Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Cyberpunk worked when the Internet was in its hand-wound crystal radio phase, when you had to be a sort of hobbyist to do e-mail, and it all had a very steep learning curve. Those days are over."
- William Gibson
 |
| 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. |
| From Assignment in Eternity,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Signet in 1953 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.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 7 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Assignment in Eternity
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to Assignment in Eternity
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
| Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) Workshop |
| Burner Generates Temporary Phone Numbers |
| HushMe Bluetooth Device Reinvents The Hush-A-Phone |
| Ubiquiti FrontRow Camera Records Your Life |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
There's a lesson in this for neural net AI engineers everywhere.
