When the Language is Perfect: The Word and the World in Speculative Fiction

Every genre finds it authority somewhere different. For the speculative fiction novel, you will find it in its world. The struggle of creating a compelling science fiction or fantasy story is conjuring the world it occupies. The authenticity of the history that narrative operates in is not a given, but something you must be sold on. If the narrative describes a vision of the future, then that future must inform the reader of the state of affairs that create that future. How does the fictional future conjure the past it necessitates, as well as the present it was written in? The same goes for an imagined past; retconning the narrative that creates the present requires connections that authenticate that narrative. Although technology, cultural references, and understood historical parallels offer credibility to these imagined histories, it is the use of language that solidifies them in their moment. Created languages, differing dialects, historical nomenclature, as well as the general power given to language in science fiction narratives establish language as the pivotal factor in building a credible history. 

What sort of narratives can language construct? In the extreme case of world-building, JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings uses language to create a rich fantasy endowed with millennia of history and a complicated narrative moment. Tolkien presents a world in the midst of war and the complex relationships between the communities that must come together in order to defeat a universal evil. An incredibly different text would be George Orwell’s 1984, which demonstrates how language can establish an imagined future, in this case a totalitarian society with staunch class divisions and constant surveillance. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson reveals more about the variety of narratives that language enriches, here in another imagined future, an anarcho-capitalist society with a rich secondary digital world, and a disease closely tied to an ancient culture. These texts may not seem to be alike, but they find common ground in their rich use of language to construct imagined histories and futures. 1984 and Snow Crash both relay imagined futures and The Lord of the Rings constructs an imagined past. Each text shows how speculative fiction necessitates incredible world-building and together these texts blur the lines between science fiction and fantasy. These novels also demonstrate how canonicity relates to literary worth, with both 1984 and The Lord of the Rings holding positions of renown in contrast with Snow Crash. With these novels set in equal plane, it becomes clear that language bolsters all kinds of speculative fiction texts, with their dissimilarities highlighting the far-reaching ability of language overall.  

 This paper has three sections, The Frame, The Direct, and The Abstract, which introduce the texts, introduce the language, and analyze the language’s effects. In The Frame, each of these texts will initially be addressed individually. In order to understand how language emboldens the worlds that these narratives inhabit, one must first appreciate the world, so context for each one will be detailed. I will build a framework for each novel which will include a description of the setting, a brief summary of the plot, some information about the author, and two approaches to the histories that the texts offer. Although authorship and history surrounding the publication of these texts are not considered as evidence of meaning, they are taken into account to exhibit how speculative fiction interacts with reality. These texts all take place on our planet and in our dimension, so our own world bears mentioning. The Direct handles direct aspects of language—languages created specifically for the text, dialects employed by the characters, and the names of characters and objects in the texts. Then, of course, The Abstract deals with more abstract use of language, analyzing where language conveys rituals and noting the various roles that language occupies. 

 As this paper primarily concerns how language shapes world-building, explaining the role of world-building in speculative fiction is worth noting. The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction defines world-building as “The creation of an imaginary world and its geography, biology, cultures, etc., especially for use as a setting in science fiction or fantasy stories, games, etc.” (Prucher). This definition notes the importance of world construction for speculative fiction texts, being that the material necessitates explanation of the presence of unfamiliar creatures and technologies that these genres often utilize. Interpreting the structure of worlds occupies a strange place for Snow Crash, 1984, and The Lord of the Rings given that each narrative is set in our own world. The worlds are not built from scratch, so this is more restructuring than simple creation. Keeping in mind how these altered worlds inform our own, approaching their creation from a linguistic perspective offers insight to our own world as well. 

The Frame

 In the world of fictional world-building and its relationship to language, The Lord of the Rings stands as a giant above the rest. The imagined history of The Lord of the Rings, or the fantasy of Middle Earth, is a land and time imagined in which the English tradition is the primary tradition, “since Middle-earth is destined to become the world we see around us today, every wonder he describes is doomed to pass away” (Hammond and Scull 67). It is distinctly unlike many fantasy stories in this way, having been built as our own history, rather than of another planet or dimension. The world is structured as a network of various communities with complicated relationships to each other. For example, Elves and Dwarves hold a long-established grudge toward each other, but the text offers more than the simple race relationships. It also describes political dynamics, such as the animosity between the Men of Rohan and the Men of Gondor based on failure to aid each other. The text explores the relationships between these groups as well as the relationship between Middle Earth and the English tradition. 

Tolkien’s background as a linguist serves as the jumping-off point for the foundation of this novel. Although many writers of speculative fiction attempt to implement language to embellish their fictional worlds, Tolkien distinguishes himself as a writer who built a fantasy around a pre-made language. In his own words, “the invention of languages is the foundation. The stories were made rather to provide a world for these languages than the reverse” (qt.d in Meyers 148). He wrote his stories to house multiple created languages, using the novel as a mere conduit for the words he wished to give life. The language gives life to the narrative because it is the very inception of the narrative itself. However, his background as a war veteran, too, offers a glimpse into the creation of his opus. Tolkien saw combat during World War I, including the Battle of Somme, and began writing The Lord of the Rings in 1939, at the same time as he was serving as a codebreaker for the English effort in World War II. Although the fictionalized history of Middle Earth overall spans a range of historical moments and presents a vast and complex range of events, The Lord of the Rings specifically focuses in on a time of war. His text, which imagines a hyper-English history, can be seen as a reflection of not just Tolkien’s own experience, but as a reflection of the time in which the novel was written as well. With the tumult of war as a central theme, 20thcentury wartime conflicts directly influence the text. As Frodo, the principal character, makes his long journey from the Shire to Mordor to destroy the One Ring, the text explores the many groups of people in Middle Earth, and their own tribulations with the rising action against Sauron, the villain, and his attempts to conquer and control everyone in Middle Earth. Frodo bands together with a diverse group that includes Hobbits, Men, a Wizard, an Elf, and a Dwarf alike in order to overcome the growing evil in their world.

Regarding history in science fiction, Tom Shippey proposes two methods which a writer must balance: a Whig angle, which presents history as a narrative crafted by heroes, and a Malthusian one, which favors invisible forces that drive the history. He argues that these perspectives must be balanced to achieve complex and interesting historical backgrounds for a science fiction narrative, but they also serve as avenues of evaluating sci-fi histories (Shippey 73). In the case of The Lord of the Rings, it finds itself in the position of overlapping its invisible forces and its heroes. Although Tolkien’s fictional world has many prominent “hero” figures, evaluating The Lord of the Rings specifically requires approaching the history of the Ring and the world that created it. After all, the narrative’s primary structure is the journey to the Ring’s eventual destruction. For this purpose, heroes in its history could include Sauron and Isildur, whose story reveals the long history behind the Ring as an object, and the struggle between Sauron and Isildur to either control or destroy it. However, considering the will the Ring seems to possess, it could also be seen as its own hero, making a history for itself as it beguiles each of its owners, such as Isildur and Gollum. A Malthusian approach to something as high-fantasy as this text prompts a history operated by the forces of good and evil. Evil figures crop up constantly, not just in Sauron, but Melkor, Saruman, and all sorts of Orcs and Goblins, and there are always forces of good that come up against them. However, the Ring appears again as its own sort of force, not quite being animate enough to occupy a role as a character, but not so dormant as to demean itself to mere object. In both historical perspectives, it operates as an extension of Sauron’s being and motive, making its own history. 

