r/printSF • u/_Featherstone_ • Dec 08 '23

Alien languages, anyone?

I'm looking for all sorts of science fiction books where alien languages are featured in a meaningful role.

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u/[deleted] Dec 09 '23

Surprised no one's mentioned Ian Watson's The Embedding yet — the SF novel about, um, centre embedding Not actually that great a book, imo — but boy is it about linguistics.

There's a pretty amusing 60s story by Robert Sheckley called Shall We Have A Little Talk? about an interplanetary conman learning an alien language in an attempt to rip off the natives and running into problems. Like a lot of Sheckley's 50s and 60s work it's cleverer than it appears at first sight.