Linguistics...literature...two great things that go great together!
Here is a list of literary materials involving linguistics which I've collected over the years, both for fun and for teaching purposes.
Arranged first by length and then roughly thematically.
Of wildly varying accuracy, but even the less accurate are useful for discussions or assignments about their relation to class topics.
Happy reading!
For fun
THEY (poem on singular they), by Will Wegner
Twas the night before Linguistmas
I am the very model of a modern major-general - Indo-Europeanist version
Linguistic Assignations. Fanfiction by Fresne. Wonderful!
Details the history of the Indo-European language family via anthropomorphized languages.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/8954659?view_full_work=true
Poems
Marsh Languages, by Margaret Atwood.
After the Voices, by W.S. Merwin.
Losing a Language, by W.S. Merwin.
Laments for a Dying Language, by Ogden Nash.
Languages, by Carl Sandburg.
An ABC for Baby Linguists, by Michelle Bernstein.
Etymological Dirge, by Heather McHugh.
The Wug Test: Poems, by Jennifer Kronovets.
T4, by Ann Clare LeZotte (short YA verse novel on deafness in the Holocaust)
Short stories
Most are available online.
Persian is Sweet. Early 20th century short story by Iranian writer Mohammed-Ali Jamalzadeh.
The characters each use a different type of loanword, with comic effects as they try to communicate in a shared prison cell. Good on sociolinguistics/language policy. Several English translations available.
Yesterday. Short story by Haruki Murakami, in the collection Men without Women.
On dialect variation. One provincial Japanese man arrives in Tokyo and adopts the standard dialect; another Tokyo native adapts the provincial Kansai dialect, causing consternation.
Blog discussion: https://www.languageonthemove.com/can-speaking-dialect-make-you-ugly/
Karma. Short story by Khushwant Singh.
Accentism and language discrimination in colonial India.
Language for Time Travelers, short story by science fiction author L Sprague D’Camp.
Offers several alternatives for what future English might look like, with commentary on language change.
Pairs very well with Gretchen McCulloch’s NYT op-ed written as if from 200 years in the future, about changes in English!
See also well-known novels with hypothesized versions of future English, such as Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess) and Riddley Walker (Russell Hoban) (not listed separately).
Similarly, Paul Kingsnorth’s Booker-winning novel The Wake, written in faux-old English (but not real OE) – what does he change, how to give the impression of age?
The Isolinguals. Science fiction writer L Sprague de Camp’s first story.
People are possessed by their ancestors through genetic memory and start speaking as them, in their languages.
A Two-Timer. Short story by science fiction writer David Masson.
An English time-traveller from 1683 visits the 1960s and has communication problems.
One long passage on lexical change.
Sidewalks, by Maureen McHugh, 2017.
Through time travel, a speaker of Old English arrives in modern times, and receives speech therapy.
Shall We Have a Little Talk. Science fiction story by Robert Sheckley.
Language change encountered by linguist in space is super-speedy, so that locals maintain an advantage over outplaneters.
Sing and Listen by Karin Tidbeck, 2013 and 2016.
Science fiction stories in which a group of people switch to birdsong instead of speech when a moon is in the sky.
In the second story, aliens with a language that few can comprehend, join them.
The Author of the Acacia Seeds. And Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics.
Short story by Ursula Le Guin, 1974. In The Compass Rose collection.
On (invented) animal communication system. Last section, by the ‘editor,’ on whether art can be non-communicative.
Rachel in Love. Short story by Pat Murphy.
A signing primate (with the imprinted ‘mind’ of a human adolescent) befriends a deaf man, then escapes to make a life for herself.
See also Hurt Go Happy, below.
The Great Silence. Very short story by Ted Chiang, 2016.
Narrator is a parrot, saying that humans look for intelligent life but overlook it all around them. Mentions Alex the parrot’s language skills.
Written to accompany a multimedia exhibition on Arecibo telescope, available on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8yytY7eXDc&t=417s
Hello, Hello. Science fiction story by Seanan McGuire, 2019.