Snow Crash occupies an imagined anarcho-capitalist future in which the United States as we know it has been dissolved in favor of a corporation-run society. Nationality is based upon which franchise you belong to, largely drawing upon the already strong network of racial enclaves in Los Angeles. Stephenson takes the notion of the Los Angeles enclave and runs with it, so places like Little Tokyo, Inglewood, Little Ethiopia, Bronzeville, and Chinatown serve as the blueprint for a new map of L.A. comprised of racially-tied businesses such as Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong or the Compton Nova Sicilia Franchise. In her book on Californian identities, Lisbeth Haas addresses the way that enclaves influence identity based on a sense of community, “The politics of space is closely connected to the formation of collective identities that are grounded in particular interpretations of the past” (Haas 9). The collective identities in this novel are established by franchise, and this interpretation of the past details how the allegiance of corporation has bound itself to regional and ethnic identity. Snow Crash offers a glimpse into the future by providing a world structure which links its past to our own present. 

Geography of the novel aside, the genre of Snow Crash seems to inform its imagined future. The novel is not merely science fiction, but a subgenre of it called cyberpunk, which scholar Frederic Jameson describes as “the supreme literary expression if not of postmodernism, then of late capitalism itself,” and Paul Youngquist calls “an old dystopian daydream of Reaganomics gone global” (Jameson 419; Youngquist 319). This subgenre handles technological advances just as science fiction does but extends its specificity to advances regarding cybernetics and artificial intelligence. If the groundwork for Tolkien’s text is linguistics, then Stephenson’s is computer science. Computer science stands apart from other science fiction technologies in that the programming knowledge it necessitates is akin to mastery of a language. Stephenson is no stranger to the exploration of linguistics in the cyberpunk genre. In The Diamond Age, he explores the impact of an advanced computer that looks like a book, and in Cryptonomicon he investigates the relationship between codebreaking and computer technology. Stephenson built his reputation in the cyberpunk genre in playing with the relationship between cyberspace and language, something that comes through strongly in Snow Crash.

The narrative of Snow Crash is as complex as the world it operates in, a side effect of Stephenson’s penchant for maximalism. The general plot of the novel follows Hiro, a freelance programmer, and his partner Y.T., a teenage courier, as they unravel the mysterious phenomenon of Snow Crash. They investigate this new drug/virus that keeps appearing while they try to turn a profit collecting information for the Central Intelligence Corporation, a mash-up of the remains of the CIA and the Library of Congress. They eventually find themselves tracking down Raven, an apparently malevolent and chaotic person, in both the digital and physical world. While Hiro studies Snow Crash in a digital library, Y.T. uses her courier skills in the outside world to determine what it is, what it does, and why someone is using it to infect the minds of numerous people.

Approaching Snow Crash from a Whig perspective highlights the prominent corporate characters in the text. Characters such as Big Enzo and Mr. Lee demonstrate their immense power in Stephenson’s divided Los Angeles. In a society separated by the creed of corporation and the notion of company as nation, these CEOs are the heroes of Snow Crash’s history. These large personalities craft the communities that they control using their money and influence, in that way directing the narrative. However, the motives of these characters are often fairly unclear and although they are important, they are not explored much beyond the great pull that they have in their world. Although the heroes of this society have incredible authority and control over their respective coalitions, the individuals themselves do not matter as much as the positions they hold. Perhaps Snow Crash is best considered through a Malthusian lens, which offer multiple invisible forces. Looking at Snow Crash with capitalist culture as a lens encapsulates the creation of this world and expresses how the powerful figures there are merely conduits for the spirit of commercialism. It does not matter so much who those CEOs are, but more what they embody. 

Another important force presented here is technology, which has advanced so much as to create a whole new digital world. This factor is key to Snow Crash because it shapes the culture of the physical world and effectively creates a whole new digital one, the Metaverse. With the matter of crafting history and world-building in mind, this creation of a digital world is pretty impactful. However, this coded world is not exempt from the capitalist tendencies upon which the physical world is bound. There is an incredible amount of cash flow in the Metaverse, mostly depicted by the character of Da5id, who makes a fortune by being a programming pioneer in a new algorithmic world. He is the designer and owner of the Black Sun, an exclusive club in the Metaverse to which “only a couple thousand people” can enter. Just like in the physical world, this world is one divided by the constraints of capital, so the Black Sun is naturally occupied by movie stars, hackers, rock stars, and business men alike. Access is a matter of class or status. Another important part of the Metaverse is each person’s avatar, something upon which financial standing bears an important role. Hiro, for example, has an avatar that looks exactly like him, which is more uncommon in the Metaverse than one might think. The only physical characteristic that one must maintain there is their height, but every other trait can be entirely different from their own. Those who do not have the skills to program their own avatar or the money to hire someone else to do it use cheap, generic, black and white avatars. In this digital world, the avatar becomes a visual signal as to the life of the person operating it. These computerized manifestations are the marker of class and status as well, so navigating both the physical world and the digital one ties back to money. The Metaverse is a place visually marked by financial status and physically divided by economic connections, just like Reality. 

Where Snow Crash constructs an anarcho-capitalist society, 1984 opts for a totalitarian one. The novel zeroes in on an imagined dystopian future set in Oceania, a superstate which combines Great Britain and the Americas. Other parts of the world are similarly condensed, producing the superstates Eurasia and Eastasia. Oceania follows an ideology known as Ingsoc, or English Socialism, which necessitates absolute submission of its people. Oceania is a place dictated by incredible government surveillance, in which citizens are constantly monitored by telescreens, devices which combine televisions, security cameras, and microphones. Even one’s thoughts are not private as just the ideation of crime, or thoughtcrime, is illegal in Oceania. Existence in this world is one of constant observation and public life is dictated by status. Society is divided into three distinct strata, the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the proles. Party members are expected to spend their time either working or engaging in communal activities, reducing their private lives as much as possible, while the proles are fed mindless entertainment and kept disengaged from political life. The ostensible leader of their government is Big Brother, a figure who is presented as the founder of the Party and to whom all national praise is devoted. Oceania is a place in which all information is controlled by the government and subject to sudden change. One moment they are at war with Eurasia, and allies with Eastasia, the next at war with Eastasia and allies with Eurasia. The Party also implements a language called Newspeak, a hyper-compressed version of English in order to remove the possibility of abstract meaning from public thought. Misinformation, deception, observation, and control all walk hand in hand in the name of Big Brother. 

 That Orwell names the ideology of his dystopian totalitarian society “English Socialism” should not be taken as a cue that Orwell was a conservative. In fact, his politics were quite complicated in that he was a socialist himself, even if he believed that socialism had “bureaucratic and authoritarian tendencies” (Hitchens 83). This is the very contradiction that gave inspiration to 1984, which Christopher Hitchens addresses in his biographical essay, Why Orwell Matters, noting Orwell’s staunch anti-communist sensibilities as well as his incredible egalitarian nature. Orwell felt so strongly about his hatred for fascism that he voluntarily fought in the Spanish Civil War, but he felt equal hatred for Stalinism, which ultimately produced his book Animal Farm. As for the specificity of “English” in IngSoc, Hitchens interprets this as an indication that Orwell meant to warn of the dangers of totalitarianism in the Western world (83). Perhaps Orwell is best-described as a democratic socialist, and in that sense his novel can be seen not as a warning against socialism, but of the places in which totalitarianism can be bred and the threat that fascism can pose. Although delving into Orwell’s political ideals only seems to muddle them further, what we can glean is that he had strong feelings about authoritarianism and did his best to fight it in whatever capacity he could. This is the place from which 1984 is born.

