Babel 17
Babel 17 (original title: Babel-17 ) is a novel of Samuel Delany published in 1966.
Synopsis
Since months, a pitiless war reigns between the Earth, its colonies linked within Alliance, and an extraterrestrial race. The new weapon of the invaders is a language, the Babel 17 , which programs in the spirit of that which learns it a schizoid personality which pushes it to regard as Juste all that, in this language, is described as Juste. Thus, each human which learned the Babel 17 , becomes it, in power, a traitor and an agent of the ennemi.
Rydra Wong, a poetess which with the rare ability to be able to learn and understand quickly any language, seems to be the only one with being able to decipher it. For this purpose, it leaves in an adventurous voyage in the Galaxy, aboard spacecraft Rimbaud.
Presentation of work
One knows little thing of Babel 17, except which it is about a language which transforms those which know only him as frightening combatants and hardly embarrassing honesty nor of scruples (see Novlangue).
The investigation will end up giving it fine word of the history: Babel 17 is designed to eliminate the concept of " completely; moi" (see Assumption of Sapir-Whorf). As opposed to what imply the religions or philosophies which preach the abolition of the " moi" , Delany defends the idea that without concept of " moi" , it can exist of personal improvement, neither of remorse, neither of scruples, nor of questioning of the ideas. This point of view, published one year before the explosion Hippie which started to be outlined, was considered as innovator for this opposite course with the ideas to the moment.
Translation
The novel is appeared in French at Calmann-Levy, in a translation of Mimi Perrin.
See also
On the topic of the language in science fiction:- Languages of CAM (1958), Jack Vance
- the Enshrining (1973), Ian Watson
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