A genre-blending dystopian Sci-Fi mystery-thriller that will make you think about language in a whole new way ➱ Audiobook Tour Guest Post & Giveaway
THE BABEL APOCALYPSE AUDIOBOOK
by Vyvyan Evans
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Science Fiction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Language
is no longer learned, but streamed to neural implants regulated by lang-laws.
Those who can’t afford monthly language streaming services are feral, living on
the fringes of society. Big tech corporations control language, the world’s
most valuable commodity.
But
when a massive cyberattack causes a global language outage, catastrophe looms.
Europol
detective Emyr Morgan is assigned to the case. Suspect number one is Professor
Ebba Black, the last native speaker of language in the automated world, and
leader of the Babel cyberterrorist organization. But Emyr soon learns that in a
world of corporate power, where those who control language control everything,
all is not as it seems. After all, if the mysterious Ebba Black is to blame,
why is the Russian Federation being framed for an outage it claims no
responsibility for? And why is Ebba now a target for assassination?
As
he and Ebba collide, Emyr faces an existential dilemma between loyalty and
betrayal, when everything he once believed in is called into question. To
prevent the imminent collapse of civilization and a deadly war between the
great federations, he must figure out friend from foe—his life depends on it.
And
with the odds stacked against him, he must find a way to stop the Babel
Apocalypse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
Ebba was all too aware that she was viewed as an anomaly by
pretty much everyone; she was neither feral nor out-soc. So, some of her
students—especially those from outside the Republic, such as the Grand Union,
and other places too—thought she must be breaking the law. It was a common
misconception. She had even once been reported to the authorities by one of
those types. For being an unchipped ghost, as they called her. That made her
laugh; a dark laugh at the irony of it. The mutes, she called them. Those who
had been fitted with Universal Grammar tech.
But while she officially resided in the Nordic Republic, and
as long as she remained there, Ebba wasn’t doing anything illegal. The Republic
was something of a curiosity even among Tier One states, never having passed a
lang-law. Yet this singular absence was offset by the special requirements of
Nordic birth licenses. To have one granted, prospective parents had to consent
to their newborn being fitted with Universal Grammar tech. So everyone got a
language chip at birth anyway, together with an ear implant transceiver. Which
meant that voice command tech was, for all intents and purposes, de rigueur
even without a lang-law. But that was the Scandinavian way. In the Nordic
Republic, they organized freedom.
For her part, Ebba knew it wasn’t her. It was everyone else
who had the problem. “That’s what you would think,” her braver, typically male
students told her. “You’re Ebba Black.” Ha! Whatever that means. How do they
know what Ebba Black would think anyway?
Guest Post:
Background to Unilanguage: They who control language control everything
The Babel Apocalypse predicts a
near-future when language is no longer learned, but streamed to neural implants
in people’s head, streamed from internet in space. The book explores the
dystopian consequences of this, including a global language, which leads to
catastrophe.
In a future era of
language-as-commodity, it is inevitable that whether a language lives or dies
would be based on economics. In other words, those languages with little demand
on streaming services would cease to exist.
As language would be stored
entirely on servers, language would, in effect, be controlled by the big tech
companies that lease it back to human populations that have undergone language
chipping.
The Babel Apocalypse imagines a
system where language is controlled by a body based in California, called
Unilanguage. This is modelled on the very system in place for vetting new
emojis, which are controlled and approved by Unicode (also based in California,
controlled by just a few of the world’s leading tech firms).
One consequence would be that as
languages fall out of demand, there would be little incentive for big tech
firms to continue to store them, tying up valuable server space. And as
populations undergo the process of having language chips implanted in their
brains, native speakers would cease to exist. Hence, lesser-used languages
would simply die out—a consequence of lack of demand, which is simple economics
at work. If there is no demand, it doesn’t pay. Hence, providers stop offering
it.
The Babel Apocalypse imagines a
future in which there are just 250 surviving languages (compared to around 6,500
today).
National governments would,
inevitably, try to preserve cultural unity, while ensuring subscriptions are
affordable for the poorest citizens. Hence, The Babel Apocalypse posits a
situation in which (most) states require all public security systems (referred
to as VirDas—short for Virtual Digital Assistants) to run on a single state
language. For context, VirDas are the mechanisms for processing voice commands,
and hence the main security portals for accessing everything from grocery
stores to offices, from vehicles to homes.
As an example, the national
state language in France, on which all public VirDas would run, would be
French. In the US, it would likely be English. In practice, this would mean
that in France, say, it would be sufficient to only need to pay for a single language
streaming package. And to gain entry to a supermarket, for instance, the
language user would identify at the store entrance, using voice commands, by
speaking into the VirDa. Incidentally, this technology would also mean that
stores and supermarkets are fully automated (no need for human clerks or
cashiers). Label sensor fusion tech, already being trialled, would mean that a
shopper’s groceries can be located with each individual shopper, who would use
their voice command authorization to pay for their purchase at self-checkout,
prior to being “allowed” to leave the store.
Of course, there are multiple
consequences of all this for language. Regional accents and dialects, being
non-standard, would require more expensive streaming subscriptions—this entails
that regional accents would become status symbols. The working classes would
be, in effect, priced out of their own local language varieties.
The range and variety of human
language would be erased at a stroke. This, self-evidently, has implications
for identity, ethnicity, and so on. It also has consequences for who controls
language, and how new words are coined, or come to fall out of use. These would
become decisions for big tech and government, not individual speakers of
languages.
Given all this, The Babel Apocalypse serves as a
warning: when we lose language we all lose.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Dr.
Vyvyan Evans is a native of Chester, England. He holds a PhD in linguistics
from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and is a Professor of
Linguistics. He has published numerous acclaimed popular science and technical
books on language and linguistics. His popular science essays and articles have
appeared in numerous venues including 'The Guardian', 'Psychology Today', 'New
York Post', 'New Scientist', 'Newsweek' and 'The New Republic'. His
award-winning writing focuses, in one way or another, on the nature of language
and mind, the impact of technology on language, and the future of
communication. His science fiction work explores the status of language and
digital communication technology as potential weapons of mass destruction.
Book
website (including ‘Buy’ links): http://www.songs-of-the-sage.com
Author
website: https://www.vyvevans.net/
Youtube
channel: https://www.youtube.com/@vyvevans
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/VyvEvans
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Vyvyan.Evans.Author
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/nephilim_publishing/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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