The novel itself follows the character of Winston Smith, a member of the Outer Party, and an opponent of Big Brother. It chronicles his journey to escape the grasp of the government on his private life—namely his personal thoughts and newfound love for a colleague, Julia. The novel begins with him starting a journal, a crime in Oceania, and follows Winston as he continues to rebel against Big Brother by forming a romantic relationship with Julia until they are inevitably found out by the Thought Police and taken to the Ministry of Love to be punished.

 Approaching 1984 from a Whig angle seems to serve exactly the sort of narrative that the Party sells. Characters like Big Brother and Emmanuel Goldstein stand out as the “heroes” of Oceania, where Goldstein is the “Enemy of the People” and traitor to the country and Big Brother is the fearless leader of their always-prospering, constantly-improving Oceania. The Party implements hero-making narratives in order to remove complexity from historical narratives and keep the people subservient to Big Brother. 

Taking at a look at IngSoc society from a Malthusian perspective offers an extremely different cause for the history presented in 1984, one in which the invisible force driving the narrative is actually the propaganda itself. The extreme nature of the indoctrination tells a different version of the history. Notably, Winston describes the way the Party portrays Goldstein, “he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought” (Orwell 6). Although to an outside reader these are likely reasonable and just demands, the text makes clear that this portrayal of Goldstein is not well-received. In the same scene his depiction is animalized, and the reactions of the Party members are ones of vitriolic hatred. Propaganda as a force has conceived a society in which the ideals of the Western World have been entirely diluted in favor of blind obedience to a possibly fictional leader. As with Snow Crash, technology is another invisible force in this narrative, except the advancement in question is the technology that permits the constant surveillance in Oceania. If the cyberspace technology in Snow Crash shapes the capitalist culture that springs out of it, then the telescreens of 1984produce a totalitarian one. 

The Direct         

 Science fiction often uses fictional languages to strengthen its narratives. Although many authors do not go so far as to actually develop a fully-fledged language, the mere introduction of one can enrich the world. To put it as the philologist does in 1984, “The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect” (Orwell 29). History is dependent upon the language that drives it and each of these texts utilize created languages to develop their histories. 

In Snow Crash, the languages that are produced by this imagined historical moment are merely an extension of a hyper capitalist world. For example, there are a few mentions of a language called Taxilinga, which is a minor detail but a strong reflection of the culture that is a product of a society focused on money. Taxilinga is the language spoken by taxi drivers, establishing itself as a tongue reserved for a particular profession, based on labor rather than race, creed, or place. Although the language is not explored in great detail, the protagonist Hiro complains of it that “he keeps hearing ‘fare.’ They are always jabbering about their fucking fares” (Stephenson 19). The little that is offered about this language displays the purpose of the language in full; it is not merely a language dedicated to a profession, but to the pursuit of money itself, and this reflects the gist of the society in which Snow Crash operates. Although Taxilinga is based on English, those who are not taxi drivers find it largely indecipherable, even converting a familiar colloquialism to “It all looks like Taxilinga,” to show confusion over the language (Stephenson 92). Hiro shares this sentiment, as described by his comment that “They said it was based on English but not one word in a hundred was recognizable” (Stephenson 18). The language is presented as something that is not only economically centered but alienates those who do not belong to its particular field. This is the crux of the society in which Snow Crash operates; it is divided into commercial enclaves, and Taxilinga reflects this separation.

 1984’s Newspeak offers a bit more in the way of actually implementing elements of the language into its narrative, including words such as “doubleungood” and “oldthink.” A philologist character, Syme, offers a wealth of information about Newspeak, specifically the process of creating it and the purpose it serves. Newspeak is not necessarily a created language so much as English pared down as much as possible.  The Party’s philology department reimagines English in a way that reduces abstract thought as much as possible, thereby reducing Party opposition along with it. Their philosophy is that the more distilled the language, the less likely it is citizens will commit thoughtcrime. Syme recounts his favorite aspect of executions, “above all, at the end, the tongue sticking right out, and blue a quite bright blue. That’s the detail that appeals to me” (Orwell 28). This is the central image of Newspeak in a nutshell. Syme is a philologist wholly dedicated to Big Brother and he lingers on this dead tongue. Newspeak is not more efficient or effective at relaying information. It is English without any function—it is a dead tongue. Syme muses further about the effect he believes Newspeak will have when it has come into wide usage, speculating that all literature as well as the Party’s slogans will have to change to accommodate the constrictions of meaning Newspeak requires. For example, the party cannot use the phrase “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom does not exist in IngSoc society, “The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness” (Orwell 30). The purpose of Newspeak is made completely clear. It is a tool meant to strip words of complex meanings, thereby stripping Oceania of complex thought. The work of Benjamin Lee Whorf, which handles the relationship between language and perception of reality, addresses this notion pretty directly. In his book on science fiction and language, Walter Meyers references the work of Whorf alongside 1984,“if it is true that our language determines our perception of reality, then whoever controls language controls the perception of reality as well. If language can be controlled, then would-be despots have available a subtle and efficient means of restricting thought” (Meyers 163). Newspeak operates in such a way so as to nullify all possibility of complex thought and with it any notion of opposition to Big Brother. In his review of Meyers’ book, Dagmar Barnouw makes the “observation that communication is the opposite of violence,” and this particular use of language is certainly not peaceful for the sheer fact that it is hardly communication. Newspeak in 1984 functions as a weapon against awareness. If the regulations of Oceania are concerned with the notion of thoughtcrime, the ideation of crime, then Newspeak acts as a sort of pre-weapon. It attacks ideas before people can even think to think them, let alone consider acting upon them. Language here is not opposed to violence at all—it is violence. Newspeak in 1984has a much larger presence than Taxilinga in Snow Crash, but they essentially function in the same way. Each language demonstrates the fundamental ideology of the society from which they are derived. Whereas Taxilinga expresses the commercial separation of Snow Crash, Newspeak reveals the totalitarian hyper-control of Big Brother. 

Tolkien’s created languages are the richest and most rampant of all. The function of these languages is not quite as immediately clear as the less-frequented languages of Taxilinga and Newspeak because they offer a wealth of information about the ideology of Middle Earth society in a way that is more difficult to parse. Although Tolkien utilizes many languages in The Lord of the Rings, the degree of integration is variable. Perhaps one of the more interesting languages is Quenya, an Elvish language which literally translates as “speech.” There are actually two main Elvish languages, the other being Sindarin, which is more common, while Tolkien described Quenya as “a kind of Elven-latin” and “High-elven” (Tolkien 1101). In fact, Tolkien created Quenya with the objective in mind to make it “as much like Latin as its sounds allowed”. (Hammond and Scull 124). Although not a commonly-spoken language to elves of the Third Age, in which the novel takes place, it is the language upon which more casual Elven languages are based. In this language, Elves are referred to as “Quendi,” or “the speakers,” revealing the incredible amount of importance placed on the Elven race in the text (Meyers 149). Elves are posed as beings superior to those of other races, having granted the power of speech to the other creatures of Middle Earth. Such is the case with the languages of Middle Earth, which designate community. The Men of Rohan speak Rohirric. The Dwarves speak Khuzdûl. Even the bulk of the novel, which is written in English, is understood to be a translation of Westron, the common language. The Fellowship’s journey is a tour through Middle Earth, one that exhibits the multitude of societies within it and the languages spoken in each place build the notion of community that each of those places have, “All around us we hear unknown yet articulate sounds, and we know that a culture lies behind them, a culture to which we can be admitted with patience and study” (Meyers 150). To borrow Benedict Anderson’s notion of the imagined community, these groups are joined together in spite of large distances by their shared languages. With this in mind, the tool of the language is one that connects communities that are not necessarily geographically or socially related. 

