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(mod) Rose Lemberg: wants to see more multilingual SF
John Chu: came to US at 6, gets comment “you speak English so well” has seen issues that arise out of non-fluency; universal translators are fine, but engage.
Anil Menon: lived in Tanzania, India, then US. India has a lot of languages—had to decide right level of English in novel. Still steeped in foreign culture. Oral storytelling culture.
Alex Dally MacFarlane: doing masters in Asian history. Language situation in near east very complicated, interesting. Fantasy bases itself in history but doesn't engage linguistic problems. Would like to see more.
Sabrine Vourvoulias: born in Thailand, raised in Guatemala. Spanish + 21 distinct indigenous languages, which influenced Guatemalan Spanish. Came to US at 15, learned more standard Spanish here. Edits Spanish language newspaper, different conventions & inflections based on regions. Easy to learn, difficult to master intricacies, subtleties.
Q: Languages aren't monolithic, people want to include a foreign language in the story, but which one? Language shift in diaspora; grandparents speak old language, grandchildren speak English. Does this affect sense of belonging? Creates for multilinguals and immigrants sense of disorientation.
JC: Nobody tells me how good his Chinese is; it's what it should be: fluent. Cultural expectations. Chinese names tend to be aspirational. (Anecdote of his & sister's names) Sister sent nieces to Chinese school. Being bilingual better than being (bicultural? Monolingual?)
AM: India has so many languages, you can't learn them all. No conflict between them: speak one at home, another at school, a third with friends.
SV: “pathetically bilingual” (only speaks 2 languages). Nephew brought up speaking English, Bengali, Spanish. N keyed in to speaking Spanish with one family, Bengali with the other, English other times. After preschool, he didn't want to speak anything but English. In multigenerational family, this happens. Has spent majority of life pretending to be monolingual. Discussed publicly in Latin@ community. 2 Dems were reviled for not speaking any Spanish. Here, it's a test of how Latino you can claim to be. In the US, if you don't speak Spanish, your sense of identity is muddled.
RL: Hegemony. Children sense that speaking the hegemonic language will give them power, but identity issues tied into speaking the familial language(s). Complex situation. Do you accept your identity, or do you face ridicule?
Queerness and language. There were no words in Russian until recently to express queerness: made it hard for her to live, because she couldn't talk about her identity. Kids couldn't figure out how to bully her. Hard to talk about it to her family, because words don't exist, and it's hard to talk about.
Women may have a separate language from men, Native Tongue. Do women speak differently from men?
ADM: Sumerian language (isolate, dead) texts where speech of some women is slightly different. Most scholars don't know what it means: does it reflect spoken differences? Writing differences? A way to give status?
JC: Written Chinese produced gendered pronouns; before that there was one word (ta). But it never caught on. Didn't change pronunciation, only hanzi. “ta is a doctor” = male, because doctor = man. If you meant she, you'd say “woman doctor.” Could be used gender neutral but isn't in practice.
Sexuality: didn't get harsh on homosexuals until (post-)Mao era. Word used to mean homosexual means “comrade.” John thinks is funny.
AM: Distinguish between what language does and what society does to language. In old literature, find acceptance of gender fluidity; gods change gender, hide as female dancer. What pronoun is used depends on the person. Asks hijra their preference
RL: resistance to non-binary pronouns. How do we represent them?
ADM: English doesn't have a non-binary pronoun. In UK, use they as generic, resist singular they. Use of pronouns varies a lot.
Lois Tilton has a lot of power; called use of singular they for non-binary character “annoying.”
Aud: textbook editor who wants to push singular they.
RL: see equating gender neutrality, third pronouns as aliens
ADM: non-binary aliens, but all humans are binary. Not real.
RL: Some societies have different language inventories: sacred: one gender has access to this language (Hebrew); women study non-Jewish languages. Men learn Aramaic, too. Within family, men and women spoke entirely different sets of languages (mutual English). Men know all the quotations, women don't.
Story list: engage multilingualness, queerness, etc.
