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"I do think there is a link in that in both cases, writing fiction or writing a computer program, at any given moment you're focusing on a very specific and particular thing—one word, one line of code, whatever."
- Neal Stephenson

Language Net  
  Endows the user with the ability to understand any language.  

The sorceror Pharesm is about to project poor Cugel one million years into the past.

“The mission, of course, is to bring the symbol into contact with TOTALITY.” He brought forth a wad of tangled gray tissue. “In order to facilitate your search, I endow you with this instrument which relates all possible vocables to every conceivable system of meaning.” He thrust the net into Cugel’s ear, where it swiftly engaged itself with the nerve of consonent expression. “Now,” said Pharesm, “you need listen to a strange language for but three minutes when you become proficient in its use.
Technovelgy from The Sorceror Pharesm, by Gerald Vance.
Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1966
Additional resources -

Compare to the babel fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by neural lace from Surface Detail (2010) by Iain M Banks.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Sorceror Pharesm
  More Ideas and Technology by Gerald Vance
  Tech news articles related to The Sorceror Pharesm
  Tech news articles related to works by Gerald Vance

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