Language for Time Travelers

by L. Sprague de Camp

Release: July 1938
Format: Essay
Genre: Nonfiction
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

This essay convinced me to add at least a few nonfiction works to my list. After all, why not? De Camp interleaves a few fictional vignettes with thoughts on how language might change over the next few centuries. For me, it shows how well the time travel paradigm had been established by 1939.

As a bonus, this essay appeared in the very issue of Astounding that has the final installment of The Legion of Time and which caused all the trouble in my story “Saving Astounding.”

Wah lenksh? Inksh lenksh, coss. Wah you speak? Said, sah-y, daw geh-ih. Daw, neitha. You fresh? Jumm?

DEBUT

Language for Time Travelers, Astounding Science Fiction, July 1938.

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Groupings

Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY: We haven’t yet mapped out the time travel itinerary.

ITTDB Work #1270: by L. Sprague de Camp
Indexer: not yet assigned
Curator: Michael Main
as of 2:37 p.m. MDT, 5 May 2024
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