Babel-17
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''Babel-17'' is a 1966
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
novel by American writer
Samuel R. Delany Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (, ; born April 1, 1942) is an American writer and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays on science fiction, literature, sexual orientation, sexuality, and ...
in which the
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis Linguistic relativity asserts that language influences worldview or cognition. One form of linguistic relativity, linguistic determinism, regards peoples' languages as determining and influencing the scope of cultural perceptions of their surrou ...
(that language influences thought and perception) plays an important part. It was joint winner of the
Nebula Award for Best Novel The Nebula Award for Best Novel is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy novels. A work of fiction is considered a novel by the organization if it is 40,000 words or longer; ...
in 1967 (with ''
Flowers for Algernon ''Flowers for Algernon'' is a short story by American author Daniel Keyes, which he later expanded into a novel and adapted for film and other media. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of ''The Magazin ...
'') and was also nominated for the
Hugo Award for Best Novel The Hugo Award for Best Novel is one of the Hugo Awards given each year by the World Science Fiction Society for science fiction or fantasy stories published in, or translated to, English during the previous calendar year. The novel award is ava ...
in 1967. Delany hoped to have ''Babel-17'' originally published as a single volume with the novella '' Empire Star'', but this did not happen until a 2001 reprint.


Plot summary

Babel-17 is a language that can be used as a weapon by enemy invaders during an interstellar war. Chinese starship captain, linguist, poet, and telepath Rydra Wong begins to learn the language. After several attacks have been made by the invaders who speak Babel-17, she soon realizes the potential of the language to change one's thought process and provide speakers with certain powers, and she is recruited by her government to discover how the enemy is infiltrating and sabotaging strategic sites. As her understanding of the language increases, she is able to predict where the next attack will be and gathers a team to go to the predicted location of the attack. Initially Babel-17 is thought to be a code used by enemy agents. Rydra realizes it is a language in and of itself. During their mission, Rydra realizes there is a traitor aboard the ship. After escaping the predicted attack, Rydra and her crew are captured by a pirate ship called a shadow-ship. While on the ship, Rydra meets a man called "The Butcher" who does not use the word "I". After teaching The Butcher the word "I," Rydra, The Butcher, and her crew leave the ship during a battle. Rydra and The Butcher, who already unknowingly spoke Babel-17, are rescued but seem incredibly altered. While their bodies are present, their minds seem elsewhere. Their ability to speak Babel-17 has altered their minds and we learn that it was Rydra who was the traitor on board the ship. Babel-17 is discovered to be a language that not only helps you understand the enemy, but become the enemy. The novel deals with several issues related to the peculiarities of language, how conditions of life shape the formation of words and meaning, and how words themselves can shape the actions of people.


Influence

Delany's novel influenced a generation of writers: '' Native Tongue'' by
Suzette Haden Elgin Suzette Haden Elgin (born Patricia Anne Suzette Wilkins; November 18, 1936 – January 27, 2015) was an American researcher in experimental linguistics, construction and evolution of languages and poetry and science fiction writer. She founded t ...
, ''
The Dispossessed ''The Dispossessed'' (subtitled ''An Ambiguous Utopia'') is a 1974 anarchist utopian science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, one of her seven Hainish Cycle novels. It is one of a small number of books to win all three Hugo, ...
'' by
Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( ; Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantas ...
, '' Embassytown'' by
China Miéville China Tom Miéville ( , born 6 September 1972) is a British speculative fiction writer and Literary criticism, literary critic. He often describes his work as "weird fiction", and is allied to the loosely associated movement of writers called ...
, "In Luna Bore Coda" by Joshua Nilles, and, more evidently, the short story "
Story of Your Life "Story of Your Life" is a science fiction novella by American writer Ted Chiang, first published in '' Starlight 2'' in 1998, and later in 2002 in Chiang's collection of short stories, '' Stories of Your Life and Others''. Its major themes are ...
" by
Ted Chiang Ted Chiang (; pinyin: ''Jiāng Fēngnán''; born 1967) is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula Award, Nebula awards, four Hugo Award, Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus Award, ...
. Language as a weapon was adapted as a plot device in
Neal Stephenson Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work explores mathemati ...
's ''
Snow Crash ''Snow Crash'' is a science fiction novel by the American writer Neal Stephenson, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's novels, its themes include history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryp ...
''. It also resembles a few preceding science fiction novels which deal with how languages shape the political and cultural stratum of societies, such as '' The Languages of Pao'' by
Jack Vance John Holbrook Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer. He also wrote several mystery novels under pen names, including Ellery Queen. Vance won the World Fantasy Award for Life Ach ...
or ''
Anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to sho ...
'' by
Ayn Rand Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which s ...
.


Language of Babel-17

The language portrayed at the center of ''Babel-17'' contains interesting linguistic features including the absence of a pronoun or any other construction for "I". The heroine finds her perceptions (and even her physical abilities) altered once she has learned Babel-17. Babel-17 also seems to alter the worldview of those who speak it. When Rydra speaks in Babel-17, time slows down because she is able to communicate with much more precision. The language also not only allows one to express ideas much quicker but seems to also change one's worldview. Delany describes himself as having been "a die-hard believer in the Sapir-Whorf", which was in the air at the time, without his ever having heard the term; eventually, once he read about it, he decided that "it was just incorrect", because "it fails to take into account the whole economy of discourse, which is a linguistic level that accomplishes lots of the soft-edge conceptual contouring around ideas, whether we have available a one- or two-word name for it or only a set of informal many-word descriptions that are not completely fixed", which motivated his later works considering language: "The realization of the flaws in the Sapir-Whorf, in that they caused me to begin considering the more complex linguistic mechanisms of discourse, you might say gave me my lifetime project."


Other media

In 2014, the work ''Babel-17'' was told in tandem with a partial biography of Samuel R. Delany's early years in the form of a play ''The Motion of Light in Water'', based on a 1988 autobiography with the same title, produced by Elbow Room, an Australian theatre company directed by Marcel Dorney. Rush drummer and lyricist
Neil Peart Neil Ellwood Peart ( ; September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian and American musician, known as the drummer, percussionist, and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush (band), Rush. He was known to fans by the nickname "the Profe ...
noted that ''Babel-17'' was one of his early literary influences, and was an important part of the crafting of the band's hugely successful '' 2112'' album.


References


Sources

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External links


Errata for Babel-17, approved by the author.

2009 retrospective review
by
Jo Walton Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel '' Among Others'', which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and '' Tooth and Claw'', a Victorian-era novel w ...
: "Babel 17 was published in 1966, the year in which I learned to talk." *
Babel-17
at Worlds Without End {{Nebula Award Best Novel 1965-1980 1966 American novels 1966 science fiction novels Ace Books books American novels adapted into plays American philosophical novels Fiction about language Nebula Award for Best Novel–winning works Novels by Samuel Delany