Linguistics has an intrinsic connection to science fiction stories given the nature of the genre and its frequent use of alien settings and cultures. As mentioned in Aliens and Linguists: Language Study and Science Fiction by Walter E. Meyers, science fiction is almost always concerned with the idea of communication, such as communication with aliens and machines, or communication using dead languages and evolved languages of the future. Authors at times use linguistics and its theories as a tool for storytelling, as in Jack Vance's 1958 novel Languages of Pao, although technical terms are rarely used, and authors only go into as much detail as the average reader will understand.

While linguistics is used by science fiction authors, not all uses are accurate to actual linguistics and its theories. Nevertheless, there still exists the lingering presence and use of linguistics (even if inaccurate) in such cases. As mentioned by Walter E. Meyers, the ability to make a story seem more unfamiliar and exotic, and an alien seem less of a costumed human who merely differs in physical appearance, is only possible through the use of language. It is this ability that appears to draw the boundary between great works of science fiction and those lesser so. As such, linguistics, the scientific study of language, comes to hold an important role in the genre of science fiction.

History

The Lord of the Rings and linguistics

Since the mid-19th century, science fiction works using language as the heart of the plot, rather than just a convenient means to advance the story, have reflected the history of linguistics. One such case of the history of linguistics being intertwined with the makings of science fiction involves the author J. R. R. Tolkien, who is known for fantasy works such as The Lord of the Rings.

This history begins with the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which was 70 years in the making and aimed at "...exhibiting the history and significance of English words now in use, or known to have been in use since the middle of the 12th century". William Craigie, one of the editors of the OED, tutored undergraduates at Oxford including Tolkien, whom he later invited to work as a junior editor of the OED. According to Daniel Grotta-Kurska, Tolkien’s biographer, it was Craigie who provided "Tolkien’s greatest impetus to transform Elvish from an experiment to a life-long pursuit".

As Tolkien built the Elvish language, his fantasy works were aimed at providing a setting for it. The Silmarillion, which covered the First and Second Age (a period of time before The Lord of the Rings), was said by Tolkien as having been:

As Walter E. Meyers pointed out,

True to this, Paul Kocher noticed that the evolution of the languages of Middle-Earth was similar to that of the Indo-European languages.

As Meyers noted, the rich linguistic details encapsulated within The Lord of the Rings made reading it feel:

Meyers attributes most of this feeling to the languages of The Lord of the Rings, explaining,

In The Lord of the Rings, all the different beings (dwarves, elves, humans and orcs) spoke different languages and dialects, with only the hobbits speaking English. The riders of Rohan (Middle-earth) spoke Rohirric, illustrated by Tolkien using slightly disguised Old English (especially since the language was archaic compared to that of the hobbits). The orcs even had a language with different dialects while the language of the elves had history narrated into it.

The efforts employed by Tolkien to fully create the languages of The Lord of the Rings and the importance he gives them are obvious from his attention to linguistic detail. This attention to linguistic detail was so great, Meyers in his work Aliens and Linguists: Language Study and Science Fiction was able to conduct a linguistic analysis on Tolkien’s Elvish languages (Middle-earth). Although the full analysis will not be provided, the following content are some conclusions he derived from the analysis.

With regards to Elvish, there are two forms: Quenya and Sindarin. These two forms are somehow related, with both being derived from an older form of language, although Quenya was more similar to that older form and retained certain features of it. The word order of Quenya poetry is flexible, as the suffixes on the words showed their relationships, similar to many inflected languages in the real world, such as Latin. Quenya appeared to be like Indo-European languages in its structure, where, for example, a verb consists of a prefix (if any), a root and an ending that show grammatical tense, grammatical aspect and number.

As Meyers concludes from this analysis,

With Tolkien’s efforts in his works, science fiction authors have honoured him by referencing his creations in their own works. One example of such a case is Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity, in which the protagonist, Barlennan, sails a ship named ‘’Bree’’, referencing Tolkien’s Barliman Butterbur, the owner of the inn ‘The Prancing Pony’ The Prancing Pony in the town of Bree (Middle-earth). In James Tiptree Jr.’s Your Haploid Heart, Mordor, a fictional realm in Tolkien’s works, was used as a common obscenity, similar to how we use ‘Hell’. A. Bertram Chandler’s To Keep the Ship even mentioned a constellation named ‘The Hobbit’.

Several books also went into depth about the languages in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. One example of this is the Parma Eldalamberon (see: Elvish Linguistic Fellowship), a special interest group of the Mythopoeic Society. Another example is A Glossary of the Eldarin Tongues written by James D. Allan in 1972, before it was replaced by An Introduction to Elvish, which discussed the languages in Middle-earth, in 1978.