A long story with a computational linguist protagonist, which addresses all of deafness, sign language, alternative communication methods, and animal language and communication.
Story of Your Life. Science fiction short story by Ted Chiang.
Basis of the film Arrival – linguistic fieldwork with aliens, and effect of language on culture/the time-space continuum.
Understand. Science fiction short story by Ted Chiang.
Enhanced intelligence allows two rivals to create and interact in the perfect language, which can express only truth/logic.
Not So Certain. Science fiction short story by David Masson.
Linguists in space encounter an alien language with many consonant contrasts but not vowels, lots of phonetic vocabulary used.
Problem of (perceived) homophony of ‘no’ and ‘perhaps’ – discussion of lexical disambiguation and replacement.
An Arc of Lightning across the Eye of God. Science fiction short story by PH Lee, 2019.
Difficult to describe – a girl found lost in space speaks not only “space sign” but also a sacred “real language” equivalent to gene editing.
Mother Tongues. Science fiction short story by S. Qiouyi Lu, 2018.
Wonderful story about a world in which people can sell their language proficiency (then unrecoverable). A mother does so in order to fund her daughter’s education. Perfect for language endangerment, language policy, sociolinguistics.
Give me English. Nebula finalist science fiction short story by Ai Jiang, 2022.
In the future, language is currency - literally. Great on immigration, language contact, and language loss. Also when paired with Mother Tongues on language commodification.
Confluence and sequel, Confluence Revisited. Science fiction short stories by Brian Aldiss.
Starts by saying it’s a lingopost – stance changes lexical meanings of spoken words.
Structured as a lexicon of an alien language thereafter.
See also stories in Xenolinguistics section below, with novels.
True Name. Short story by Stephanie Burgis.
Another riff on the power of names, and how to escape it.
Rumpelstiltskin – along the same lines.
Golem stories. Creatures brought to life via a word/name.
Nine Billion Names of God. Science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke.
Computer scientists assist Buddhist monks in generating a complete list of the names of God, thereby causing the end of the world.
She Un-Names Them. Short story by Ursula Le Guin.
Eve leads the animals in rejecting the names assigned to them by God/Adam, and thereby any assertion of power over them.
We Have Always Spoken Panglish. Science fiction story by linguist Suzette Haden Elgin.
Language loss/death and why a society might choose it – in space.
Polyglossia. Science fiction/fantasy short story by Tamara Vardomskaya.
Language loss and preservation in space, also.
Swimmer among the Stars. Short story by Kanishk Tharoor.
Title story of a collection. The main character is the last living speaker of an indigenous language, working with language documentation experts.
Go Carolina. Autobiographical story by David Sedaris, in Me Talk Pretty One Day.
About receiving speech therapy as a middle-grader. Also about gendered patterns of articulation.
Several other stories in the collection are about his L2 language learning experience (French) including the title story and Jesus Shaves, The Tapeworm Is In, and Make That a Double.
Nothing but Gingerbread Left. Short story by Henry Kuttner.
Linguists win WWII by devising an earworm song that undermines the German efforts.
The Sound Valley, by Peter Waterhouse, 2003.
Stream-of-consciousness from a multilingual savant.
Novels
Guilty by Definition, by Susie Dent, 2024.
Lexicographer at a fictionalized OED solves the mysterious disappearance of her sister using linguistic puzzle skills. Full of fun lexicography and etymology facts.
The Mars House, by Natasha Pulley, 2024.
Major character is a former linguistics professor who worked on mammoth language before becoming a political leader.
The Centre, by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, 2023.
Thriller about a London language school which guarantees fluency in ten days, and its dark secret. Protagonist is a translator. Great on power relationships between languages and other sociolinguistic issues.
The Colony, by Audrey Magee, 2022.
Features a linguist character, working on Irish on a remote island during The Troubles. Good conversations between characters about attitudes toward language loss.
