Linguistics

2016 · Denis Villeneuve · 116 min · Sci-Fi / Drama

Arrival is the rare sci-fi film that earns its Best Picture nomination by trusting its audience completely. Amy Adams disappears into the role of a linguist tasked with the impossible, and Denis Villeneuve wraps the whole thing in a mood that lingers long after the credits. The pacing will lose anyone looking for alien action, and a few of the military-tension beats feel like they belong in a different movie. But the central idea, that language can reshape how you experience reality, hits with the force of something wholly original. It's a film that gets better every time you return to it, and most people do.

2023 · Puzzle / Adventure · PC / Steam

Chants of Sennaar is a masterfully designed linguistic puzzle game that turns the act of deciphering unknown languages into one of the most intellectually satisfying experiences on PC, wrapped in gorgeous art and a quietly powerful story about communication.

2022 · R.F. Kuang · 560 pages · Fantasy

R.F. Kuang's standalone novel uses a fantasy version of 1830s Oxford to dismantle the relationship between language, empire, and violence. Robin Swift, a Chinese orphan brought to England to study translation, discovers that the silver bars powering British industry depend on the exploitation of foreign languages and the people who speak them. It's a dark academia novel that's actually dark, a fantasy of manners that ends in revolution, and an argument about complicity that refuses easy answers. The linguistics-as-magic system is brilliant, the academic setting is rendered with loving detail, and the final act is devastating. Some readers find the political thesis overpowers the story. For others, the thesis is the story.