Avice is a simile she is an outsider and she is also a native. Through Avice we see the complicated relationships between the people of Embassytown, the Staff at the embassy, and the clone Ambassadors who replicate Language as best as humans can. When she reaches adulthood, she becomes an immerser-some kind of spaceship pilot or navigator-and leaves the planet behind, returning only at the behest of a man she meets and marries, because he is obsessed with the Hosts and Language. These are people who do or have done something that can serve as a comparison for the state the Arieke wants to refer to, but that person has to be present when the Arieke wants to make such a statement.Īvice Benner Cho grows up somewhat feral on the streets of Embassytown. To use figurative, comparative language, they need living examples-similes. They don’t have the words to do otherwise. As a consequence, Arieke cannot lie, because they can only speak of what is. Their simultaneous vocalization forms singular words and phrases-and for the Arieke, Language is literal in the sense that words don’t actually signify anything other than themselves. Unlike any other species thus far discovered, the Arieke vocalize out of two holes instead of one. OK, I dug out the fan and am ready to continue.īasically, Embassytown is about the quixotic relationship between humans and the Arieke, or Hosts. Feel free to add more examples in the comments!) There’s the episode of TNG featuring a language based entirely on metaphors. (I’m trying to come up with other examples of fascinating twists on language but drawing a blank on this hot summer day.

Assuming we could recognize that they are intelligent, how do we establish a common frame of reference? It’s not like learning a new human language, where we have common memes and ideas, not to mention a shared neurology and physiology that makes our languages quite similar. After all, there has been a great deal of speculation about how we would communicate, if at all, with other intelligent forms of life. Science fiction seems, to me, like a perfect vehicle for exploring our dependence upon language. Language informs us, sways us, entertains us, engages us … it is everything to us. As readers we are conoisseurs of language, we inhale it and revel in it and cultivate it and all of its diversity. Embassytown, with its focus on the way language shapes our perceptions and our thoughts, is one such book.

China mieville embassytown review