Babel. Fantasy novel by R.F. Kuang, 2022.
Victorian steampunk fantasy in which technology works by exploiting semantic overlaps between translational equivalents. Very good on lexical semantics, etymology, history of linguistics, and colonialism.
Battle of the Linguist Mages. Fantasy novel by Scotto Moore, 2022.
Another in the same vein – alien ‘power morphemes’ can control human behavior. Fun intersection with VR/online gaming.
Girl in Ice. Thriller by Erica Ferencik, 2022.
Linguist protagonist works in the Arctic with a cryogenically preserved girl from the past.
The Liar’s Dictionary, by Eley Williams, 2020.
A young lexicographer tracks down the invented words that a predecessor inserted into the earlier editions of their dictionary.
The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams, 2020.
Fictionalized story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Young female protagonist, WWI, suffrage. Very good on register and gendered language in particular.
The Yield, by Tara June Winch, 2019.
An Australian aboriginal woman looks for the indigenous-language dictionary which her grandfather wrote before his death, and which has mysteriously disappeared.
The Grammarians, by Cathleen Schine, 2019. Excerpts
Twins with a secret language and love for a dictionary become language specialists of very different types - a prescriptive grammar columnist and a non-prescriptive poet.
Raven Tower, by Ann Leckie, 2019. Excerpts
Fantasy novel in which gods can only speak truth or risk losing their lives and power.
Several other stories and novels set in the same world.
Marsh Gods is the one with the most language content.
The Gossamer Mage. Fantasy novel by Julie Czerneda, 2019. Excerpts
An ancient magical language makes things happen but also drains the life of its users.
The Emissary. Futuristic novel by Yoko Tawada, 2018.
Japan has closed itself off from the rest of the world. Loanwords have been eliminated and knowledge of foreign languages is forbidden. Probably of more interest in the original Japanese, since the loanword stuff doesn’t work well in translation.
All Rights Reserved, by Gregory Scott Katsoulis, 2017, and sequel Access Restricted.
YA dystopia with commodification and dynamic pricing of speech, charged by the word. Protagonist adopts selective mutism as protest.
The Unseen World, by Liz Moore. 2016.
Child prodigy who grew up helping her professor father develop a computational language model and interactive chatbot on the model of Eliza, copes with his mental and linguistic deterioration. Good on the history of large language models and computational linguistics.
Carry On. Fantasy novel by Rainbow Rowell, 2015.
Reviewed online by linguist Gretchen McCulloch – magical power of words/phrases. Now the first of a complete trilogy.
The Word Exchange. Novel by Alena Graedon, 2014. Excerpts
Words can be bought and sold.
Lexicon. Novel by Max Barry, 2013. Excerpts
Similar to Carry On – specific phrases can control people. Barewords.
The Last of the Vostiaks/Vostyachs. Novel by Diego Marani, 2012.
The last speaker of a language is brought to Europe by a researcher, and gets involved in crime and intrigue.
The Great Passage, by Shion Miura, 2011.
A novel about a retiring lexicographer who recruits a failed salesman/linguistics student as his successor. Also a live-action film and anime series.
The 10 pm Question. YA novel by Kate de Goldi, 2008.
The protagonist child has a secret language with his best friend. Relevant to twin language/sibling language phenomenon.
A Handbook of Volapuk. Novel by Andrew Drummond, 2006.
Set in late 1800s Edinburgh, town conflict and intrigue over which artificial language to adopt.
The Interpreter. Novel by Diego Marani, 2004.
A translator starts producing gibberish which he insists is the primordial language. It turns out to be contagious.
The Last Samurai. Novel by Helen DeWitt, 2000.
The upbringing of a precocious child who learns multiple languages from birth, a la John Stuart Mill. Full of fun linguistic nuggets.
New Finnish Grammar. Novel by Diego Marani, 2000.
During WWII, a man with amnesia is found and learns Finnish, thinking that it was his native language.
