Aliens and Linguists: Language Study and Science Fiction

by Walter Earl Meyers

Aliens and Linguists is a study of language arts and science fiction.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Language, Literary Criticism

270 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1980

Reviews

[Aerin · Rating 3 out of 5]

”It is only in bad science fiction that the alien being acts like a costumed human, differing from the familiar only in appearance. In the hands of the masters of the genre we are constantly reminded through the use of new terms, new metaphors, and the very turns of phrase that our accustomed ways of thinking are not the only ones.”

By this definition, a lot of science fiction is bad. And as Walter Earl Meyers points out in this book, while SF authors tend to pride themselves on their expertise (or at least passing familiarity) with the physical sciences, all too often the social sciences are completely ignored. This is particularly obvious in the case of linguistics, because after all, every SF story involves communication. I’m no linguist, but I took some classes in college and I follow Language Log, and that’s enough to give me a constant case of the annoys when glitches like the following pop up in my latest read:

Static Languages

Languages, like living beings, are constantly evolving. The English we speak now is not the same English that Shakespeare spoke, which is not the same English that Chaucer spoke. So any story that involves time-travel, or that takes place in the distant past or future of humanity, should take into account linguistic evolution. And yet, I can’t tell you how many books feature protagonists traveling thousands (even millions!) of years into the future, and finding people (sometimes people that have physically evolved!) speaking modern English. But you know, maybe with an accent. Or a couple of new slang terms.

And that’s not even touching the whole travesty, so inexplicably common in some older SF stories, of uncontacted aliens who just so happen to speak English.



”You speak English?”
”I am actually speaking Rigellian. By an astonishing coincidence, both of our languages are exactly the same."

Deciphering Ancient and Alien Scripts

You know, the Rosetta Stone was a big fucking deal. The reason it was a big fucking deal is because it is virtually impossible to decipher an unknown written language simply from studying the texts themselves. Languages are closed systems, and on their own, written languages rarely give any clues as to the sound or meaning of the words they represent. Without the Rosetta Stone, we’d probably still be scratching our heads over the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

And yet, SF abounds with stories of mysterious ancient texts being quickly deciphered, which is ridiculous -- and it’s even more ridiculous when the texts in question were produced by aliens (who presumably don’t even share the most basic symbology or psychology with humans). In this, I’m not talking about cases like Carl Sagan’s Contact, where the aliens deliberately use universal mathematical concepts to give researchers an “in” into figuring out the language. That’s clever! No, these are cases where scientists poke and prod at the text a bit, and then magically pull a decoder ring out of their butt. Doesn’t work that way!

Which brings me to

Automatic Translators, Goddammit

Okay, I have no problem with these when they’re basically vast databanks of known languages, spitting out translations in realtime. We practically have this technology already, in the form of Google Translate. No, my beef (and Meyers’s) is with devices that can somehow translate an unknown language into a known one. In realtime, no less. I said it above, but maybe not emphatically enough:

Language is a closed system!!

And even if a machine could analyze and suss out linguistic structures based on a small sample… what about vocabulary? Can it just infer it out of the ether? Or (SIGH) are these machines just telepathic interpreters, like the TARDIS? In which case, we are at best in a science fantasy story, not science fiction.

(Don’t get me started on telepathy. Just… don’t.)

As LeGuin said, in fantasy “you get to make up the rules, but then you’ve got to follow them. SF refines upon this: you get to make up the rules, but within limits.”

Hear that, authors? LIMITS! It’s got to at least be remotely plausible!

Stupid Methods Of Learning Foreign Languages

Hypnosis. Sleep-learning. Electroshock therapy. Chemical therapy (Take a drug, know a new language!). Neural modification (Change your brain structure, know a new language!). DNA/RNA (Inject some “smart” DNA, know a new language!)

What???

All of these inane “futuristic” modes of learning new languages are used in SF to allow the characters to avoid the difficulty, length, and tedium of studying a foreign language “the old fashioned way”. And yet, learning a new language is a somewhat unremarkable feat we expect of every high school student. Why so lazy, people of the future?

Other Boring Assumptions About Alien Languages

* That aliens would even have a language.
* That the language would be in a form humanly-recognizable as language.
* That the language would be vocal/sonic, and not: gestural, olfactory, chromatic, tactile, electromagnetic, musical, literary, chemical, gustatory, kinesic….
* That there is enough cultural and symbolical overlap to make communication possible, even if we are able to decipher their language (or vice versa).
* That aliens would even be interested in establishing communication.

