Hi all - I’ve just been asked for some recommendations of sf novels that incorporate linguistics in them. Anyone know any?
@Jo Zebedee ; I'm not familiar with novels off the top of my head, however, last week after spending time on a linguistics forum among experts to hash out my series languages, I accumulated some great links to sites of linguists who specialize in conlangs. That includes David Peterson who developed a number of languages used for movies (GoT, The 100, etc.). His entire book 'The Art of Language Invention' is available on Youtube in 29 parts: The Art of Language Invention - YouTube
Is that the kind of stuff you're looking for? Or, just existing examples?
Past that, the classic for dystopian stuff is Newspeak in 1984 (which I'm sure you knew).
K2
That sounds significantly cool, thank you
King James to the rescue?I'd like to underline C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner. The first book in series particularly centers around being able to understand the alien language from the inside out. Having studied the Bible and its original languages a bit. I understand that knowing the words and their meaning sometimes doesn't get you to what is actually being said and this is very much at the center of the first book entitled "Foreigner."
King James to the rescue?
There always seems to be an opinion formed by modern scholarship that dovetails nicely with modern morals.Rather I would say that the King James version often illustrates the point rather nicely.
There always seems to be an opinion formed by modern scholarship that dovetails nicely with modern morals.
Absolutely.There is much to the notion of lost in translation.