The AT Away Team will be presenting on various science fiction linguistics topics at InConJunction, an Indianapolis SF convention, July 1st through July 3rd!
… admittedly we won’t be presenting continuously for three days. Probably. We don’t have the schedule yet.
Tracy (from AT) and Michael Roney, Jr., the professional Klingon translator, will be doing a presentation called “Learn Klingon!” in which you will learn enough Klingon basics to spend the rest of the convention cursing and shouting abuse in the warrior tongue with confidence. (Since Klingon can be hard on your voice, we will also spend some time talking about how Marc Okrand created the language, and how he drew on what’s known about human languages to create a convincingly alien language.)
Both Tracy and Chris are scheduled for a Xenolinguistics panel, in which we’ll talk about how alien languages might plausibly differ from human languages – imagine a language based on taste or color, for example. We’ll also touch on good (and bad) alien languages in SF, and, of course, answer your questions about SF linguistics.
(It’s possible that Chris might not be able to appear in person, but we’ll prep the talk together regardless.)
Klingon musician Jon Silpayamanant, whose comments on AT are always honorable and most welcome, will be performing, and he’ll also be presenting on Xenomusicology, which explores what alien music might sound like. (Slightly farther afield from SF languages and linguistics, Jon and Tracy will be doing a presentation on “Opera for SF and Fantasy Fans”, discussing – among many other works old and new – ‘u’, the Klingon opera.)
If you’re doing the Klingon language workshop and want an impressive forehead to match your newfound language skills, Varra – the quartermaster of the Indianapolis-based Klingon ship, the IKS lIywI’ – will be demonstrating how to make latex costume prosthetics.
And of course there’ll be all the other excitement you’d expect of a Midwestern SF convention. Check the InConJunction website for schedule details (and to save money by buying tickets ahead of time.) See you there!