One community in Middle Earth are the Ents, whose language speaks to various aspects of their kind as the language is “slow, sonorous, agglomerated, repetitive, indeed long-winded; formed of a multiplicity of vowel-shades and distinctions of tone and quality which even the masters of the Eldar had not attempted to represent in writing” (Tolkien 1104). Ents are the only characters even remotely capable of speaking their language, something that the Elves do not even try to learn. In this way, not only do Ents dwell in isolation in their forests, but communicate in relative isolation as well, with no other race able to speak Old Entish. When speaking in New Entish, which employs Quenya words with Old Entish grammar, this wordy quality holds over. Entish grammar necessitates long-winded passages, producing a similar effect to Old Entish, such that “”There is a shadow of the Great Darkness in the deep dales of the forest”, said in New Entish roughly translates to “Forestmanyshadowed-deepvalleyblack Deepvalleyforested Gloomyland” (Tolkien 456, 1105). As for speaking Westron, Ents tend to add in as many adjectives as they would in their own tongue, which generates rambling sentences as well. Treebeard explains how Old Entish speaks to the values of the Ents, “it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to” (Tolkien 454). They are a group that value what they say as well as the specificity with which it is said, a quality represented by the nature of the languages they speak and how they employ them. The language of the Ents dictates their communal values, as well as their relationship to the other communities of Middle Earth. 

The isolation of the Ents by way of Entish is sharply contrasted with the unity born by other languages. For instance, the language that is meant to be represented by English in this text is Westron, a human language and “the Common Speech” or “Common Tongue” of Middle Earth (Gulliver 213). This is the language spoken by Hobbits, Men, and most other characters in the novel. Although there is tension between many of the races and communities in Middle Earth, they are bonded by their hemispheric location as well as their alliance against Sauron at the book’s end. This book is a fight between the creatures of the West and the evil in the East (Tolkien doesn’t hold back on the Manichaean colonialism here), and they are unified not just in purpose but language as well- Westron. The Common Language of this world extends as far as its community does.

The created languages in Middle Earth give an idea of community, but also cultural history and the notions of good and evil. Namely, the Black Speech, or the language of Sauron and his ilk, informs the relationship between the communities of Middle Earth. When Gandalf speaks some of this language in an Elvish place, the tension is palpable:

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

The change in the wizard’s voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Elves stopped their ears. ‘Never before has any voice dared to utter words of that tongue in Imladris, Gandalf the Grey,’ said Elrond, as the shadow passed and the company breathed once more.

(Tolkien, 248).

The language bears a quality that transforms Gandalf’s voice and the atmosphere in which he speaks; it’s a frightening moment. Without having introduced Sauron or his followers to the text in a direct way, the reader gleans an understanding of their character through a short passage of their language and its effect. Moreover, Elrond reveals that this is a language that has never been spoken in Rivendell before, an important detail given that it was an Elvish town formed as a refuge from Sauron (Tolkien 1058). The very utterance of this language invokes a long-standing history of opposition between Sauron and Elves, expressing the gist of a nearly 5000-year-old conflict. Created languages manage to relay the unity of the communities that use them as well as the history between these communities. 

 Although created languages bring incredible richness to a text, implementing that distinction of language is not always possible, and in such cases differing dialects offer more information about the fictional world. Dialects occur at the intersection between community and language, showing how different peoples are related and what sets them apart, whether it be distance, class, or some combination thereof.

In the case of 1984, the question of dialect is somewhat complicated. On account of Newspeak not yet being a completed language, it has not been fully integrated into IngSoc society. Although its purpose is to operate as its own independent language, as it stands in the text it is much closer to a dialect. As a general rule, Inner Party members use a mix of Oldspeak and Newspeak, having Oldspeak serve as the foundation and using Newspeak words within that structure. Proles stick to Oldspeak, or Standard English, with a distinctly lower-class English influence present. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to prove that 1984 takes place in any imagined future using the dialogue of the proles alone, who say things such as “Steamer!… Look out, guv’nor! Bang over’ead! Lay down quick!” (Orwell 48). Winston expresses confusion over “steamer,” a nickname “which, for some reason, the proles applied to rocket bombs,” evoking the general misunderstanding and disdain that the Party has for the proles. It is not merely that dialects produce confusion, but that they produce an inability to communicate and sympathize with other groups. The difference of speech between party members and proles quashes their ability to communicate and highlights the disparate lifestyles they lead. Party members are concerned with their public lives and serving IngSoc, while the proles are occupied with nonsense entertainment and navigating the effects of war on their lives. Winston becomes so wrapped up in the unfamiliar word that he does not even stop to consider why the proles would need a nickname for a type of bomb. Dialects in IngSoc society convey the essence of its class division. Each lives in absolute ignorance of the circumstances of the other, thus allowing the Inner Party to maintain its power. 

 Whereas dialects in 1984 cleave IngSoc society into clean halves, dialects in The Lord of the Rings are complicated and more difficult to approach. Although Tolkien seems to create languages with Middle Earth’s races in mind, the actual usage of these languages blurs the lines that the created languages define. In the case of Westron, it is a Mannish language that unites many of the characters, namely the Men. However, there is another Mannish language related to it that is also spoken in this text, Rohirric. Where Westron is representative of Modern English, Rohirric follows more Old English sensibilities, and is an older version of Westron. For example, Bilbo calls Frodo his nephew, but Théoden calls Éomer his “sister-son” (Tolkien 10, 506). Rohirric invokes older English sensibilities of the family, aligning the Rohirrim with this tradition. Although these communities are bonded by their shared Mannish languages and are able to communicate, there is a definite cultural difference. Frodo’s relationship to Bilbo rests purely on its own merit, whereas Éomer’s relationship to Théoden relies upon Éomer’sdescendance from Théoden’s sister. 

Dialects also offer a certain amount of mobility in Middle Earth. Various characters speak Sindarin, for instance, as it is the commonly used Elvish language. However, hobbits such as Bilbo and Frodo earn titles for knowing how to speak Quenya as well. Like with Westron and Rohirric, Sindarin is a modern extension of the more complex Quenya. One Elf, Gildor Inglorion, dubs Frodo “Elf Friend” for knowing this specific type of Elvish and gives him and Sam help on their journey (Tolkien 79). The knowledge of a dialect allows Frodo access to resources and sympathies he might not otherwise receive, things that are helpful on his journey to Mordor. Aragorn is another character dubbed Elf Friend, being familiar with Quenya because he was raised in Elvish society, something uncommon for a Man, but particular to Aragorn’s lineage and nobility. The concept of the Elf Friend grants an understanding of elf allegiances as well as their cultural values. To speak High-Elven is to be an ally and to belong to their community. The thoroughness with which Tolkien has rendered the elvish languages shows the extent of the thinking behind it; it “has not only completeness, it has history” (Meyers 150). The elvish dialects display not just a full elvish culture, but one wrought with complication. The created languages establish the barriers of community and dialects break them—inverse of how languages and dialects operate in 1984. This difference highlights the disparate flavors of these worlds. The totalitarian society necessitates a disjointed society and the world at war needs unity. Languages inform the reader’s sense of the cultures, so the dialects exhibit how those cultures interact. 

