Drive-by rec

[primeideal]

I don't think I'd ever thought to look for it before (maybe I'd just had it down as one of those "highbrow" movies that don't develop a fic presence), but there's fic for Arrival (the movie) on Ao3. The movie was well-done but bittersweet, so I was happy to find some fix-it fic out there!

Yes, yes, I recognize that the movie (and story it's based on) are not illustrative of linguistic science.

Comments

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

They actually did a lot better at the linguistics than most movies do. They didn't handwave it; the characters actually had to learn each other's languages. Sure, they sped it up a lot for entertainment, but fieldwork really does involve a lot of pointing, writing on a tablet, and saying things really slow. There's even a hint of how they start with basic terms -- "Abbott is death process" instead of "Abbott is dying." Once you get a generic word for "do / make / happen" you can verb any noun. And let's not forget the fabulous ruckus over "tool / weapon." That's exactly the kind of confusion that makes political translation a nightmare. Life is analog, language is digital, and different societies draw the lines in different places.