book
M. Morgan (justme@U.WASHINGTON.EDU)
Sun, 27 Aug 1995 04:49:11 -0700
Well...I have a good book to recommend to anyone into sci-fi. It's
called Snow Crash (sorry, can't remember the author). It is a cyberpunk
book of the worst sort if you resent that sort of thing...but the
characters are pretty cool. My fav thing about it is that it has an
element of linguistics in it. The underlying theme of the book has to do
with the idea that language at one time was 'hardwired.' As compared to
learned, or softwired. The Tower of Babel figures prominently in the
stories explanation but I won't ruin it for you on the off chance you
might actually read it:)
Anyway...since people have been discussing language and dialect a lot
recently I thought I'd bring this one to your attention.
Oh...speaking of dialects...my linguistics prof last year played some
tapes about future dialects. Some science fiction writer...I think it
was Larry Niven but I wouldn't swear to it, who was also a liguist to
some degree was convinced that dialects in the future will separate more
and more until people in different social classes and even different jobs
will for all apparent purposes be speaking separate languages...
Justalittlefoodforthoughtat4:50inthemorning
nightie night
Melina