> Sorry about that. I guess by appropriate, I meant stuff dealing
> with translation as done by people and not some magical computer
> which manages to do everything flawlessly, but there's really no
> explanation as to how the thing got programmed. I'm also interested
> in material in which shows the conflicts which can arise when
> peoples not speaking the same language come into contact and how
> they deal with language issues.
Try _Hellspark_ by Janet Kagan. I know it's around here somewhere but
I can't find it so here's what someone else had to say about it at
amazon.com:
"This book is one of my favorites. It is SO good, I wish
there were many more books available by this author instead of only
1 or 2. It is one of the few books I know in a sub-genre of SF I
think of as 'linguistic' fiction. Not only does this book introduce
an interesting universe very unlike your run-of-the-mill galactic
empire, but a whole host of unusual concepts and new ways of looking
at the world as well as inter-personal relationships."
And another one:
"Kagan takes a hint of Uhura's Song -- when in Rome speak as the
Roman's do -- and jumps off into a myriad of new cultures and belief
systems. This work builds not just a new world, but a new universe,
with all the little communication problems of today (body language,
inflection, etc) and shows how important it can be to not just speak
the language audibly, but also physically. At the same time, she
tackles the question of "what is sentience?" One of my all time
favorite books, one I've read again and again."
What I do remember about it is that it's an awfully fun book with a
very cool heroine.
Emily Hackbarth
emily@exo.com
http://exo.com/~emily/beadworker.html
"In a sheet of paper is contained the infinite."
Lu Chi
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