Frindle. YA book (middle-grade level) by Andrew Clements, 1996. Discussion/assignment questions
Charming, short book about a boy who invents a word which eventually is added to the dictionary. Interesting points about arbitrariness, lexicography and language change.
A Wizard of Earthsea. Classic fantasy novel by Ursula Le Guin, 1968. Excerpts
Conceit of ‘true names’ granting power over the named referent.
The Doctor is Sick, by Anthony Burgess, 1960.
Linguist protagonist - a professor undergoes a mental breakdown. Some discussion of his work and career with other characters.
The 22 Letters. Historical YA book for middle-grade readers by Clive King, 1966.
Through brother-and-sister protagonists in the Bronze Age, tells the story of the invention of the alphabet via an episode involving each letter.
ANIMAL LANGUAGE
The Dolphin House, by Audrey Schulman. 2022.
A fictionalized version of the infamous drug-addled experiment in teaching language to dolphins in the US Virgin Islands. And the protagonist is deaf!
We Love You, Charlie Freeman, by Kaitlyn Greenidge, 2016.
An African-American family moves to a Massachusetts research facility to raise a chimp with sign language. Racial and other weirdness follows.
We are all completely beside ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler, 2013.
Yet another novel about a chimpanzee growing up in a human family learning sign language. Bonus - main character and selective mutism.
Ape House. Novel by Sara Gruen, 2010. Excerpts
Signing bonobos are accidentally freed in a lab accident, then become the stars of a reality television show.
The Dogs of Babel, by Carolyn Parkhurst, 2003.
A widowed linguistics professor tries to teach English to his dog, so that the dog can explain his wife’s death as a witness.
Jennie, by Douglas Preston, 1994.
A chimpanzee grows up in a human family, learning sign language. Of all this mini-genre- probably the best on the science.
Surfacing. Novella by Walter Jon Williams, award-nominated, 1988. Excerpts
A researcher communicates with whales and aliens.
Easy Travel to Other Planets. Ted Mooney, 1981.
A love story between a woman and dolphin in which linguistic questions are central, apparently.
King of the Sea. Novel by Derek Bickerton! 1979.
About dolphin language, discusses the bioprogram hypothesis.
Oh’s Profit. Novel by John Goulet, 1975.
Also about a signing primate.
The Poison Oracle. Novel by Peter Dickinson, 1974. Excerpts
A linguist working in the United Arab Emirates teaches sign language to a chimpanzee, which becomes the only witness to a murder.
Also wrote the novel Eva in which a human girl’s brain is overlaid on a chimpanzee’s, but no linguistic content.
David Brin’s Uplift series (science fiction) also has communication with dolphins, but not much of linguistic interest.
OTHER
Heterogeneous Linguistics (Heterogenia Linguistica).
A Japanese manga series (English translations available online) about an academic linguistic fieldworker working on various language communication systems of intelligent animal species.
Ivanhoe. Novel by Sir Walter Scott. Excerpt. Simplified excerpt.
Famous passage at the beginning (~ 2 pages) about Norman versus native English vocabulary and its implications for the relative status of the two speech communities, between the pigherd and jester.
Embeddings. Science fiction novel by Ian Watson.
1970s-era SF published shortly after Syntactic Structures and exploring its implications.
Three plotlines interweave linguistic fieldwork with aliens on first contact, a ‘forbidden experiment’-style study involving children and language deprivation, and a prescient Piraha-style Amazonian endangered language unlike any other (in this case, because it relies entirely on center-embedding and can break human brains).
Experimental section. Xemahoa section. Alien section.
Embassytown, science fiction novel by China Mieville, 2011. Excerpts
An alien species which can speak only truth, and how that changes.
The Three-body Problem, science fiction trilogy (and now television series) by Liu Cixin, 2008.
An alien species in which thought equals language, with no deception.
Discussion by a linguist:
https://linguisticdiscovery.com/posts/three-body-problem/
Xenolinguistics. Science fiction world created by Sheila Finch, inventor of the term.