Whorf and science fiction

Franz Boas, was a self-taught linguist, who focused on the aboriginal languages of North America. His field experience led to the realisation that using the traditional method of analyzing Western European languages would not work for other languages. Boas wrote the Handbook of American Indian Languages in 1911, justifying his methods in the book by saying:

Edward Sapir met Boas in 1904, and was inspired to begin analysing American Indian languages. Sapir then became Benjamin Lee Whorf’s mentor. Some parts of Whorf’s later ideas can be found in Sapir’s works, such as in linguistic relativity, which is sometimes referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

In 1924, Whorf wrote a science fiction novel called The Ruler of the Universe, which remained unpublished. It narrated the destruction of Earth by a horrific chain reaction caused by the military's research on atomic fission. According to Peter C. Rollins, it was during the writing of this work that Whorf began to consider the relation between Language and Thought, resulting in the principle of linguistic relativity.

As summarised by Meyers,

This came to suggest that language influenced the naming of places (similar to gender assignments seen in Spanish nouns), an example of language constraining our perception of reality.

In ‘’Science and Linguistics’’, Whorf stated that:

Whorf’s principle of linguistic relativity was very much used as material for science fiction novels. For example, it appeared in Philip José Farmer’s Prometheus, in which the protagonist, at one point, suggested teaching different groups of aliens different languages, to test the Whorf hypothesis.

As pointed out by Meyers,

This is explored in George Orwell’s work, Nineteen Eighty-four. The novel tells the story of a government that practises totalitarianism, where even thoughts could be considered an offence (see: Thoughtcrime). Newspeak was created by the government, which was a much narrower form of English, to limit freedom of thought. The list of vocabulary grew smaller each year, and the meanings of the words were reduced as well, all to fit into the political goals of the ruling party.

However, the Whorf hypothesis could also work to the advantage of human beings. This was seen in Jack Vance’s The Languages of Pao, in which the planet Pao was invaded by another planet and the son of the Emperor of Pao was placed on the throne as the invaders’ puppet. The son, Beran Panasper, sought the help of a scientist, Palafox, from another planet, Breakness, to free Pao. As one of Palafox’s sons said:

Linguistic Relativity continues to play a large role in the story, where language constrains world-views of the speaker and can be used as a tool to control or liberate the people.

After WWII

Science fiction works after WWII were influenced by the beliefs behind Alfred Korzybski’s General Semantics. When Korzybski launched General Semantics as a self-improvement program, John W. Campbell Jr. promoted its belief system to many widely read science fiction authors and encouraged people to write about it in works of science fiction. This is in spite of the fact that General Semantics has nothing to do with linguistics. As such, science fiction works of this era often contradict actual psycholinguistic theories. For example, in The World of Null-A by A. E. van Vogt describes language as having the ability to physically alter the human brain in the sense that if a language portrays reality untruthfully, "brain damage (in the form of sub-microscopic colloidal lesions) results". This contradicts any and all psycholinguistic descriptions of aphasia, the only language related brain damage. Even in aphasia, language is not the cause, although the loss of language is an effect.

General semantics has also inspired Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. In this story, Delany described a character as being incapable of pronouncing /b/ but capable of pronouncing /p/ due to the presence of fangs. This is not a speech impediment that can be caused by having fangs because the two phonemes share the same method of articulation, they are both bilabial stops. The only thing that is distinct between the two is voicedness; /b/ is voiced while /p/ is unvoiced. Therefore, the only thing that can cause such a speech impediment is damage to the vocal cords. Even if there is damage to the vocal cords it only makes sense if the resulting speech impediment was an inability to produce a voiced sound due to the inability for the damaged vocal cords to vibrate properly. Babel-17, despite its linguistic errors, was positively received by its readers. In the same book, Delany confuses between grammatical gender and sex. He has a character lament over how a "sex" can be assigned in some languages but not others. This is incongruent with grammatical gender because it is not about sex and it is not a matter of choice whether or not a speaker uses grammatical gender in a language with grammatical gender.

Because general semantics has language as a core concern, it was not uncommon for science fiction authors of its time to adopt it as a basis for the different ways they might imagine language to affect the human mind. This can be seen in Gulf by Robert A. Heinlein where Speedtalk is described to "[make] thought processes enormously faster". In Gulf, Heinlein described Speedtalk as being able to express whole sentences in a word. Together, these features were supposed to make the characters of his book more efficient by means of language. Here, science fiction contradicts linguistics for it has been proven that the speed of thought is independent of the length of a verbal utterance. Heinlein also made Speedtalk to have no real distinction between nouns and verbs because he believed that they were not necessary to be logical. In short, Speedtalk is yet another product of subscription to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; Heinlein believed that providing his characters with a language he claimed was logical would make them incapable of illogical thought.