Author Topic: Linguistics and Science Fiction (Read 4890 times)

Porter · « **on:** September 17, 2009, 07:03:44 PM »

Jonathon, being a huge nerd and a big linguistics guy, are there any examples of linguistics in science fiction that you've really liked?

I recently read "The Story of your Life" by Ted Chiang, which is about a linguist learning the language(s) of aliens that come to earth. I really liked the story, but I wondered if the linguistically competent around here would just roll their eyes at it.

There's also BABEL-17, which relies heavily on the old theory (which I cannot name, but which you should recognize) which says that the way we think is shaped by our language.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1 on:** September 17, 2009, 07:56:12 PM »

I can't think of any that I've liked, but the only one I can think of at all was 1984, whose premise of linguistic determinism I found so preposterous that I stopped reading before I even got a hundred pages in. But some less extreme versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis are not so bad and might have some merit. So I might indeed roll my eyes at Babel-17, but I might enjoy it. I'll have to put it on my to-read list.

Jonathon · « **Reply #2 on:** September 17, 2009, 07:58:21 PM »

Oh, I just remembered Snow Crash, which I quite enjoyed up until the abrupt ending. The premise was pretty implausible, and the linguistics in it made me cringe a few times, but it still managed to be a rather entertaining story.

The Genuine · « **Reply #3 on:** September 17, 2009, 08:15:00 PM »

http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-driv...Fi-BookList.cfm

Jonathon · « **Reply #4 on:** September 17, 2009, 08:16:25 PM »

Good find!

Porter · « **Reply #5 on:** September 17, 2009, 08:43:56 PM »

Although I don't remember lingustics playing an important part in the plot, the title of The Word For World Is Forest is linguisticish.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #6 on:** September 17, 2009, 08:56:08 PM »

The Star Trek episode "Darmok".

Sokath, his eyes uncovered!

Porter · « **Reply #7 on:** September 17, 2009, 08:59:44 PM »

That episode bugs the crap out of me.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #8 on:** September 17, 2009, 09:06:49 PM »

Temba, his arms wide?

Jonathon · « **Reply #9 on:** September 17, 2009, 09:12:49 PM »

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That episode bugs the crap out of me.

Me too. Such a language is completely impossible, in my opinion.

Porter · « **Reply #10 on:** September 17, 2009, 09:30:00 PM »

Yes! Somebody agrees with me!

Jonathon · « **Reply #11 on:** September 17, 2009, 09:40:03 PM »

And here's one of the biggest problems:

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Data and Troi deduce that the Tamarian language is entirely based on metaphors derived from their own experience and mythology, making their language extremely difficult to understand because without knowing the people or things in the metaphor, the metaphor is impossible to comprehend.

So how does a baby Tamarian learn the language if they don't yet share those cultural experiences?

Also, as a pickier point, it's not entirely based on metaphor. In fact, it seems pretty arbitrary which ideas are expressed with metaphors and which aren't. They use metaphors to express 'giving' and 'failure', but apparently not to express 'wide' or 'eyes' or many other concepts. And it's hard to see how you would express most ideas in metaphor, like 'I really need to pee' or 'The pot on the stove is boiling over' or 'What do you get when you multiply six by nine'?

Porter · « **Reply #12 on:** September 17, 2009, 09:42:49 PM »

Another example of a ST plot that sounds neat at first, but which wasn't ever thought through all the way.

pooka · « **Reply #13 on:** September 17, 2009, 10:16:55 PM »

I thought the stupid part was how you could have the words that make up the sentences if only the sentences as a whole have any meaning.

Maybe all their prepositions are "mouse:hole" and "cloud:airplane". And there is only one verb, and then proper nouns. Everything else is theta grid ordering combined with Whorfian sublexical morphology?

But yeah, mostly teh sux.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #14 on:** September 17, 2009, 10:23:48 PM »

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And it's hard to see how you would express most ideas in metaphor, like 'I really need to pee'

Cynthia, on a really long car ride!

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or 'The pot on the stove is boiling over'

Margaret, distracted by the telephone!

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or 'What do you get when you multiply six by nine'?

My brother-in-law, the candles on his last birthday cake!

rivka · « **Reply #15 on:** September 17, 2009, 11:00:53 PM »

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Such a language is completely impossible, in my opinion.

I completely and totally agree.

I still love the episode.

Porter · « **Reply #16 on:** September 17, 2009, 11:35:54 PM »

It's because of people like you that we keep getting Trek epsisodes that make no sense!

As an aside, Bev and I watched the TOS "Devil in the Dark" tonight. It's a pretty good episode, but man oh man, it does not hold up well to close scrutiny. We were MST3King it the whole time.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #17 on:** September 17, 2009, 11:46:39 PM »

I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!

Oh, what the hey, hand me a trowel.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #18 on:** September 18, 2009, 01:06:07 AM »

From that list:

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"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in Ficciones — Jorge Luis Borges (1956)

One of my favorite stories ever. Also, "The Library of Babel."

I wish Borges would have kept writing crazy brain-popping stories instead of all that stuff about Argentine knife fighters.

rivka · « **Reply #19 on:** September 18, 2009, 02:22:32 AM »

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It's because of people like you that we keep getting Trek episodes that make no sense!

I'm oddly ok with that.

Porter · « **Reply #20 on:** September 18, 2009, 07:18:42 AM »

saxon75 · « **Reply #21 on:** September 18, 2009, 10:09:00 AM »

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From that list:

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"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in Ficciones — Jorge Luis Borges (1956)

One of my favorite stories ever. Also, "The Library of Babel."

I was just about to say the same thing. I <3 Borges.

saxon75 · « **Reply #22 on:** September 18, 2009, 10:19:06 AM »

Hmm... I'm not sure that any definition of "science fiction" with which I'm familiar would include George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.

Porter · « **Reply #23 on:** September 18, 2009, 10:22:25 AM »

That's more than a stretch -- it's plain wrong.

goofy · « **Reply #24 on:** September 22, 2009, 05:28:27 AM »

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Me too. Such a language is completely impossible, in my opinion.

The linguistics of Darmok

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What's more, I don't believe in Tamarese as described. With regards to language change, it must be in an extraordinarily unstable state. Let's consider the problem of young Tamarians—the children of the Children of Tama, if you will—who, if the language works the way we're told it does, are presented with a seemingly insurmountable language-learning problem.