Comment parler à un alien? : Langage et linguistique dans la science-fiction – Frédéric Landragin

Thoughts: I quite enjoyed Comment parler a un alien, read as part of my effort to improve my French. It has a bunch of interesting ideas (though no earth-shattering revelations), is well written as far as I can tell, and contains a bunch of mentions of language- and linguistics-related works of science fiction, in English and French, including a substantial bibliography to which I hope to return for suggestions of future books to read. Glad I stumbled upon this one at the library—it’s a cool book!

(The notes below are not a summary of the book, but rather raw notes - whatever I thought, at the time, might be worth remembering.)

Landragin, Frédéric. 2018. Comment parler à un alien? : Langage et linguistique dans la science-fiction. Bélial’.

Introduction

• 21: New term: sabir, a system of communication that arises between people who need to communicate across a language barrier. Once a sabir has been going for a while and begins to stabilize, it becomes a pidgin.
  • Some research indicates the English for sabir is “sabir”. It’s cognate with savoir.

Chapitre 1: De la science-fiction à la linguistique-fiction

• 41: Famous books of fantasy and science fiction that lean heavily on linguistic ideas:
  • George Orwell, 1984
  • J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
  • Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
  • Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

Chapitre 2: Origine et évolution des langues naturelles

• 96: several word pairs that used to be pronounced differently ca. 1950 but are now pronounced identically: patte–pâte, mettre–mâitre, brin-brun
  • I would intuitively pronounce the two words in each pair differently, which I think is because I’m learning French in Quebec! And I asked a Montréalaise francophone soon after having read this, and she confirmed that she pronounces them distinctly. Guess this is one linguistic feature that’s preserved in Québécois French that’s no longer present in French French!
• 99: novel mentioned: Robert Sheckley, Shall We Have a Little Talk?, “extraordinaire de concision et d’humour”

Chapitre 3: Des langues artificielles, mais pour quoi faire?

Chapitre 4: Les éléments constitutifs d’une langue

Chapitre 5: Premier contact avec des extraterrestres

• 220: novel mentioned: Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem

Anticipons!