Fictional Linguists?

I blanked out on everything except comic books. Warlock from Marvel comics could do that. If the literary parts of my brain decide to cooperate I'll be back.

Suzette Haden Elgin's Native Tongue perhaps?

Medievalist said:

And there's a "feminist linguistic" series by a woman whose name I can't remember . . . a linguist, writing about linguists. Gah. Someone else wil remember.

Click to expand...

If television will do, Hoshi Sato in Star Trek: Enterprise was a language expert.

Brother Stephen from Keyes' Thorn and Bone trilogy knew an awful lot about linguistics, at least as far as fantasy settings go.

C-3P0. "Fluent in more than six million forms of communication."

While not a character per se, there's always the Babel fish ala Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

William of Baskerville in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose fits your description.

Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady is probably the exact opposite of what you need. (You don't need a langauge snob, if I'm mistaken.)

Thinking of Rex Harrison, how about Dr. Doolittle? (Though that's fairly unlinguistic and more intuitive.)

Anyway, I think the prize goes to Fulk for mentioning C-3PO. Well known and fitting, IMO.

I think you mean "polyglot" here--"linguists" are people who study the structure of languages, while "polyglots" are people who speak many languages.

I can't think of a character who is a byword for fluency in many languages, though. Both Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe are said to speak many languages, but that's not their key quality. Usually when people use a literary referent for language fluency, they cite the Babelfish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

bohololita said:

Ok, this may seem strange, but I need the name of either a fictional character known for speaking many languages, a mediator, an interpreter, or something to that extent.

Click to expand...