"Omnilingual" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

short story by American writer

H. Beam Piper Henry Beam Piper (March 23, 1904 – ) was an American science fiction writer. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alt ...

. Originally published in the February 1957 issue of ''

Astounding Science Fiction ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ...

'', it focuses on the problem of archaeology on an alien culture.

Synopsis

An expedition from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

discovers a deserted city, the remains of an advanced civilization that died out 50,000 years before. The human scientists recover books and documents left behind, and are puzzled by their contents. Earnest young archeologist Martha Dane deciphers a few words, but the real breakthrough comes when the team explores what appears to have been a university in which the last few civilized Martians made their last stand. Inside, they find a "

Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle te ...

": the

periodic table The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the (chemical) elements, is a rows and columns arrangement of the chemical elements. It is widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences, and is generally seen as an icon of ch ...

of the elements. The story builds tension from the skepticism of the rest of the team, mostly male, as well as from Dr. Dane's competitive, spotlight-seeking teammate, Tony Lattimer.

Reception

Jo Walton Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh and Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel ''Among Others'', which won the Hugo Award, Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and ''Tooth and Claw (novel), Tooth ...

stated that ''Omnilingual'' was "influential" and "''the'' classic SF short story, the one everyone ought to read if they’re only going to read one", and noted that the story "raises a question that everyone who has dealt with the subject hen writing science fictionsince has had to either accept or find a way around", namely "If scientific truths are true for everyone, will we therefore be able to communicate with all scientifically literate cultures using science?" Walton also commended the story's use of gender equality and multicultural characters, with "the only thing that made erraise ereyebrows" being the constant use of alcohol and tobacco. it focuses on the problem of archaeology on an alien culture.

James Nicoll James Davis Nicoll (born March 18, 1961) is a Canadian freelance game and speculative fiction reviewer, former security guard and role-playing game store owner, and also works as a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club. As a Usene ...

questioned the basic premise of scientific language being necessarily decipherable — "what if Martian didn't use letters and a numbering system which sounds very akin to ours?" — but overall concluded that the story was "well worth reading." Millennial Reviews XXIX: Omnilingual by H. Beam Piper (1957)
, by

, at James Nicoll Reviews; published February 13, 2000; retrieved May 20, 2022 The '' Routledge Companion to Science Fiction'' similarly faulted this "ideological sleight-of-hand", emphasizing that the "extinct Martian civilization closely resembles the hen-ontemporary US: language is recorded in a linear written form divided into words; the title pages of printed magazines feature the title, month of publication, issue number, and table of contents; Martians live in cities with universities; universities are divided into disciplinary departments — and classrooms — more or less identical to terrestrial ones; and on the wall of the material sciences lab hangs a periodic table of elements, organizing information which might apply universally but which in no way demands graphic representation or public display."23. language and linguistics (part II: Theory)
, by Mark Bould; in ''The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction'' (1st edition); published by

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...

, 2009

John W. Cowan John Woldemar Cowan is an American programmer known for work with XML and Unicode. Cowan is an alumnus member of the Unicode Consortium and was an editor of the XML 1.1 specification. He is also the founder of the ConScript Unicode Registry, which ...

, inventor of

Lojban Lojban (pronounced ) is a logical, constructed, human language created by the Logical Language Group which aims to be syntactically unambigious. It succeeds the Loglan project. The Logical Language Group (LLG) began developing Lojban in 1987. ...

, praised ''Omnilingual'' as "one of the best, science fiction stories in which the science is linguistic archaeology", and published a modernized version to his website in 2009.OMNILINGUAL, BY H. BEAM PIPER, Edited by John Cowan
; published 2009 on Lojban.org; retrieved May 20, 2022

Stylometric study

In 2018, Tomi S. Melka and Michal Místecký carried out a complex quantitative analysis of the novelette's style.

Publication history

Omnilingual has been reprinted several times since its original publication. * '' Prologue to Analog'' (1962, Doubleday) * '' Analog Anthology'' (1965, Dobson) * '' Great Science Fiction Stories About Mars'' (1966, Fredrick Fell) * '' Apeman, Spaceman'' (1968, Doubleday) * '' Mars, We Love You'' (1971, Doubleday) - Also published under the title The Book of Mars * '' Where Do We Go from Here?'' (1971, Doubleday) * '' The Days After Tomorrow'' (1971,

Little Brown Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily D ...

) * '' Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow...'' (1974, Rinehart & Winston) * '' Science Fiction Novellas'' (1975, Scribner) * ''

Federation A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

'' (1981,

Ace An ace is a playing card, Dice, die or domino with a single Pip (counting), pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit (cards), suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large a ...

) * '' Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 19 (1957)'' (1989,

DAW Daw or DAW may refer to: People and language * Daw (given name) * Daw (surname) * Daw, an honorific used in Burmese name#Honorifics, Burmese names * Dâw people, an indigenous people of Brazil * Dâw language, a language of Brazil * Davaoeño lang ...

) * ''

The World Turned Upside Down "The World Turned Upside Down" is an English ballad. It was first published on a broadside in the middle of the 1640s as a protest against the policies of Parliament relating to the celebration of Christmas. Parliament believed the holiday s ...

'' (2005,

Baen Baen Books () is an American publishing house for science fiction and fantasy. In science fiction, it emphasizes space opera, hard science fiction, and military science fiction. The company was established in 1983 by science fiction publisher ...

)

References

External links