Of these three novels, one might expect that Snow Crash would have the most intense use of dialects given its use of racial enclaves. To the contrary, there is a distinct absence of dialects in this text. If there are meant to be differences of speech or accent in this text, Stephenson does not make it clear. The text grants most of the characters the same casual yet intelligent tone, and few exceptions are made. However, the few that speak differently certainly develop a feel for this world as well. One such instance of dialect-use occurs in one of the most jarring scenes in the novel, when a racist and his friends approach Hiro (a biracial man) in a bar, “Well, sir, I’m sorry to disturb you in the middle of your conversation with this gentleman here. But me and my friends were just wondering. Are you a lazy shiftless watermelon-eating black-ass nigger, or a sneaky little v.d.-infected gook?” (Stephenson 347). The following scene quickly makes clear that this group of people are all citizens of the New South Africa Franchulate and that they’ve only come here to antagonize minorities, one of which happens to be Hiro. This scene makes excellent use of the reader’s own historical understanding—drawing at once upon the legacy of racism in the American south by implementing the Confederate Flag as well as an imagined aftermath of apartheid in South Africa. However, the cultural hints are not the strength of this scene—the strength is the dialogue, and the way it establishes and quickly subverts expectations. The man introduces himself politely, drawing upon a sort of southern charm, and quickly turns that charm into a racist tirade. This does two things for the text, at once creating a shocking moment and encouraging an imagined accent just before the moment occurs. This scene composes a visceral understanding of the differences of franchises in Snow Crash, something that extends beyond corporate and ethnic identity to ideological identity as well. The reader gets a strong sense of a capitalist society polarizes its people. 

Still, most of the characters in the novel do not speak in dialects, instead capturing one familiar and intelligent voice. For example, there is a single chapter toward the book’s end in which Hiro convenes the big bosses of Los Angeles to explain L Bob Rife’s plan to infect the world with Snow Crash and the dialogue is notably consistent throughout. Enzo, who represents the Nova Sicilia franchise says something like “I think you have a chicken-and-egg problem… How did such a society first come to be organized?” and Mr. Lee, of Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong, chimes in, “Excuse me, you are saying that civilization started out as an infection?” (Stephenson 453). These characters represent distinctly disparate communities in Los Angeles society, and yet their speech patterns are hardly discernable from each other. Perhaps this speaks to the characters, not their franchises. Except Hiro, these are all figure of corporate authority. Their universal voice does not evoke any of their franchises because each of the characters is not representative of their enclave, but of the corporation itself. Where dialects in this text highlight the divisions of culture based on franchise, the absence of dialect underscores the unity of interest that the CEOs share. 

The names in these texts also inform the worlds in impactful ways. To quote Treebeard, “real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language,” and all of these texts demonstrate vital elements of their respective stories through naming trends (qt.d in Meyers, 149). The question of nomenclature introduces something Winston and Hiro have in common—their names are quite similar in meaning. Take Winston Smith: 1984 was published in England just after World War II ended when the name Winston would have largely been associated with Winston Churchill. A name like this instantly establishes his character as a figure who is a leader as well as a hero. The last name Smith is an exceedingly common last name, so in conjunction Winston becomes a figure of the everyday hero. This contrasts with Hiro’s name a bit, of course, whose full name is Hiro Protagonist. The text does not reveal his hero-like qualities, instead opting to introduce him as a hero-protagonist. Although they are both the heroes of their stories, the types of heroes that they are reveal a bit about their respective worlds as well. In a totalitarian society, it is the courageous everyman who is the hero. Winston spends much of his time either at work or writing in his journal at home. He exercises heroism through minor rebellious activities like buying a paper weight. As the novel progresses, he becomes more committed to disavowing Big Brother, opting to seek out the Brotherhood, a group which plans to take the Party down. However, Winston never does anything more than think and talk about his Party opposition. The everyday hero is committed to his rebellion but does not necessarily take drastic action. Even his minor actions make a mark, literally for Winston, who writes in a journal. In sharp contrast, Hiro is a freelance programmer and information collector as well as an expert swordsman. He is skilled in a variety of subjects, which gives him mobility in a diverse and changing world. Digital Humanities scholar Nicholas Kelly divulges more aboutSnow Crashand how it portrays Hiro, “no fictive text does more to valorize the computer coder… programming languages control not just computers, but also human brains” (Kelly 70). This offers some clarity on the nature of Hiro’s clout—he belongs to two worlds and wields a weapon in each, a sword in Reality and computer code in the Metaverse. His name reflects this too; the text exposes him as a “hero” as well as a “protagonist,” granting him two titles for his versatility in each world. Although Winston and Hiro’s names primarily inform the reader about the characters themselves, they also present the sort of hero each of these worlds require. The hero is offered as a reflection of the values of his world. 

Furthermore, the ways in which names are revealed describe the worlds that the texts inhabit. Notably, the entire first two chapters of Snow Crashdo not use Hiro’s real name to refer to him, but “the Deliverator,” a nickname referring to his prowess at his part-time job delivering pizzas. When he formally introduces himself, he does so with a business card, which details his full name and numerous professions. The practice of the name reveal, as much as the name, is reflective of the world. Hiro is described by his profession until he presents his business card, so the name reveal is characterized by the marks of a capitalist society. This same practice is applied to Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, who upon first meeting is referred to as “Strider,” and does not have his name made clear until Frodo reads a letter from Gandalf divulging his true identity. Aragorn is an interesting case study in name reveals in that he experiences more than one, because although his name is revealed to be Aragorn in this passage, it is not until much later that Frodo, the other hobbits, and Boromir learn that he is the rightful heir to Isildur. Later, when Aragorn takes his rightful throne he is crowned King Elessar Telcontar, an Elvish name for “Elfstone Strider.” For his many names, and the various manners in which they are presented, Aragorn becomes a figure for the chivalric tradition of the name reveal, as knights in medieval stories would have been described. Moreover, Aragorn is a multicultural figure, with his names drawing upon both Elvish and Mannish traditions. As a character, Aragorn expresses the cultural diversity of Middle Earth as well as the knightly tradition that it draws upon. The device of the name reveal not only serves as a powerful dramatic device but alludes to the value system it draws upon. If Aragorn’s names are only made clear over time as in the chivalric tradition, then Aragorn must occupy a knightly world. 

However, Aragorn is not the only character in this text whose referents change throughout. Gandalf also experiences an important name switch. Although in the beginning of the text he is Gandalf the Grey, after dying in battle while defeating the Balrog he is sent back as Gandalf the White. When he returns, he is more powerful than before, having taken up Saruman’s position as leader of the wizards. This transformation is representative of several rules of this world. The laws of nature are not as we have come to understand them—death is not necessarily permanent. Moreover, this establishes a hierarchy of wizards that might not have been otherwise clear. The metamorphosis that Gandalf undergoes is crucial to some of the operations of Middle Earth, and it is largely represented in his adoption of a new name.

Of the names in all of these texts, few convey as much prowess as Big Brother’s. Like many of the names in Oceania, it is a facet of IngSoc society’s propaganda, with “Big” drawing upon the omnipresence of the Oceanian government as well as the imagined greatness of the Party leader and “Brother” expressing a close familial relationship. Your big brother could be someone who looks after you, so the constant surveillance of IngSoc society is presented under the guise of protection. “Big Brother is watching” becomes a non-threatening fact of life, a mere security measure, rather than a privacy infraction. Additionally, a name like Big Brother guards against the mortality of the Party’s primary leader. There is speculation as to the existence of Big Brother, whether he is actually alive, and if he is genuinely one person, but none of that matters as much as the figure himself. He is not ever publicly seen, but his face appears everywhere and his name with it. The significance of this technique is famously echoed in The Princess Bride, oddly enough, where it explains “The name is the important thing for inspiring the necessary fear,” not the actual person (Reiner). Although it is questionable whether Big Brother actually exists or ever did, his actuality is not nearly as important as the persona, and that persona is primarily conveyed by his name.  Not only does the name itself convey the proper tone for the persona of Big Brother, but the name gives the character lasting life. 

