Deciphering the Nebula: language, history and narratology in Heaven’s Vault

Say It Like You Play It

In this episode we discuss the brilliant Heaven's Vault; a narrative adventure videogame about decyphering a constructed language in order to learn the history of a fantastical world. Hosts Dr. Ibi and Dr. Joe cover topics including:

• How the game works
• Ideographic vs Alphabetic writing systems
• Semantics and Morphology in language
• Science fiction, media representation, and attempts at avoiding orientalism
• Translation and archaeology as game mechanics

To hear Jon Ingold of Inkle talk about Bladerunner and writing game dialogue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vRfNtvFVRo

For an excellent GDC talk on the making of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o02uJ-ktCuk

Contains some strong (and other type types of) language.

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📚 Resources:

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, n.d. 'Language in brief'. https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/spoken-language-disorders/language-in-brief/. Accessed 11 September 2024.

Condis, Megan. 2016. Building Languages, Building Worlds: An Interview with Jessica Sams. Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, 4(1), 150–161. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5250/resilience.4.1.0150

Daniels, Peter T., 2017. Writing systems. In Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller (eds.), The Handbook of Linguistics. Wiley, 75-94.

Olson, David R., 23 Aug. 2024. 'writing'. In Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/writing. Accessed 11 September 2024.

Rogers, Stephen D., 2011. The Dictionary of Made-Up Languages: from Adunaic to Elvish, Zaum to Klingon—The Anwa (Real) Origins of Invented Lexicons. Simon and Schuster.

Rowe, Bruce M., & Levine, Diane P., 2022. A Concise Introduction to Linguistics. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003268369.

Schreyer, Christine, 2021. Constructed languages. Annual Review of Anthropology, 50(1), 327-344. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-101819-110152.

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