Samuel Delany's Babel-17

Samuel Delany's Babel-17 focused heavily on one of the most important aspects of any culture: language. Language, whether it may be vocal, visual or kinesthetic, is how a society interacts with one another. Language is how we share our feelings, thoughts, and emotions with the world around us. I’d go so far as to say that no cultural group truly lacks a language due to the wide range of ways to communicate (gestures, facial expression, posture, proxemics, haptics, etcetera).

The use of and the manipulation of language is the driving force in this novel. The protagonist, Rydra Wong, is a world-renowned poet and linguist. Rydra spends her time in the novel studying the language of Babel-17, trying to unpack its 'code' and figure out how to speak it. Babel-17 is no ordinary language and has some strange effects on the people who understand it. Rydra's vast experience with language and her plethora of knowledge concerning language makes her more aware of the nuances and effects language has on the human brain.

Babel-17 distorts Rydra’s normal perceptions of reality, interacting with her mind in a very supernatural way. Rydra’s heightened sense of the world around her is introduced fairly early in the novel when she reads the mind of the man having a conversation with her and repeats his thoughts back to him. As Rydra pursues knowledge of the mysterious Babel-17 further, her mind’s abilities expand to the point where her own physical possibilities are affected. In the galactic fight scenes, Rydra is able to make time slow down by thinking under the power of Babel-17 and uses this reality altering ability to defeat the enemy. The concept that language’s influence on the way people think and perceive is so strong that it can grant people new skills or powers is a great example of manipulation.

Babel-17’s unique properties make it quite a dangerous phenomenon. Due to its intense influence, the language acts almost like a mind controlling parasite within the individuals who understand it. Some characters in the book are completely taken control by the language and commit bad deeds unbeknownst to themselves. Rydra Wong is negatively affected as her consciousness in reality is clouded several times when she gets too caught up in using Babel-17 to communicate. It becomes difficult for Rydra to move back and forth between Babel-17 and the common language used by her crew – thus creating a language barrier within her group.

Manipulation of the mind and of the physical world are two of the main concepts explored in Babel-17. Taking these ideas and putting them into a contemporary context, it would be catastrophic if a language existed that really granted people new, seemingly impossible abilities. Anyone with the means to predict exactly what someone is going to say or think is an incredibly powerful tool that would create so many security issues. Within the wrong hands, this power could be used for blackmail, to compromise national security, to assert dominance, etcetera. The manipulative qualities of Babel-17 would surely be weaponized and used to control different populations of people – perhaps resulting in slave societies across the world.