The Abstract

Still, these texts utilize language in more ambiguous ways than the literal employment offered by created languages, dialects, and nomenclature. The role of language embellishes the narratives just as much as language itself. The languages introduce the reader to these worlds, but how they are employed teaches us about them. Where the very existence of Newspeak informs the reader of a totalitarian world, the employment of Newspeak and Oldspeak clarifies the worlds in more abstract ways. For instance, rituals in an imagined world can formulate an understanding of the cultures within them, so things like incantation offer an even deeper understanding of how language enriches world-building. Incantation as a sort of language-based ritual expresses a cultural understanding of the worlds that language creates. 

Incantation is felt most strongly, or at least literally, with Tolkien. The presence of magic in this text permits the use of incantation in the most common sense of the word. Here, magic refers to practices which manipulate the natural world by occult means. The OED defines incantation as “The use of a formula of words spoken or chanted to produce a magical effect; the utterance of a spell or charm; more widely, The use of magical ceremonies or arts; magic, sorcery, enchantment” (“incantation, n.”). Although there are many such moments of incantation in The Lord of the Rings, perhaps some of the most interesting occur in the Old Forest with Tom Bombadil. Tom often romps about the forest singing in the third person, but his songs seems to have a sort of magical effect. When Frodo and his friends run into trouble with the Barrow-wight Frodo sings Tom’s song and Tom comes to his aid. Although this may seem just like normal communication, the group is supposed to have traveled far enough away to not be heard. What’s more, when Frodo sings it aloud, it seems to have an effect on him as well, “In a small desperate voice he began: Ho! Tom Bombadil! And with that name his voice seemed to grow strong: it had a full and lively sound, and the dark chamber echoed as if to drum and trumpet” (Tolkien 138). Regarding Tom’s songs as incantations explains an element of this place that the reader would not otherwise understand. These are rituals which Tom practices in his everyday life, singing as he explores the Old Forest, but as incantations they give him dominion over the Forest. They permit the circumvention of the laws of nature as the chants can be heard from very off, and they give the reciter a certain vigor that a normal song would not. This is a ritual which establishes the nature of the Old Forest, and the community within it. Although those who live here are few, Tom, Goldberry (his wife), a small selection of semi-sentient trees, and the Barrow-wight, Tom defines himself as the ranking character in this community through his songs. 

However, Tom is not the only one in the Old Forest who uses incantation. In fact, the only two instances in which the word “incantation” are used in this text are granted not to Tom, or any wizard, but to the Barrow-wight:

Cold be hand and heart and bone,
And cold be sleep under stone:
Never more to wake on stony bed,
Never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
And still on gold here let them lie,
Till the dark lord lifts his hand
Over dead sea and withered land
(Tolkien 138).

When Frodo first hears the Barrow-wight making noises they are described as terrifying sounds, but Tolkien notes that dread only comes over Frodo when “he perceived that it had changed into an incantation” (137). This seems to imply that Frodo has a sense of the effect that this song will have and distinguishes it from the already horrifying noises that the creature was making. The chant has a sort of power such that afterward Frodo feels as if he is turned to stone. However, just as the Barrow-wight uses incantation to capture the hobbits, Tom Bombadil uses it to free them, “Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight!/ Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing” (139). This compels the Barrow-wight to run away, and the text implies that it is not out of simple fear, but a genuine necessity to flee. After Tom recites his chant the Barrow-wight shrieks in pain and a good portion of the chamber caves in. There is a profound effect made by incantation in this scene, but what it best demonstrates are the relationships in the Old Forest. Incantations in this scene are a ritual of domination. The Barrow-wight captures the hobbits because it feels that they have infringed upon its space, and Tom responds as a figure of protection in the forest. The use of incantation on the part of the Barrow-wight shows it participating in a ritual the reader has come to associate with Tom, posing it as a figure with which Tom must contend. Practicing incantation in the Old Forest is a ritual of asserting power, so the Barrow-wight makes its claim known by kidnapping the hobbits with song. When the Barrow-wight whisks itself following Tom’s reply, the text reestablishes Tom as the leading figure in the Old Forest and specifies his superiority to the Barrow-wight. The hierarchy of community is deeply enrichened by language here, and all of it is in incantation form.

Although the dynamic of the Old Forest expresses how incantation informs the communal aspect of this text, incantation also speaks to a racial divide in this world. Specifically, incantation is a power reserved for a select group, of which one class is wizards. Gandalf shows the reader how wizards are entitled to magic in a way that other characters are not. For instance, when the fellowship comes up against a group of wolves everyone springs into action to defend themselves:

Aragorn passed his sword with a thrust; with a great sweep Boromir hewed the head off another. Beside them Gimli stood with his stout legs apart, wielding his dwarf-axe. The bow of Legolas was singing. In the wavering firelight Gandalf seemed suddenly to grow: he rose up, a great menacing shape like the monument of some ancient king of stone set upon a hill. Stooping like a cloud, he lifted a burning branch and strode to meet the wolves. They gave back before him. High in the air he tossed the blazing brand. It flared with a sudden white radiance like lightning; and his voice rolled like thunder.
‘Naur an adraith amen! Naur dan I ngaurhoth!’  he cried. 
There was a roar and a crackle, and the tree above him burst into a leaf and bloom of blinding flame. The fire leapt from tree-top to tree-top. The whole hill was crowned with dazzling light. 
(Tolkien, 291) 

This passage sets the Men, Elf, and Dwarf in juxtaposition with the Wizard. Each of them uses non-magical means to defend themselves, but Gandalf employs a spoken spell to ward off the wolves. Translating to “Fire be for saving of us! Fire against the wolf-horde!” the spell shows Gandalf’s ability to literally dictate what his spells accomplish; he merely has to channel his magic through an object, here a branch, in order to accomplish what he wants, but language must be the vehicle for the effect (“Gandalf’s Fire Spell (Sindarin)”). There is nothing metaphorical about the incantation either; he says precisely what he means to happen. Although someone like Frodo can wield a magical object such as the Ring and harness its abilities, there are not many characters who are allowed intrinsic magical ability like Gandalf, testifying to the way that incantation exposes rituals assigned to race as well as community. There are only a handful of Wizards in Middle Earth, exactly six, but they do not live together or form societies like Men or Elves. They are bound by their race alone, and their magical ability with it. In The Lord of the Ringsincantation displays how rituals involving language establish communities in Middle Earth. Some incantations convey communal participation in ritual and others express how disjointed groups like wizards are joined together by their shared rituals.  

However, incantation finds itself in other texts as well, if in a less straightforward sense. Primarily, the Two Minutes Hate can be approached as a sort of incantation. Orwell offers up the Two Minutes Hate as a daily ritual performed by Party workers in which they verbally attack visual representations of Party enemies, particularly Emmanuel Goldstein. In this case, the Hate itself is the chant as well as the magic. Even Winston, an opponent of the Party, responds to the mysterious power of the Two Minutes Hate, “[he] found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in” (8). The Two Minutes Hate is an incantation that breeds itself, and the magic it conjures is actually the urge to participate in the chant. This sort of ritual proves crucial to the state of affairs that constitutes IngSoc society. At once, the Two Minutes Hate serves as a daily brain-washing mechanism against Party oppositionists as well as a means of revealing insincere Party members. Its appearance so early on in the book cements it as a founding notion of how this totalitarian society functions and where it places its values. The way that incantation functions in Oceania demonstrates that the purpose of ritual is to unite its people in hatred for party oppositionists and to create a bitter unconsciousness in the way that Newspeak does. 

