2024 - 05/2024 Meeting

Page Created: 01/14/24. Last Updated: 06/03/24.

LANGUAGE, LINGUISTICS & SCIENCE FICTION

CLAIRE FISHER

Blog: https://deadfictionalgirlfriendsreport.com/

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/claire.marinello

Meeting Date: May 11, 2024.

Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Attendance: 21 + 7.

Meeting Program: Talk / Q & A with Science Fiction / Fantasy Author.

Notes:

Eleven people attended the Ice Nine pre-meeting discussion. The group talked about the mechanics of dismounting from the sandworms of Dune, the movies DUNKIRK and VALERIAN & THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan and the testing of biological weapons on the United States, the evacuations of Dunkirk and Manhattan on 9/11/01, the book THE PAST IS RED (Catherynne Valente), the US Government's Department of Mad Scientists (US Treasury), and the passing of former club member Bruce Wallace.

Newsletter Account:

The Saturday, May 11, 2024 Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Writer / film maker PJ Caldas was our scheduled speaker, but a family emergency came up and he was unable to join us. Claire Fisher became our last-minute substitute, giving a variant of a talk she had presented at academic conferences and she hit it out of the ballpark.

Claire led the first part of the program. She covered phrases, idioms, and expressions that had entered the language through advertising and popular culture; accents and dialects; differences in languages (some have no numbers; others, no concept of right and left; Mongolian has 50 words to classify goat hair; Russian does not have articles); and other fascinating tidbits. There was lots of participation from the audience. More can be found on the club website under 2024 - 05/2024 Meeting.

Meeting Notes:

Attendees with a non-English first language:

Angela Mallon............Spanish

Milind Padki................Marathi (India)

Anthony Pawlak..........Polish / English

Moshe Yuda................Hebrew

Idioms & Expressions that have entered the lanuage via advertising or popular culture:

Beam Me Up

Brainiac

Bucket List

Buy the Farm

Debbie Downer

Doozy

Down a Rabbit Hole

Enshittification

Final Frontier

Fubar

Go Over to the Dark Side

Jump the Sharp

Lingua Franca

Macgyver

May the Force Be with You

Situationship

Snafu

To Boldly Go (acceptable split infinitive)

Utopia

Legal Terms So That Both English Conquerors and Conquered Will Understand:

Cease & Desist

Null & Vod

Most English Speakers do not have English as their Ancestral Language.

Creole & Pigden

Accent & Dialect

English & American - Different dialects

Dutch & German

Turkish & Armenian

Russian has no articles.

Mongolian has 50 words to describe goat hair.

Some languages do not have numbers, just "few, some, many"

Some cultures do not have terms for specific concepts.

Some language do not have right / left, just north, south, east, & west

Sign Languages differ by region.

Genre Books & Stories Dealing with Language

FINE PREY by Scott Westerfeld

BABEL 17 by Samuel R Delany

THE LANGUAGES OF PAO by Jack Vance

New Sun series by Gene Wolfe

STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION - Darmok episode - alien language of metaphors

Terry Pratchett's resurrected mummies line up in age order to translate for one another due to language changes over time.

Church Latin vs Classical Latin.

Britain tried to indoctrinate its Indian civil servants by sending them to Brit schools, but it didn't work.

In India you take separate exams in English and in American to get your Fluency Certificate.

A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ has a Google Translate equivalent.

Star Trek's Universal Translator.

Klingon Language Creation

Jawas speak a variant of Zulu.

THE ROAD TO ROSWELL by Connie Willis has aliens using non-verbal communication.

DOCTOR WHO & THE CURSE OF THE FATAL DEATH - The Doctor & The Master communicate by farting.

Pheromone / Urine & scent territory markings (cats rubbing face)

ARRIVAL - comminication via ink cloud.

Medical Conditions:

Synesthesia - scrambled sensory input, like seeing words as colors.

Agnosia - unable to recognize faces & objects. THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT by Oliver Sacks.

Aspasia:

MARVEL'S AGENTS OF SHIELD had character who suffered aphasia.

Splitting the right-left brain connection has cured some people of seizures.

Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga split brains. Got different answers from left & right hemispheres.

Phantom Limb Syndrome:

Episode of HOUSE where House gets patient to unclench missing arm & fist.

THE LONG ARM OF GIL HAMILTON by Larry Niven - character has telekinetic arm.

Phantom Nerve Pain

World Languages:

English is the language of aviation and of business.

French had been the language of European diplomacy.