Several relevant novels and short stories.
Roaring Ground. Aspiring ‘lingster’ (space linguist) needs to pass her qualifying exam.
Face of God. A linguist in an alien royal court is kidnapped by a tribe to negotiate with the ruling power for them.
Communion of Minds. A lingster and crew land on a planet with only one human survivor, who has strange speech problems.
Out of the Mouths. Current and former heads of the xenolinguistics program meet and argue.
A human baby and alien child are raised together to try and crack an unlearnable alien language.
First was the Word. The genesis of the xenolinguistics program. A failed linguist works with the first alien on earth.
Out of the Silent Planet. Early sf/religious novel by CS Lewis. Excerpts
Protagonist is a philologist. Also an alien contact/language learning situation.
Lola Robles’ science fiction book on interstellar linguists.
Native Tongue trilogy. Science fiction series by linguist Suzette Haden Elgin.
Women linguists/translators develop a special language for women which modifies behavior, leading to gender equality.
Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.
“Babel-fish” universal translator mentioned passim.
Similarly, Star Trek novelizations.
Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand. Science fiction novel by Samuel Delany, 1984. Excerpts
Darwin’s Children. Science fiction novel by Greg Bear, 2002.
Triggered DNA changes in humans result in new languages and sounds as well as telepathy.
Snow Crash. Science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson, 1992.
The Sumerian language is revived and has the effect of crashing human autonomy/minds.
Babel-17. Science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany, 1966.
Whorfianism in space.
The Languages of Pao. Science fiction novel by Jack Vance, 1958.
Similar to above – “what you can accomplish if you can make people think the way you want them to think by constructing languages for them.”
1984. George Orwell. The ‘Newspeak’ language for limiting thought.
The Memorandum. Novel by Vaclav Havel, 1965.
About a totalitarian govt’s effort to plan and implement a planned, perfect language.
Portuguese Irregular Verbs. Novel by Alexander McCall Smith, 1997.
Gentle humor featuring an absent-minded professor of Romance linguistics.
Episodic and excerptable; two sequels.
The Full Catastrophe. Novel by David Carkeet, 1990.
A linguist who moves into a couple’s house to do couples therapy by helping them communicate. Things go very wrong…
Double Negative. Novel by David Carkeet, 1980. Excerpts
Head linguist at a psycholinguistics/language acquisition teaching invented words to toddlers becomes a suspect in a murder, so has to solve the crime.
Rates of Exchange. Novel by Malcolm Bradbury, 1983. Excerpts
Linguist protagonist goes on a cultural tour behind the Iron Curtain.
Atlantis. Novel by David Gibbins, 2005.
Adopts Renfrewian PIE Neolithic Anatolian homeland-and-agriculture hypothesis.
But it’s a very long book and this isn’t discussed much; also, some false claims (inclusion of Egyptian and Semitic, false etymologies).
Constructed languages
Countless books and stories (Tolkien, Klingon, etc).
Lists available on various science fiction websites, so not enumerated here.
Dialectal variation
For AAVE, the novels of Zora Neale Hurston.
Push. A novel by Sapphire, 1990s. Features AAVE.
The Hate U Give. YA novel by Angie Thomas, 2017.
Features an African-American teen protagonist whose internal dialogue is in AAVE and codeswitches when speaking out loud. She has one more recent novel, also with AAVE.
Allegedly. YA novel by Tiffany D. Jackson, 2017.
Also features AAVE; she also has one more recent novel.
Blog discussion with suggestions and commentary:
https://bookriot.com/2017/07/26/aave-in-literature-the-bad-the-good-and-the-great/
Songs of Jamaica. Early 20th-century poetry collection by Claude McKay.
In Jamaican patois.
A Brief History of Seven Killings. Marlon James, 2015.
This and other books by James feature Jamaican patois.
Much material in Scots.
Of course Burns poems; also a 1980s literary renaissance.
Short pieces in Lallans magazine.
Novels by Alasdair Gray, James Kelman.