Instances of incantation in 1984 evidence not only the rituals of Oceania, but the loss of ritual as well. Whereas the Two Minutes Hate displays how rituals in Oceania feed totalitarian sensibilities, lost rituals of the English tradition show the effect of those sensibilities. When Winston starts to unravel the parts of English culture that have been lost to IngSoc he becomes interested in an old children’s rhyme about the churches in London called “Oranges and Lemons.” The rhyme dates back to the 18thcentury, functioned as a children’s singing game, and eventually gave inspiration to an annual church service where the church of St. Clement Dane’s gives fruit out to children (Willey 375). Winston becomes intrigued by the rhyme because it is directly attached to a British history that has since been erased from public memory. Oranges and Lemons distinguishes itself from an incantation like The Two Minutes Hate because it participates in English aestheticism, whereas the Two Minutes Hate belongs to an unconscious hivemind with no sense of culture whatsoever. One is a rhythmic, organized ode to religious architecture, the other a scattered, unplanned mass tirade. Later Winston notes the way that Oranges and Lemons stays stuck in his head, “It was curious, but when you said it to yourself you had the illusion of actually hearing bells, the bells of a lost London that still existed somewhere or other, disguised and forgotten” (Orwell 58). He draws upon the way in which the rhyme incites the memory of historically significant places in London, even though these are memories that Winston himself has never had. Here, incantation is something that conjures senses associated with an English tradition, but Winston does not know the full rhyme and cannot complete that ritual. The forgotten rhyme exhibits how the ritual’s denial obstructs the aesthetic and cultural value that Oranges and Lemons once incited. The incomplete incantation directly reflects the fragmentary history Winston has come to know and his attempt to restore the rhyme to its full version acts as a sort of archaeology, piecing together the ritual of a lost civilization. Contrasting the lost incantation of Oranges and Lemons with the prominent Two Minutes Hates demonstrates two pillars of this society, the repression of aesthetic and the vitriolic unconsciousness. Both rituals, the observed as well as the abandoned, indicate the structure upon which a totalitarian society operates.

Incantation appears in Snow Crash too, but the authenticity of the practice here is less concrete than with Tolkien and Orwell. The appearance of incantation in this text is through nam-shubs, or “speech with magical force” which allow the reciter to do whatever the chant describes (Stephenson 243). They are an ancient Sumerian practice that has been revived for the present. According to the Librarian in the text, “incantation” is the closest English translation, but “has a number of incorrect connotations” (Stephenson 243). If a priest were to recite a nam-shub about making bread, the receiver would have no choice but to make bread. Not only does it contain the information required to complete the task, but a compulsion to do it as well. This method of exchanging information applies to all manner of activities, such as irrigation, medicine, and construction, granting ancient Sumer great prosperity. The side effect of this practice is that decisions are left up to the writer of nam-shubs, and the people are left without the capacity to function on their own or the free will to do anything else. The ritual of incantation in Sumerian society exhibits the crucial nature of the practice as well as the way it stunts the critical thinking of its people. If ritual displays culture in practice, then this culture is one of efficiency without independent thought. Its primary purpose is to display how one ultra-powerful language, the magical code of ancient Sumer, was the essential framework upon which its society stood. It even fills in historical gaps in western knowledge, presenting itself as the pre-Babel language. Nam-shubs also embolden the modern historical framework in which the novel takes place, an imagined Los Angeles of the 2010’s. In this anarcho-capitalist world incantation is a type of language that operates as a device to further that world. L Bob Rife intends to use incantation in order to lull the general populace into a sort of consumer hivemind in a way not dissimilar from 1984’s political brainwashing. These rituals show how a sort of unconsciousness is necessary to both totalitarian and anarcho-capitalist societies and how much richness of language supplies that unconsciousness. 

 Of course, the practice of incantation demonstrates how rituals inform the cultures to which they belong, but language presents itself in ways that disrupt the culture as well. These more abstract presentations of language express the deficiencies of the cultures to which they belong. Namely, language appears in self-propagating form, or as a virus. In Snow Crash, the phenomenon that affects people is at once a “virus, drug, and religion,” (231) and the method by which it travels is either a physical drug you inject into yourself, or a stream of code that the programmer brain automatically deciphers. Stephenson is not the first to compare drugs and religion, Karl Marx did the same, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opiate of the people” (Marx). Marx’s notion of religion as a drug for the proletariat speaks to the very fabric of Snow Crash’s world. It is a drug, both physical and digital, which is meant to subdue the population of Earth. When the protagonist, Hiro, is inquiring about the “infection” affecting both the Metaverse and Reality, another character warns him to protect his “deep structures,” the parts of his brain that can read binary code (Stephenson 143). At least by Snow Crash’s own standards, binary code is understood by the human brain in the same way that any other language would be, making the infection a linguistically-transmitted disease. Additionally, the nam-shub is described as a “neurolinguistic virus,” in that the people receiving them essentially have no self-awareness or independence of their own. One character hypothesizes that a “virus, once released into Sumer, would spread rapidly and virulently, until it had affected everyone” (322). There are various descriptions of what a virus entails, but Snow Crash occupies a dual role there. It is at once a computer virus as well as a biological virus. It can be contracted in the Metaverse but still have effects on one’s physical body. The matter of viruses transferred by linguistic means is central to the plot of Snow Crash, as the titular phenomenon is one such virus. Snow Crash is the product of a society that revolves around corporations, one that would attempt to control the minds, and wallets, of everyone in it. Language in virus form manages to display an identical frailty in two entirely opposed civilizations. The supremely efficient survival in Sumer is made parallel to the hyper capitalism of cyberpunk Los Angeles to highlight how unconsciousness, efficiency, and capital interest all share the same bed.  

Self-propagating language appears differently both in 1984 and The Fellowship of the Ring. In these narratives, viruses take hold in the form of influence rather than literal viruses. For example, IngSoc societal norms can be considered a kind of virus, spread by the incessantly repeated slogans, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” (Orwell 2). The transmission of these phrases negates a cure to its disease; it suggests that “ignorance is strength,” encouraging the inhabitants of IngSoc society to defy logic in favor of obedience. Although these slogans are inherently contradictory, the slogans provide a check against the contradiction. If ignorance is strength then war can certainly be peace, and the people of Oceania can never know the extent of their brain-washing if they are not remotely aware of the concept of awareness. There can be no cure to a virus which is not known to its host, so the propaganda of Big Brother operates as its own sort of virus. Even where the disease does not take hold, it corrupts the children of its society and pits them against their own parents. The literal biological propagation of children is its own kind of virus too. Even the Two Minutes is a sort of virus. Although it primarily functions as a sort of incantation meant to incite hatred against party oppositionists, Winston also remarks on its contagious nature. If one does not want to participate, they are unwillingly pulled in. 

