@bookstodon @linguistics A question prompted by a post I saw: what are the best #ScienceFiction #scifi books where #languages play an important part?
There’s 1984, obviously. Even more obviously, The Languages of Pao by Jack Vance. The Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie has some interesting language features in terms of gender identity, power and mutual intelligibility.
I’m sure there are loads more - this is ‘off the top of my head’ - what others would you recommend?
@paraic @bookstodon @linguistics let me add to the list : The Embedding by Ian Watson which is based on Chomsky's generative grammar, and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel where the main character is a linguist and leader of an expedition to alpha centauri.
There is also a very nice linguistic textbook (unfortunately in french) illustrated through many exemples from the sci-fi litterature : "comment parler à un alien"
@leovarnet fantastic! Thank you