Breaking down the sci-fi genre

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And what about English as the Universal language....

Does non-English sci-fi has English as the Universal language?

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Does non-English sci-fi has English as the Universal language?

I don't think so, but there is a whole lot less non-English sci-fi.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Does non-English sci-fi has English as the Universal language?

yep.

[stonetools]

I think that as more and more non-English SF gets written, the EAUL trope will go away. After all; ., it will look a little silly if Sunil Vishnwanath of the ISS Krishna is seen as speaking English. Mostr linkly, he'll be speaking Hindi or maybe, Interlingua.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And what about English as the Universal language....

That isn't all that overwhelmingly common anymore:

Quite a few books from the 60's and 70's possited Esperanto as the universal language.
Earlier, in the 40's and 50's, L. Sprague DeCamp had brazilian portugese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viagens_Interplanetarias
Heinlein had an english/russian/chinese patois as the lingua franca in THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS.
Pournelle's Co-Dominion has English/russian.
Asimov explicitly made it clear (in PEBBLE IN THE SKY) that his Empire's Galactic was *not* english.
Quite a few modern stories assume spanish, chinese, or japanese roots to the universal language.
Unless the future society is possited to be of anglophone descent (Weber's Graysons come to mind) most writers tend to leave it up to the reader these days.

(Foreign rights have value, too. )

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I think that as more and more non-English SF gets written, the EAUL trope will go away. After all; ., it will look a little silly if Sunil Vishnwanath of the ISS Krishna is seen as speaking English. Mostr linkly, he'll be speaking Hindi or maybe, Interlingua.

Maybe not quite as silly as you think. India how so many languages, from several different language families, that there is a lot of resistance to making Hindi the universal language of India. And I don't see a particular reason for them to replace English with Interlingua as a neutral universal language.

Now that being said, if you replace your hero's point of origin with a national of China, Brazil or Argentina, I agree with you entirely.

--
Bill

[kennyc]

And English is the designated international language of science so why not SF.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

It may be that we will move on to another language someday, but retain use of English for scientific jargon and matters, much as Latin is retained and used today.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

It may be that we will move on to another language someday, but retain use of English for scientific jargon and matters, much as Latin is retained and used today.

Quite defensible:
Greek and latin were the language of the cultured long past the point where Rome mattered.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I think that as more and more non-English SF gets written, the EAUL trope will go away. After all; ., it will look a little silly if Sunil Vishnwanath of the ISS Krishna is seen as speaking English. Mostr linkly, he'll be speaking Hindi or maybe, Interlingua.

I'm not sure that more non-English SF will be written; for whatever reason it's a mostly anglophone genre.

Although I haven't read a book in a long time where the universal language was explicitly described as being English.

However, the very concept that there is *one* universal language language that everyone speaks is died-in-the-wool American Cultural Imperialism (tm) (Although the British aren't far behind us in that regard.) Why should there be one universal language - of whatever flavor.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Quite defensible:
Greek and latin were the language of the cultured long past the point where Rome mattered.

I am not trying to be contrarian, I really am no . But Greek as a language spoken, or even read had essentially vanished from Western Europe by the time the Roman Empire had fallen. It actually made a comeback.

As for Latin, well, Rome never really did cease to matter. Yes, the Roman empire fell, but because the Catholic Church, Rome remained in large measure a focal point of Western Europe until at least the Protestant Reformation.


--
Bill

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I'm not sure that more non-English SF will be written; for whatever reason it's a mostly anglophone genre.

Although I haven't read a book in a long time where the universal language was explicitly described as being English.

However, the very concept that there is *one* universal language language that everyone speaks is died-in-the-wool American Cultural Imperialism (tm) (Although the British aren't far behind us in that regard.) Why should there be one universal language - of whatever flavor.

The idea is not unique to America, nor is it cultural imperialism. While there has never been a single universal language that everyone has spoken, they almost inevitably develop; either as a result of imperialism, diplomacy or trade. Sometimes they are an existing language, sometimes they are pigeon of several different languages.

As to why? Simple, language translation is inherently limited. Language shapes the way we think, so it is sometimes impossible to precisely translate an idea developed in one language into another (you end up with an approximation). Thus having a common language facilitates communication since those translation issues are lessened. (Also its inconvenient to need a translator every time you want to communicate).

--
Bill

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I am not trying to be contrarian, I really am no .

Why not?
*I* am.
Always.
It's more fun.
(Besides, somebody has to make a stand against groupthink. )

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

As to why? Simple, language translation is inherently limited.

And top dogs are inherently arrogant and expect others to cater to them.
No apologies offered.
It works as long as they are top dog. And a bit beyond.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

The idea is not unique to America, nor is it cultural imperialism. While there has never been a single universal language that everyone has spoken, they almost inevitably develop; either as a result of imperialism, diplomacy or trade. Sometimes they are an existing language, sometimes they are pigeon of several different languages.

No, they don't. The world has always been a mish-mash of different languages, with - if you're lucky - a commonly understood second language - like Latin or Greek to fall back on. Greek (or Latin) was never a universal language, even within the Roman empire. At best one or the other was a language that most educated people understood.

As to why? Simple, language translation is inherently limited.

It's limited as to style - if you translate poetry into another language it won't be the same. It's not limited as to conveying ideas. (Assuming equally sophisticated readers, of course.

Language shapes the way we think, so it is sometimes impossible to precisely translate an idea developed in one language into another (you end up with an approximation).

Language doesn't shape the way we think. That's the discredited Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Thus having a common language facilitates communication since those translation issues are lessened. (Also its inconvenient to need a translator every time you want to communicate).

Having a common language is convenient, there's no question. But it doesn't do away with translation issues since most of the people speaking the common language (which would be English today) are speaking it as a second language, with widely varying degrees of fluency.