The virus of influence takes hold in The Fellowship of the Rings as well, with the One Ring operating as a vector and its wishes as the virus. The Ring is interesting in that it is an object as well as a text, baring a Black Speech inscription of “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,” making it a text and a virus at once (Tolkien 49). It takes various hosts in hopes of going back to Mordor to be with its master and is mostly a mental ailment, as it preys upon the minds of those it infects. In Chapter One of the novel, Bilbo speaks of not having felt himself and how the Ring compels him in ways that confuse and upset him (34). Gollum is an interesting study in the effect of the Ring as well, as years of exposure to it have warped his personality and speech patterns. He has two personalities, Gollum and Sméagol. He, too, is conflicted by the Ring, which is perhaps best described by a quote from the film, “he hates and loves it as he hates and loves himself” (Jackson). However, the Ring’s virus is more than a mental ailment. Like Snow Crash, it physically changes its victim, morphing Gollum to the point of being quite un-Hobbit-like. The virus gives unnaturally long life to the host and adapts the features of the host to suit the new conditions of life that bearing the Ring necessitates. There is no inoculation against the Ring’s disease either. The Ring as a virus plagues every community it touches, no matter the creed, showing how the virus forgives no one. Gollum can be seen as a case study in the long-term of effects of the Ring and he emerges as a victim, addict, and religious fanatic. Gollum lies and cheats in any way he can to get the Ring, going so far as to bite off Frodo’s finger, cementing it as something certainly addictive. He also calls it “the Precious” and goes so far as to swear “On the Precious” when asked to make a promise (Tolkien 604). These reactions to the Ring offer it as something that infects, compels, and enraptures its victims. Again, like Snow Crash, the Ring inhabits a complicated position as a virus/drug/religion, except that the Ring also possesses a sort of semi-consciousness. It is difficult to distinguish precisely what role the Ring plays, illustrating the power it has at the intersection of drug and religion. Perhaps what this best illustrates is that notions of good and bad in conjunction with viruses, drugs, and religion are about as complicated as they can be, and for this reason have long-occupied the world of speculative fiction. In The Matrix, for example, Mr. Anderson says to Morpheus:

You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we… are the cure.
(Wachowski and Wachowski)

The protagonists of The Matrix are the remains of the human race, who are pitted against a legion of robots in a war for control of the planet. In the digital world, the villains are nothing more than programs, computer viruses, but in the viruses’ view the humans are the virus. This film demands that the audience consider tough questions, what is a virus? Moreover, what is a human? Speculative fiction is largely concerned with philosophic questions and issues of morality, but tackling these complicated topics requires devices which are equally complicated, such as notions of viruses, drugs, and religion, which are best-conveyed by language.  The mode of language may change, be it code, incantation, or inscription, but the impact is the same, and it is something speculative fiction demands.

The Core

What does it take to build the world? To tear it down and rebuild it? To build over it? Tom Shippey argues that the struggle of writing science fiction is to balance two historical perspectives, the Malthusian and the Whig, but I sincerely disagree. Although using these perspectives to understand depth of history speaks to the quality of the text, I believe the true struggle is not balancing the history but choosing devices that relay the history in balance. This is something at which language excels, so it becomes a question of how to include linguistic devices. It may be excessive to assume anyone would go the distances that Tolkien went for his fantasy worlds, but granting a speculative fiction text authenticity through language can be done in many sorts of intricate ways. 

Of course, when directly using language in a text, integrating elements of a created language displays a complicated aspect of culture that instantly gives a created world a backbone. For The Lord of the Rings, the languages detail each of the Middle Earth races and their relationships to each other. For 1984, Newspeak expresses the ideology of the society in which it operates. Even in Snow Crash, the mere mention of Taxilinga demonstrates the extent to which capitalism controls Los Angeles. The degree to which each of these languages are used could not be more different; Sindarin is employed regularly, whereas Taxilinga is never even directly heard. Still, each of these texts manage to sell their worlds with crafted tongues.

Direct uses of language are not wholly limited to implementing a created language as dialects and nomenclature offer plenty of information as well. Even in Snow Crash, where the dialect is fairly limited, what little it employs expresses a wealth of information about class structure and ideological polarization. More obvious dialect usage exhibits the boundaries of class, geography, community, and shared language. In each of these texts, class and community play crucial roles. With only our own world as a comparison for a thorough imaginary one, the matter of class cannot go ignored, and for this purpose dialect thrives. The same goes for nomenclature. We do not choose the names of anything in our world on a whim. If there is purpose to every naming decision in our world, then the same should go for the fictional. 

 More abstract use of language can make or break a text. In this way, Snow Crash is polarizing. Although the world that Stephenson has constructed is rich and packed with the symbols of the anarcho-capitalist society, it is also packed with plenty of extraneous details that only congest the novel. The abstract expresses the more detailed aspects of a constructed world, such as rituals and cultural disruption. If the direct informs as to the structure of the world, let the abstract speak to its function. Is propaganda a disease? What is real magic? Where does religion stop and a virus begin? How does magic inform authority? The questions posed by the direct language are answered the abstract. 

These texts could not be more different from each other, but they find common ground in the place where it matters. They root themselves in words and their worlds are rich for it. Although each could not showcase the speculative novel on its own, together they form a diorama of the strong speculative narrative. They reach into your mouth and pull out a history. It is the ultimate magic trick. Putting these texts together may read as unorthodox, but nothing could better reveal the nature of science fiction and fantasy.  

Speculative fiction demands more attention to the structure of the world by necessity. Genres likes fantasy and science fiction do not have the pleasure of assuming that their world is the same as our own and moving on. Perhaps it is bold to describe this as “world-building,” because each of these texts has only ever been and could only be some reflection of our own world. Still, this world-rebuilding requires strength of language to describe what a simple story could not. Even texts in different time periods struggle here. For Jameson, imagining any version of our own world in another time was next to impossible, “what is implied is simply an ultimate historicist breakdown in which we can no longer imagine the future at all, under any form” (Jameson 286). He calls this a “nostalgia for the present,” with these imagined times only serving as simple mirrors for our current period. History becomes too slippery to handle, and the future too unimaginable to even grasp. Historicity prevails as too unmanageable for even the most prolific science fiction writer. With our own world hardly under our feet, and time slipping from our fingers in every moment, language is so ingrained in us that it seems our only reprieve.

There is no happy ending for the eager philologist in the world of speculative fiction. Syme’s conclusion that The Revolution ends when “the language is perfect,” may have been hasty. The Inner Party vaporizes him long before 1984’s end, merely transforming him into a realization of his beloved dead tongue. Even the heralded J.R.R Tolkien described his work with Elvish languages as ongoing and he passed before he ever considered them complete. No matter how we try, we cannot tear down the world, but with hope and command of word, perhaps we can achieve what Tolkien called a “linguistic aesthetic,” a sort of flavor of the world. The language may not be perfect yet, but when speculative fiction musters even a taste of another world, it is divine. 

Works Cited

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Haas, Lisbeth. Conquests and historical identities in California, 1769-1936. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. pp. 1-12. 

Hammond, Wayne G., and Christina Scull, editors. The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder. Marquette University Press, 2006.

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Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press, 2005.

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Marx, Karl. “Introduction.” A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, edited by Andy Blunden and Matthew Carmody, Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, 1844, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm.

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Orwell, George. 1984, Secker and Warburg, 1949. Planet eBook,https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/1984.pdf.

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to sincerely thank my thesis advisor, Prof. Seth Lerer, for the immense help in my research and writing, for every lunch we spent taking speculative fiction in any direction the topic would permit. His guidance was crucial in curating a body of scholarship with which to interact and approaching a genre that was otherwise wholly unknown to me. I could not have imagined having a better advisor for my honors thesis.

Other than my advisor, I would like to thank my peers, Nicole Sowers and Olin Prentiss, for their continual advice during the writing process and the comradery we shared while we wrote our respective theses. Although much of our time together was spent rambling about our individual topics, it was always helpful to have a pair of fresh eyes and a friendly hand. 

Thank you to my boyfriend Zac Young, for all of his wonderful support, whether it was edits, encouragement, or buying me Jack in the Box at 2am. His constant comfort kept me productive and sane.

Lastly, my sincere thanks to my friends and family, for letting me talk their ears off about this paper for 10 weeks and supporting me in any way they could. Their faith in me and optimism for my success became the initiative for my writing.