Languages of Pao, The-Jack Vance novel, book review
Languages of Pao, The-Jack Vance novel The Languages of Pao is an early, fascinating novel by Jack Vance written in 1956 and first published in December, 1957 in an abbreviated version in the magazine Satellite Science Fiction. Avalon Press issued it as a hardcover book in 1958. It is currently in print in a very nice, 166 page, trade paperback edition by Spatterlight Press which is based on the restored Vance Integral Edition and supersedes all previous issues. How much does our language shape our cognitions, behavior and even sensory perceptions? Can changing a language dramatically alter a society? As one of the characters in this novel states, "Language controls the mechanism of your mind. When people speak different languages, their minds work differently and they act differently." In The Languages of Pao, Vance explores such psycholinguistic and semantic issues, especially the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis." The people on the planet Pao are very ...