Meyers includes a quote from Lem’s Solaris concerning an alien language, which really makes me want to read the book:

”Transposed into any human language, the values and meanings involved lose all substance; they cannot be brought intact through the barrier.”

Or, as Star Trek fans will appreciate:



Okay, I Lied, I’m Gonna Talk About Telepathy After All

Ugh.

Telepathic communication, which is ALL TOO OFTEN used in otherwise-decent SF, makes no goddamn sense. And it especially makes no goddamn sense in the context of telepathy being a universal translator between humans and aliens. This is not science fiction, because no remotely-plausible scientific paradigm for how it fucking works is ever postulated! It’s a stupid, weak, lazy idea that should just be abolished.

So. When transmitting a foreign/alien language telepathically, to be understood by someone who does not speak the language…. what, does their brain just magically pick out the relevant concepts and feelings and translate them into their own language? How would that even be possible? Or is the other party just thinking in pictures (which would work so well for intangible concepts like “stupid”, “failure”, and “insulting your readers’ intelligence”)? And how is this transmitted anyway? Does your brain resonate on some frequency through the ether that other brains can pick up on? Is the structure of thought so uniform across all species, cultures, and individuals that any receiver can instantly reconstruct what you were thinking about as if it were a goddamn radio station?? And despite what Meyers feebly claims in this book, there has never been solid, repeatable data that suggest scientifically that ESP is anything more than a tired fantasy. GIVE IT A REST.

So Is Everyone Just Fucking Up Linguistics All The Time?

No! Tolkien was a badass. Sure, he wrote fantasy and not SF, but Lord of the Rings was basically just written so JRRT could geek out about these Elvish languages he’d been constructing all his life.

Benjamin Whorf (of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis fame) wrote a novel called The Ruler of the Universe, which is about as “hard” as SF has ever gotten in terms of linguistics. I need to get ahold of this one.

Samuel Delany’s Babel-17, another linguistically-focused SF novel, contains some scientific inaccuracies but is well-regarded. (Meyers: “Babel-17 is like a building of magnificent design, marred throughout by substandard materials.”) Still, now I want to read it.

And many others that I copied out of the bibliography, because whoooa, this stuff is like crack to me.

So this was a good read! It resonated perfectly on my particular frequency of nerddom, which is always nice to find.

[Valentina Salvatierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful book, although obviously dated by now in the examples used. Meyers surveys the uses and abuses of linguistics in science fiction (sf) literature, mostly through an enumeration of works where language plays an important role. He uses his linguistic knowledge as a tool to evaluate various of these works based on their soundness in linguistic terms, although the evaluation often seems to be based on personal preference rather than any pre-determined, theoretically informed criteria. In fact, the book in general does not have strong theoretical underpinnings, being more descriptive than anything else. Any questions about wider implications, the so what? of the analysis, are only briefly discussed. The upshot is that it makes for fairly easy reading for an academic book.

The chapters are organised by various recurrent themes in the genre: so, for example, one chapter is dedicated to first contact stories where the language barrier plays a role, another to the learning of alien languages, yet another to translation devices. Within each chapter, the structure is list-like: I could detect no organising principle for the various examples given, they just succeeded one another, and for each one Meyers would often comment on the book's quality and its faithfulness to linguistic knowledge. The enumeration can get monotonous, but it also makes Aliens and Linguists an excellent source for further primary reading material from pre-1980s sf.

The book's most useful attribute is probably the explanation followed by application of some basic linguistic concepts, such as phonemes, or the thoughtful explanation of the 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis', its various possible interpretations within linguistics, and how these interpretations have been subsequently adopted (and often distorted) by sf authors. Hopefully the linguistic concepts have not become as outdated as some of the literary examples - although the chapter on telepathy where Meyers says that its existence is empirically supported even if its mechanisms are not fully understood (p. 144) might raise doubts about this! His assertion that no automatic translation from one known language to another is possible ‘at present’ (p. 118) is another clear sign that some of his empirical assertions need to be read in their context.

