Sci-Fi/ Horror books featuring linguistics as a plot engine or device

[Merannda]

As the title says, Sci-Fi or Horror novels featuring linquistics or attempts to communicate as a plot device/engine.

I.E. Arrival (the movie), Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, or Girl in Ice by Erica Ferencik. To an extent Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky would also fit the bill in my head.

I find this trope to be so satisfying and I would love to add to my TBR list with some of your suggestions!

Doesn't have to feature aliens necessarily, Girl in Ice features a frozen child from the past and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Thank you!

[Aerulan]

The Language of Power has some interesting elements that fit this, but it's a later book in a series that really needs to be read in order to get the full impact. So it may not be quite what you are looking for.
Though the whole series is worth a read, with the first book being the weakest and then they just get better with each book.

[Pamela]

A Deepness in the Sky

The Ice People

[Robert]

Embassytown

Maybe even His Master's Voice

[Pamela]

Omnilingual and Other Stories

"Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper is a classic SF short story on this topic. It's available online from Project Gutenberg.

Stories of Your Life and Others

[Merannda]

Thank you all for the suggestions so far!

[Gillian]

Look into Translation State by Anne Leckie. It's set in her Radch series universe, so you may want to read the Ancillary novels first - there's a lot of background to absorb that would make Translation State hard to get on its own.

[SBC]

The Companions by Sheri S. Tepper.

[Pamela]

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words

[Merannda]

Thanks! Added some more to my TBR :)

[Adele]

Establishing communication with an alien species features heavily in Children of Hope and is pivotal to the plot, but this is the seventh book in a series (though you don't have to have read the others to read this one - it has a brand new narrator) and it is really long and has a lot of stuff before the linguistics that you might not want to wade through.

[Robert]

Native Tongue, by Suzette Haden Elgin? Et seq.

"Set in the not too distant future of 2205, and using fictional legislation implemented in 1991, Native Tongue is an intriguing depiction of a world where women are property, aliens are trading partners, and inherent ability to learn languages is a goldmine inherent only in certain families. What few realise is that a revolution is already underway, and the women deemed least essential are empowering all women to fight back against male dominance."

[Michael]

Another book that explores this theme is The Languages of Pao, by Jack Vance. It is pretty heavily based on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis from linguistics: the proposal that language isn't just a way to communicate, it also influences how we think, inevitably placing a certain structure on our cognition or worldview. In Jack Vance's novel, Pao is rather a backwater planet, ruled by an absolute monarch. When invaded by another planet that demands tribute, its ruler has no alternative but to accede, because the Paonese people simply cannot effectively resist. This is largely owing to the structure of their language, which predisposes them to a kind of passive acceptance of whatever happens. At this point, a "wizard" - actually a scientist - from the Breakness institute enters. He proposes remodeling Paonese society by introducing new languages, including "Valiant" for a warrior caste.

My understanding - which is perhaps not accurate - is that the Sapir Whorf hypothesis is largely not taken seriously by linguists anymore, but it's still quite an interesting concept.

[Merannda]

Thanks again, all!

[Danelle]

Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore

Also, definitely not horror but just a book with a wonderful play on language, Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

[CtPaul]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The World of Null-A
United States
Language English
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Publication date 1948
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages 246
Followed by The Pawns of Null-A
The World of Null-A, sometimes written The World of Ā, is a 1948 science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt. It was originally published as a three-part serial in 1945 in Astounding Stories. It incorporates concepts from the General Semantics of Alfred Korzybski. The name Ā refers to non-Aristotelian logic.

[Simi]

Blindsight by Peter Watts absolutely fits this criteria.

[Jeremy]

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

[Guy]

Babel-17 – it's been a while, but I remember this as being good. Also, not a book, but the film Arrival is all about this, and I thought it was excellent :-)

[Robert]

Guy wrote: "Babel-17 – it's been a while, but I remember this as being good. Also, not a book, but the film Arrival is all about this, and I thought it was excellent :-)"

FTR, Arrival is based on a short story by Ted Chiang

[Robert]

Just noted the forthcoming publication of Translating the Nonhuman: What Science Fiction Can Teach Us About Translating, by Douglas Robinson. - "This book extends the field of translation studies and theory by examining three radical science-fiction treatments of translation, exploring speculative attempts to cross gaps between human and nonhuman languages and cultures. Three essays each bring a distinct theoretical orientation to bear on a different science-fiction work. The first studies Samuel R. Delany's 1966 novel Babel-17, using Peircean semiotics; the second studies Suzette Haden Elgin's 1984 novel Native Tongue, using Austinian performativity; and the third studies Ted Chiang's 1998 novella "Story of your life" (in, Stories of Your Life and Others) and its 2016 screen adaptation Arrival, using sustainability theory."

[Brynn Pembroke]

Lexicon

[Robert]

Decision at Doona, by Anne McCaffrey has two species learning to communicate as a key element, although the details are perhaps a bit sketchy.

The protagonist in Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow is a linguist, and the sequel, Children of God, turns on an issue of comprehension.

Linguistics also features in LEAR'S DAUGHTERS: The Wave and the Flame; Reign of Fire., by Marjorie B. Kellogg and William B. Rossow.

Reading the Bones, by Sheila Finch. - "This skillful and entertaining exploration of language and cross-cultural communication presents a portrait of sentient beings in the midst of discovering written language. The Xenolinguists are a guild of alien-language translators who travel the galaxy. Translator Ries Danyo is a down-on-his-luck lingster, so far gone he's hooked on zyth. Once a promising talent, he's fallen to interpreting for the deputy commissioner's wife on her shopping sprees in the Freh bazaar. But when a Freh uprising leads to murder, Danyo must lead the commissioner's daughters to safety on a journey that irrevocably changes the Frehti language and the future of Krishna itself."

The Embedding, by Ian Watson. - "Aliens arrive on Earth hoping to trade some of their advanced knowledge for insights into Earth's linguistic structure. "The Embedding" is the story of three experiments in linguistics driven by a searching analysis of the nature of communication."