 | This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia.(April 2022) |
The Ascian language is a fictional language invented by Gene Wolfe for his science fiction series The Book of the New Sun . [1]
The language is spoken by the inhabitants of the “northern continents” of the future earth, the Ascians, who are enslaved by their masters (the Group of Seventeen) in a way much like the people of Oceania in George Orwell's book 1984 .
Although unfamiliar to most readers, this is not a word invented by Wolfe, nor is it a form of "Asians"; rather, it means 'dweller of the tropics', and it came into English by way of medieval Latin as an adaptation of ancient Greek ἄσκιος, literally 'without a shadow'. [2] [3] In the tropics, the sun is exactly overhead at noon twice a year, and at that time a person standing straight up will cast no shadow.
The Ascian language consists of two levels: On the low level it is an ordinary language, of whose syntax, grammar and vocabulary virtually nothing is known. The second level is more complex and unique.
Although Ascian is their mother tongue, adult Ascians do not understand plain Ascian sentences unless they are direct quotations from governmental propaganda materials, referred to as Correct Thought. Thus, in order to communicate, an Ascian has to know by heart thousands of these quotations (sentences) on many different topics.
As the northern continents are at war with the southern Commonwealth (where most protagonists of the books live), there are interpreters in the Ascian army to interrogate prisoners. These speak the language of the Commonwealth, but as they are unable to think outside the approved texts, what they say is merely literal translations of the Ascian approved sentences.
A very similar concept of a language is presented in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Darmok" from 1991.
The reason for the Group of Seventeen to impose on their people this complicated concept of a language is much like Orwell's concept of Newspeak.[ original research? ] In order to prevent the Ascians from ever developing critical thought (and subsequently inciting revolts), the language is limited as to make it impossible to express any such thought. This corresponds to the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
Nevertheless, Gene Wolfe suggests that in practice, the concept of Ascian does not work out entirely as intended. It is shown that intelligent Ascians are very well able to express, by means of approved sentences only, meanings that exceed those of the quoted sources. They simply quote sentences which have certain connotations, regardless of the actual meaning of the approved text.
In "The Citadel of the Autarch", the fourth volume of The Book of the New Sun series, there is a story told by an Ascian prisoner (who identifies himself only as "Loyal to the Group of Seventeen"), which is translated by people of the Commonwealth into our way of speaking. Some examples from this story are:
The zenith is the imaginary point on the celestial sphere directly "above" a particular location. "Above" means in the vertical direction opposite to the gravity direction at that location (nadir). The zenith is the "highest" point on the celestial sphere.
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's axial tilt; the width of the tropics is twice the tilt. The tropics are also referred to as the tropical zone and the torrid zone.
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east.
Gene Rodman Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and novelist, and won many literary awards. Wolfe has been called "the Melville of science fiction", and was honored as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Parataxis is a literary technique, in writing or speaking, that favors short, simple sentences, without conjunctions or with the use of coordinating, but not with subordinating conjunctions. It contrasts with syntaxis and hypotaxis.
Cognitive semantics is part of the cognitive linguistics movement. Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. Cognitive semantics holds that language is part of a more general human cognitive ability, and can therefore only describe the world as people conceive of it. It is implicit that different linguistic communities conceive of simple things and processes in the world differently, not necessarily some difference between a person's conceptual world and the real world.
The Book of the New Sun is a four-volume science fantasy novel written by the American author Gene Wolfe. The work is in four parts with a fifth novel acting as a coda to the main story. It inaugurated the "Solar Cycle" that Wolfe continued by setting other works in the same universe.
The Shadow of the Torturer is a science fantasy novel by American writer Gene Wolfe, published by Simon & Schuster in May 1980. It is the first of four volumes in The Book of the New Sun which Wolfe had completed in draft before The Shadow of the Torturer was published. It relates the story of Severian, an apprentice Seeker for Truth and Penitence, from his youth through his expulsion from the guild and subsequent journey out of his home city of Nessus.
The Claw of the Conciliator is a science fantasy novel by American writer Gene Wolfe, first released in 1981. It is the second volume in the four-volume series The Book of the New Sun.
The Citadel of the Autarch is a science fantasy novel by American writer Gene Wolfe, first released in 1983. It is the fourth and final volume in the four-volume series The Book of the New Sun.
The Castle of the Otter is a collection of essays and other non-fiction by Gene Wolfe, related to his Book of the New Sun tetralogy. It takes its title from an incorrect announcement of Wolfe's final volume in Locus. The Citadel of the Autarch was the actual name of the final work in the series. Wolfe liked the inaccurate title, though, and reused it as the name for a companion work of non-fiction essays and unused materials from the series.
Severian is the narrator and main character of Gene Wolfe's four-volume science fiction series The Book of the New Sun, as well as its sequel, The Urth of the New Sun. He is a Journeyman of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence who is exiled after showing mercy to one of his clients.
The Urth of the New Sun is a 1987 science fiction novel by Gene Wolfe that serves as a coda to his four-volume Book of the New Sun series. Like Book of the New Sun, it is of the Dying Earth subgenre. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1988.
Daytime or day as observed on Earth is the period of the day during which a given location experiences natural illumination from direct sunlight. Daytime occurs when the Sun appears above the local horizon, that is, anywhere on the globe's hemisphere facing the Sun. In direct sunlight the movement of the sun can be recorded and observed using a sundial that casts a shadow that slowly moves during the day. Other planets and natural satellites that rotate relative to a luminous primary body, such as a local star, also experience daytime, but this article primarily discusses daytime on Earth.
Sol Stein was the author of 13 books and was Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Stein and Day Publishers for 27 years.
Sun path, sometimes also called day arc, refers to the daily and seasonal arc-like path that the Sun appears to follow across the sky as the Earth rotates and orbits the Sun. The Sun's path affects the length of daytime experienced and amount of daylight received along a certain latitude during a given season.
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, which is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to limit a person's ability for critical thinking. The Newspeak language thus limits the person's ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will, which are thoughtcrimes, acts of personal independence that contradict the ideological orthodoxy of Ingsoc collectivism.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, it centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours within society. Orwell, a staunch believer in democratic socialism and member of the anti-Stalinist Left, modelled the Britain under authoritarian socialism in the novel on the Soviet Union in the era of Stalinism and on the very similar practices of both censorship and propaganda in Nazi Germany. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated.
Lāhainā Noon, also known as a zero shadow day, is a semi-annual tropical solar phenomenon when the Sun culminates at the zenith at solar noon, passing directly overhead. As a result, the sun's rays will fall exactly vertical relative to an object on the ground and cast no observable shadow. A zero shadow day occurs twice a year for locations in the tropics when the Sun's declination becomes equal to the latitude of the location, so that the date varies by location. The term "Lāhainā Noon" was initiated by the Bishop Museum in Hawaiʻi.
An experimental language is a constructed language designed for linguistics research, often on the relationship between language and thought.
If you read the book carefully, it's clear that the action is taking place in South America and that the invading Ascians are actually North Americans. What I didn't anticipate was that nine tenths of my readers and reviewers would look at the word "Ascian" and say, "Oh, these guys are Asians!" This confusion got me accused of being an anti Asian racist—which I'm not. Actually, the word "ascian" literally means "people without shadows." It was a word used in the Classical world for people who lived near the Equator, where the Sun is dead overhead at noon and thus produces no shadow. I felt it would be an interesting touch to show that the ordinary man in the street in the Southern Hemisphere wasn't even conscious that their attackers are coming down from the Northern Hemisphere (they aren't even aware that there is another hemisphere).