Finally, some of his implicit assumptions about what makes good literature are also probably more widely questioned now than when he wrote the book - for example he seems to assume that sf guided by pure logic is superior to sf where intuition and unreason can play a role. The final chapter on utopia, especially, seemed to contain way too many unquestioned assumptions about what makes a 'free' society and what sort of things limit language distribution. For instance, when discussing The Dispossessed he argues that Anarres was preventing the dissemination of ‘liberating words’ (208) through control of communications. The textual evidence he uses is the control of publishing and printing through voluntary syndicates, exemplified in the musician who is unable to get his compositions published because the Music syndicate rejects them - but doesn't this happen in one way or another in most societies where resources are limited in some way? So, for example, book and dictionary publishing today is regulated by certain scholarly gatekeepers and restricted by economic costs associated to publishing a text of this type - does this mean there is in place a dystopian attempt to prevent new words from circulating? Although his attempt to classify dystopian literature by certain criteria from within the texts rather than authorial intention or reader's interpretation is promising, the way he smuggles in certain unacknowledged political judgements and assumptions makes it unconvincing.

Perhaps where the book most reveals its datedness, then, is in the often prescriptive nature of his analyses. Ultimately, however, there are lots of things of value and interest in it when read with a critical eye.

[Adam Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book exploring the uses and abuses of linguistics as a science in science fiction writing from the earliest days of the genre up to the 1970s. Published in 1980, this work is now more than 40 years old, so it would be nice to have a similar volume dealing with linguistic theories and science fiction works of the last four decades, but this is quite thorough for the period it covers.

[J K Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the subject matter was quite interesting, this was a pretty dry academic text. I have actually read it twice now, but it didn't get any more accessible the second time around. You really have to want to know about the intersection of science fiction (and fantasy) and linguistics if you're going to survive this one.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sadly outdated but fascinating.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Any fan of science fiction—hardcore or casual—has undoubtedly encountered a scene like this: a human lands on some alien planet, or an alien lands on its planet. Weird clicking sounds or high sibilant screeches emerge from the alien’s mouth, or proboscis, or sometimes its mind. Neither human nor alien can understand the other, until man or alien (or both) flips a little switch on a convenient handheld device. At that point, waves start oscillating, and both man and alien can understand each other perfectly, or near-perfectly.
Anyone who knows anything about language here on Earth knows how ridiculous this scene is (although it can be forgiven as an expediency in stories with a nonlinguistic focus.) It is nearly impossible to decipher a dead language—especially one not composed of discreet letters—without a frame of reference. In other words, translation among existing languages is possible with a small device (or easy-to-download apps.) Translation of a completely new language—by a completely new-to-you species, is going to be much, much harder, probably (always have to add that caveat.)
“Aliens and Linguists,” by Walter E. Meyers is a general survey of the literature of science fiction dealing with the treatment of language in the genre. It covers everything from the most ridiculous “handwavium” explanations of John Carter of Mars to the well thought-out extrapolations of Samuel Delany or Ursula Le Guin. It also allows itself some detours to J.R.R. Tolkien’s high fantasy by claiming (erroneously I think) that because its treatment of language is serious, it should be included.
The book ends with a section dealing with linguistic developments here on Earth in the 20th century. It mentions Chomsky’s Universal Grammar while not providing much more than a gloss, and throws in the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis of Linguistic Relativity. Without going too far into the weeds here, this idea holds that language determines in large part how we see the world. I tend to disagree with this idea, and hew much closer to linguist Guy Deutscher’s assessment of things.
Take a baby that doesn’t speak any English and a man from a remote tribe who’s never heard of gravity, then throw both off a building’s roof. Something tells me Newton’s calculations are going to be more germane to the outcome than Professor’ Chomsky’s. I should add the caveat at this point that I do not condone chucking babies or grass-skirted indigenes from the roofs of tall buildings. Having said that, I wouldn’t mind chucking Chomsky from a roof, or at least kicking him once, very hard, in the testicles.
Anyway, this thing is an admirable enough examination of a science that tends to get short shrift in the genre. Occasionally, more thought-provoking treatments of xenolinguistics do appear in SF—sometimes, as in Arrival, in big-budgeted blockbusters. But here is a good starting point for anyone who wants to dig into the subject. Though I’ll close by saying that it’s a little too snarky and denigrating of the form’s early practitioners, and even some of the late Golden Age, early moderns. The author says, for instance, that Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End,” may be the most overrated work in the canon (!)
WTF as the kids say, or rather type on their little iPhones.