JC: Embassytown. Did a good job of conveying language and problems of communication; uses Sapir-Whorf: bad science, good SF.
1984, Animal Farm. Recasting words to mean new things. Linguistic invention in the Mao and post-Mao era parallels Orwell
RL: Orwell didn't invent it; Soviet-era invention to describe new communist reality, norm people into new culture.
AM: Russell Doban “ridley walker” (?) good use of language invention
Roger Rao “gandabrow” (?) shows difficulty of capturing language in English (invented)
ADM: Midnight Robber, Nalo Hopkinson. Written in patois. Normalizes it.
? ? people speak simple language after dying off
RL: colonialism creates new languages. Automatically a blend, less valued than literary standard. Doubly oppressed: loss of language, oppressed for using patois.
SV: had trouble finding examples. Comparing 2 writers.
High Astic Ernesto Hodan?? Chicano writer, mostly in Latino-oriented magazines. Our Spanish is formed, developed a whole vocabulary, from different indigenous groups. Uses central valley language (astic) to create language for high-tech world where Mexicans are most high-tech
Alan Dean Foster Created Spanglo. Why not use existing language?
JC: Chinese-English hybrid exists.
Aud: Famous Tuotolo(?) collected village tales from growing up in Nigerian in Nigerian English.
Aud: imagining a world where Hastings wasn't lost, so no French influence on English language
ADM: class divisions: French elite ate beef (French stem), poor people work with cows (Saxon)
Aud: invented languages?
RL: doesn't like them. How do we express different domains. Languages all express motion, but all do it differently.
Are we trying to portray cultural differences? Are we trying to spice it up for flavor? Not always happy with execution of them.
Aud: Tony Burgess Pontipool(?) Destruction of English through loss of sociolinguistic meaning. (Zombies.) Other stories about destruction of hegemony?
Aud2: author has degree in linguistics
JC: not fiction: Anatomy of Chinese by Perry Link Can't express anything in Chinese without influence of the Mao and post-Mao era.
Aud: what languages do you think in?
JC: Doesn't understand the concept
RL: Russian story about fiddler and beard.
John Chu: came to US at 6, gets comment “you speak English so well” has seen issues that arise out of non-fluency; universal translators are fine, but engage.
Anil Menon: lived in Tanzania, India, then US. India has a lot of languages—had to decide right level of English in novel. Still steeped in foreign culture. Oral storytelling culture.
Alex Dally MacFarlane: doing masters in Asian history. Language situation in near east very complicated, interesting. Fantasy bases itself in history but doesn't engage linguistic problems. Would like to see more.
Sabrine Vourvoulias: born in Thailand, raised in Guatemala. Spanish + 21 distinct indigenous languages, which influenced Guatemalan Spanish. Came to US at 15, learned more standard Spanish here. Edits Spanish language newspaper, different conventions & inflections based on regions. Easy to learn, difficult to master intricacies, subtleties.
Q: Languages aren't monolithic, people want to include a foreign language in the story, but which one? Language shift in diaspora; grandparents speak old language, grandchildren speak English. Does this affect sense of belonging? Creates for multilinguals and immigrants sense of disorientation.
JC: Nobody tells me how good his Chinese is; it's what it should be: fluent. Cultural expectations. Chinese names tend to be aspirational. (Anecdote of his & sister's names) Sister sent nieces to Chinese school. Being bilingual better than being (bicultural? Monolingual?)
AM: India has so many languages, you can't learn them all. No conflict between them: speak one at home, another at school, a third with friends.
SV: “pathetically bilingual” (only speaks 2 languages). Nephew brought up speaking English, Bengali, Spanish. N keyed in to speaking Spanish with one family, Bengali with the other, English other times. After preschool, he didn't want to speak anything but English. In multigenerational family, this happens. Has spent majority of life pretending to be monolingual. Discussed publicly in Latin@ community. 2 Dems were reviled for not speaking any Spanish. Here, it's a test of how Latino you can claim to be. In the US, if you don't speak Spanish, your sense of identity is muddled.