If Yu Hie Se A De Prizin. Poetry anthology in Nigerian Pidgin English (Naija), 2012.
Sozaboy. Novel by Ken Saro Wiwa, 1985.
Written in NPE/Naija.
The Palm-Wine Drinkard. Novel by Amos Tutuola.
In Pidgin English and Yoruba-influenced English.
Also works by Chika Nwakanma: "Uncle no be Un-cle", "Common sence no common."
Jonas Dogara: Armagedon. Sam Bright: Rat Palava.
Sarong Party Girls. Novel by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, 2016.
Very engaging, written in Singapore English (Singlish).
Begins with short one-page non-linguistic description of it.
Third Year at Malory Towers, by Enid Blyton. Excerpts
An American girl joins a British boarding school and experiences accentism.
Sign language and deafness
Very many, not too hard to find via online lists; many available from Gallaudet’s press.
One relevant blog for YA: pajka.blogspot.com
Some highlights with more specifically linguistic material:
The Hearing Test. 2024. Eliza Barry Callahan.
Protagonist/narrator experiences sudden unexpected hearing loss.
In This Sign. 1970, reissued in 2024. Joanne Greenberg.
Family history novel focusing on a deaf couple living through the 20th century.
True Biz. 2022. Sara Novic.
Set in a deaf boarding school, lots on sign language and the Deaf community.
Show Me a Sign. 2020. Ann Clare LeZotte.
YA novel set in Martha's Vineyard, featuring its local sign language (as well as Wampanoag, bonus!)
El Deafo. Graphic novel for young readers by Cece Bell, 2014.
A deaf child facing challenges at school creates a superhero alter ego with a Phonic Ear. Now also an animated series!
Hurt Go Happy. Novel by Ginny Rorby, 2006. Excerpts
A deaf girl raised without sign language in an oralist environment encounters a signing friend and his signing chimpanzee, gains confidence and knowledge of ASL.
Feathers. Award-winning YA novel by Jacqueline Woodson, 2007.
Two signing children in a newly-integrated school in the 1970s.
Deaf Child Crossing. YA series written by deaf actress Marlee Matlin, 2002. Excerpts
Seeing Voices. Non-fiction – by Oliver Sacks, a book on the American deaf community.
Talking Hands. Non-fiction – by Margalit Fox, on the Bedouin Sign Language community.
Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World. Memoir by Leah Hager Cohen, 1994.
A hearing girl growing up in a deaf school.
Language Disorders
I haven’t found much which is fictional (rather than memoirs), especially in easily-assignable short story form – would be very happy to hear of any!
The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai. Novel by Ruiyan Xu, 2010.
An aphasic Chinese businessman loses access to his native language and can speak only with his rudimentary English. Enters speech therapy.
Speechless. Gay romance novel by Kim Fielding, 2012. Excerpts
One of the main characters is aphasic.
How to Speak Dolphin. YA novel by Ginny Rorby, 2015. Excerpts
Young character with autism and his sister.
Paperboy. Award-winning YA novel by Vince Vawter, 2013. Excerpts
The young protagonist comes to terms with his stuttering.
No Words. Middle-grade novel by Maryam Master, 2022.
Refugee child experiences mutism.
Speak. Award-winning YA novel by Laurie Halse Anderson, 1999. Also available as a graphic novel. Excerpts
After a traumatic assault, a teenager experiences mutism.
Out of My Mind. YA novel by Sharon M. Draper, 2010. Excerpts
Main character has cerebral palsy and is “locked-in,” but uses augmented communication.
Flowers for Algernon. Short story and novel by Daniel Keyes.
The protagonist’s language skills evolve and decline along with his enhanced/lost intelligence.
Some of the best known, mostly memoirs rather than fiction:
My Left Foot (cerebral palsy)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (locked-in syndrome). Excerpts
Temple Grandin’s books (autism)
Schuyler’s Monster: A Father’s Journey with his Wordless Daughter
Helen Keller’s books.