Budiaril laad len medonilaadeth hal el dan ededidethuhaa. We will look at the worldviews imaged in science fiction (SF) created languages

I have just finished teaching a course entitled Linguistics and Science Fiction. In this course we looked at the topic from three points of view: SF created languages and the worldviews imaged therein, which statement a student rendered into Laadan, the headline above; SF with linguistics and/or linguists as major plot devices; and, thirdly, how SF writers in English manage to construct worlds where derivational thinking, basic to English, does not function. In summer 1999 course information will be available at http://grove.ufl.edu/~hardman/, or I can make the information available via e-mail (hardman@ufl.edu).

For the pleasure of the readers of Women and Language I would like to share the list of novels that we used as texts, plus some of those that the students abstracted to share with the class. All these novels relate to language and gender, in one way or another. A good many of them I learned of originally through the James E. Tiptree Award for gender bending science fiction. (For a description and listing see http://www.tiptree.org/index.html.)

Suzette Haden Elgin has said (Linguistics & Science Fiction 1996), Linguistics is our best tool for bringing about...