RL: Hegemony. Children sense that speaking the hegemonic language will give them power, but identity issues tied into speaking the familial language(s). Complex situation. Do you accept your identity, or do you face ridicule?
Queerness and language. There were no words in Russian until recently to express queerness: made it hard for her to live, because she couldn't talk about her identity. Kids couldn't figure out how to bully her. Hard to talk about it to her family, because words don't exist, and it's hard to talk about.
Women may have a separate language from men, Native Tongue. Do women speak differently from men?
ADM: Sumerian language (isolate, dead) texts where speech of some women is slightly different. Most scholars don't know what it means: does it reflect spoken differences? Writing differences? A way to give status?
JC: Written Chinese produced gendered pronouns; before that there was one word (ta). But it never caught on. Didn't change pronunciation, only hanzi. “ta is a doctor” = male, because doctor = man. If you meant she, you'd say “woman doctor.” Could be used gender neutral but isn't in practice.
Sexuality: didn't get harsh on homosexuals until (post-)Mao era. Word used to mean homosexual means “comrade.” John thinks is funny.
AM: Distinguish between what language does and what society does to language. In old literature, find acceptance of gender fluidity; gods change gender, hide as female dancer. What pronoun is used depends on the person. Asks hijra their preference
RL: resistance to non-binary pronouns. How do we represent them?
ADM: English doesn't have a non-binary pronoun. In UK, use they as generic, resist singular they. Use of pronouns varies a lot.
Lois Tilton has a lot of power; called use of singular they for non-binary character “annoying.”
Aud: textbook editor who wants to push singular they.
RL: see equating gender neutrality, third pronouns as aliens
ADM: non-binary aliens, but all humans are binary. Not real.
RL: Some societies have different language inventories: sacred: one gender has access to this language (Hebrew); women study non-Jewish languages. Men learn Aramaic, too. Within family, men and women spoke entirely different sets of languages (mutual English). Men know all the quotations, women don't.
Story list: engage multilingualness, queerness, etc.
JC: Embassytown. Did a good job of conveying language and problems of communication; uses Sapir-Whorf: bad science, good SF.
1984, Animal Farm. Recasting words to mean new things. Linguistic invention in the Mao and post-Mao era parallels Orwell
RL: Orwell didn't invent it; Soviet-era invention to describe new communist reality, norm people into new culture.
AM: Russell Doban “ridley walker” (?) good use of language invention
Roger Rao “gandabrow” (?) shows difficulty of capturing language in English (invented)
ADM: Midnight Robber, Nalo Hopkinson. Written in patois. Normalizes it.
? ? people speak simple language after dying off
RL: colonialism creates new languages. Automatically a blend, less valued than literary standard. Doubly oppressed: loss of language, oppressed for using patois.
SV: had trouble finding examples. Comparing 2 writers.
High Astic Ernesto Hodan?? Chicano writer, mostly in Latino-oriented magazines. Our Spanish is formed, developed a whole vocabulary, from different indigenous groups. Uses central valley language (astic) to create language for high-tech world where Mexicans are most high-tech
Alan Dean Foster Created Spanglo. Why not use existing language?
JC: Chinese-English hybrid exists.
Aud: Famous Tuotolo(?) collected village tales from growing up in Nigerian in Nigerian English.
Aud: imagining a world where Hastings wasn't lost, so no French influence on English language
ADM: class divisions: French elite ate beef (French stem), poor people work with cows (Saxon)
Aud: invented languages?
RL: doesn't like them. How do we express different domains. Languages all express motion, but all do it differently.
Are we trying to portray cultural differences? Are we trying to spice it up for flavor? Not always happy with execution of them.
Aud: Tony Burgess Pontipool(?) Destruction of English through loss of sociolinguistic meaning. (Zombies.) Other stories about destruction of hegemony?
Aud2: author has degree in linguistics
JC: not fiction: Anatomy of Chinese by Perry Link Can't express anything in Chinese without influence of the Mao and post-Mao era.
Aud: what languages do you think in?
JC: Doesn't understand the concept
RL: Russian story about fiddler and beard.
