and types of speech depending on where in the sentence they appear. The semantic similarity between "writes" and "science stories" also backs up our initial SVO assumption.

By examining some of the other symbols, we begin to suspect that each of the composite symbols can be interpreted as a hierarchical sequence of modifiers, read top-down, left-right. This is reinforced by "science stories" which would be "stories" modified by "science" and "72 letters" which is "letters" modified by "72."

We see repeated in the next story's title. We map this to "Story of Your Life" (aka "your life"-"story"). We also know a lot of the symbols in the summary here, which lets us confirm "Story of Your Life." Deciphering this story lets us confirm as "science," with possibly meaning "learn" or "discover," and introduces as "alien."

At this point, we notice the images may be sorted alphabetically by title. This hypothesis, which will be continuously validated, will allow us to narrow the search space for each story considerably. "Division by Zero" and "Hell is the Absence of God" are often the next break-ins.

Eventually, we run into bifurcations, two sets of symbols that branch off from or merge into a single symbol. Bifurcations can be interpreted as two sentences that share a subject or object.

We continue in this manner, finding stories that match the little we can understand and then building out our vocabulary from there. A full list of translated stories and symbols is provided below.

Story translations

Gloss	Title	Translation
person word knowledge-knowledge-(multiple-word)	N/A	A man writes science stories.
? | not-big-person become big-person, like manmade-person	Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny	A child becomes an adult and likes (only) robots.
not-number part | number-knowlege not, person almost-(self-death)	Division By Zero	Math fails, and a person almost commits suicide.
? | (knowledge-knowledge)-manmade-person word knowledge-word, no-air death (multiple-multiple)-electronic-person	Exhalation	A robot scientist writes down his findings (in a journal), that the lack of air will kill all robots.
(not-god)-place | two*number-person see person-god, person go (not-god)-place	Hell is the Absence of God	Two people see an angel, and one of them goes to hell.
like see | many-person not-see like-see-person, person want-see like-see-person	Liking What You See	Many people do not want to see beautiful people, but one person does.
seventytwo*number-(word-part) | water-rock become water-rock-person, (not-death)-(knowledge-knowledge)-person knowledge (multiple-multiple)-person-death	Seventy-Two Letters	Clay becomes golems, and a biologist learns that all humans will die.
(not-death)-(multiple-word) | (two*number)-(knowledge-knowledge-person) see (two*number)-(not-person), (word-knowledge-knowledge-person) knowledge (not-person)-word	Story of Your Life	Two scientists meet two aliens, and the linguist learns the aliens’ language.
? | ((no-air-place)-see)-manmade want-word not-person, (knowledge)(air-go-person) word person	The Great Silence	A telescope tries to communicate with aliens, while smart birds talk to humans.
? | (become-knowledge-knowledge)-person word (three*number)-multiple-word, person word big-self	The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate	An alchemist tells three stories, and a person talks to his older self.
? | person knowledge-see word, person see (not-death)-(manmade-see)	The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling	A person learns to read, while a person watches life videos.
? | multiple-rock become big-rock-place; person try-go god-place, big-water not-go god-place	Tower of Babylon	Many bricks turn into a tower. A person wants to go to heaven, but the flood doesn’t take him there.
? | water almost-death (big-knowledge)-human, (big-knowledge)-person death (big-knowledge)-person	Understand	A superintelligent human nearly drowns, and gets killed by another superintelligent human.

Extraction

The extraction sentence follows the same set of rules, but at this point we're pretty sure it's not a Ted Chiang story. One of the most famous examples of a malicious supercomputer is HAL 9000, which is confirmed by the alien monolith at the beginning. Thus, we get the answer 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Image

Gloss

person see big-(not-person)-rock, (big-knowledge)-manmade go no-air-place, death multiple-human

Translation

A person sees an alien monolith. A superintelligent computer goes to space and kills multiple people.

Authors' Notes

We initially conceived this language to be a simplified form of Heptapod B. Being linear English speakers, we weren't able to mimic it as closely as we hoped, but as a result there is no explicit concept of time or causation in any of these stories.

We hope many solvers got sniped into reading entire stories not just for the puzzle, but because of how amazing Ted Chiang is.

Appendix

Symbol glossary and common combinations

Symbol	Meaning	Symbol	Meaning	Symbol	Meaning
	person		god, divine		self
	knowledge, learn, intelligent		rock		go
	manmade, electronic		water		become
	death, kill		place		all
	big, very		desire, love, like, want		superintelligent
	multiple		part, divide		alien
	word, language, write, read		see, meet		science
	number		air		life
	not, opposite		almost		story