Story of Your Life
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"The Story of Your Life" is a Nebula award winning short story by Ted Chiang. The major themes explored by this tale are determinism, language and an interesting take on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It was originally published in Starflight 2 in 1998.
Dr. Louise Banks is enlisted by the military to communicate with a race of radially-symmetrical aliens who initiated first contact with humanity. Woven through the story are remembrances of her daughter.
The heptapods have two distinct forms of language. Heptapod A is their spoken language which is described as having free word order and many levels of center-embedded clauses. Understanding Heptapod B, the written language of the aliens, is central to the plot. Unlike its spoken counterpart, Heptapod B has complex structure that one of their semagrams could not be excluded without changing the entire meaning of the sentence. When writing in Heptapod B the writer knows how the sentence will end. The phenomenon of Heptapod B is explained by the alien's understanding of mathematics and Fermat's Theory of Least Time. Dr. Banks's understanding of the heptapods' writing system affects the way she perceives time and suggests a deterministic universe where free will is exercised by not affecting the outcome of events.
