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"[Science fiction] is the one literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please."
- Alfred Bester
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| Speedtalk | ||
| A constructed language that uses a single sound to stand for a word, achieving great improvements in communication speed. |
In the novella Gulf (published in 1949), Heinlein uses a great literary device to emphasize just how much human beings can achieve if they put their minds to it. He creates the idea of an artificial language called "Speedtalk" that allows the user to both speak and think more quickly and logically.
| ...it was possible to establish a one-to-one relationship with Basic English so that one phonetic symbol was equivalent to an entire word in a "normal" language, one Speedtalk word was equal to an entire sentence. The structure of Speedtalk did not contain the hidden errors of English... The advantage for achieving truth, or something more nearly like truth, was similar to the advantage of keeping account books in Arabic numerals rather than Roman. |
| Technovelgy from Gulf,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1949 Additional resources -
|
Artificial languages (also called constructed languages, or conlangs) have been in vogue ever since the not very successful introduction of Esperanto, arguably the most successful of the bunch. Introduced in 1887 by the Polish physician Ludwig L. Zamenhoff, it is spoken by as many as two million people worldwide. Thousands of books are available.
You might also be interested in another artificial language created by a science fiction author - Babel-17, from the 1968 novel of the same name by Samuel R. Delany.
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
