{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1233", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1233, "subject": "Linguistics in science fiction", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-10-30T11:28:24+00:00", "last": "1998-10-30T15:25:37+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "mary whalen", "address": "marewhalen at yahoo.com" }, "date": "1998-10-30T11:28:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth)Linguistics in science fiction", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is Sean Whalen (prion)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "---John Bishop wrote:\nre _Snow_Crash_: it was fun, but the basic premise is just wrong;\nSumerian is _not_ the first language--it's maybe the oldest one we\nhave texts from, but that's different. Plus it's not a \"brain-stem\nhacking\" tool; I've looked at it in passing and it's just another\nlanguage. As a BA in Linguistics, I've not yet seen SF which gets\nLinguistics right at all; the tendancy is to go wild on the wildest\nversion of Whorf' hypothesis, or to get some basic concept wrong.\nAs an MSc in Computer Science, it's the same for computing. This\nis not to say that there couldn't be a tool for programming the mind\nvia language (indeed, advertising and so on show that there _is_),\nbut it's not going to be Sumerian." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This post is interesting, because I recently saw a book by Jack Vance\ncalled _The Languages of Pao_, which said something like \"The first\nscience fiction book based on the science of linguistics\" on the\ncover. I have no idea what the story is about. Since Wolfe says he\nwas influenced by Vance, particularly the Dying Earth books, I\nwondered if there are any stories where someone has noticed any\nemphasis on linguistics.\n\nprion" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-10-30T14:49:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth)Linguistics in science fiction", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 30 Oct 1998, mary whalen wrote:\n---John Bishop wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "re _Snow_Crash_: it was fun, but the basic premise is just wrong;\nSumerian is _not_ the first language--it's maybe the oldest one we\nhave texts from, but that's different. Plus it's not a \"brain-stem\nhacking\" tool; I've looked at it in passing and it's just another\nlanguage. As a BA in Linguistics, I've not yet seen SF which gets\nLinguistics right at all; the tendancy is to go wild on the wildest\nversion of Whorf' hypothesis, or to get some basic concept wrong.\nAs an MSc in Computer Science, it's the same for computing. This\nis not to say that there couldn't be a tool for programming the mind\nvia language (indeed, advertising and so on show that there _is_),\nbut it's not going to be Sumerian." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This post is interesting, because I recently saw a book by Jack Vance\ncalled _The Languages of Pao_, which said something like \"The first\nscience fiction book based on the science of linguistics\" on the\ncover. I have no idea what the story is about. Since Wolfe says he\nwas influenced by Vance, particularly the Dying Earth books, I\nwondered if there are any stories where someone has noticed any\nemphasis on linguistics." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What about C.S. Lewis's \"Out of the Silent Planet\"? The main character is\na philologist and a significant portion of the book is about language\nlearning. Does that count as \"linguistics\"?\n\nThere is Wolfe's whole \"I'm just translating this old manuscript from the\nfuture\" conceit, which is fairly old hat (except maybe the \"from the\nfuture\" part. Have other authors done that before? Wolfe seems to play\nit pretty much as a joke.) \n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mark Millman", "address": "mark_millman at hmco.com" }, "date": "1998-10-30T15:25:37+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth)Linguistics in science fiction", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 30 October 1998 at 7:28 pm GMT,\nprion (Sean Whalen) wrote:\n. . . I wondered if there are any stories\nwhere someone has noticed any\nemphasis on linguistics." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I haven't read any of her stuff myself, but Suzette\nHayden Elgin publishes a magazine devoted to\nlinguistics in sf, and I understand that it's an im-\nportant theme in her work. I believe that she holds\na doctorate in linguistics and has written non-\nfiction on the subject as well.\n\nOne could say that \"Alien Stones\" refers to lin-\nguistics, but I don't really see a lot of it in Wolfe.\n\nAs for Jaynesian sf, Harry Turtledove has\nwritten a story explicitly based on his ideas (I\nhave, regrettably, forgotten the title, but I think\nit's in one of his collections: _Departures_, I\nthink, or maybe _Kaleidoscope_). Turtledove\nhas also said in an interview that his novel\n_Between the Rivers_ \"borrows some of its\nideas\" from _Bicameral Mind_ (the interview\nis at http://www.chicon.org/gohs/turtldov.htm).\nIt's set, for those who aren't familiar with it, at\nthe beginning of civilization, in Mesopotamia.\n\nFor anyone who hasn't read it and is interested,\n_Bicameral Mind_ was republished in a revised\nedition in 1990 (the original publication was in\nthe early or middle 70s), and should be avail-\nable in most bigger libraries. Amazon.com has\nit, too.\n\nAnd on 28 October 1998 (really?) at 9:38 am GMT," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Kieran Cleary wrote:\nIf I'm allowed a wee tangent, what's the news\non Crowley, anyone? Given that Love&Sleep\nwasn't even published in the UK, and that it's\nprobably out of print already, I have this fear\nthat the Aegypt sequence won't get completed.\nAnyone got any pointers to recent intervews\nor other hopeful news?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "_Locus_, the U.S. sf trade magazine, announced\nseveral months ago that Crowley had finished\n_Daemonomania_, the third volume in the series,\nand delivered it to his publisher. But when I looked\nin the Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase\n(http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb/index.html) just now, I\nsaw that the book, which had been announced by\nBantam for September 98 (hmmm), has been pulled\nfrom its list and is rumored to be back in Crowley's\ntypewriter (or otherwise unfinished). Sorry the news\ncouldn't be better.\n\nMark Millman" } ] } ] }