xenolinguist n.

'I can prove it,' the xenolinguist said, still softly.

Let’s consider the situation that may face the would-be xenolinguist in the twentyfirst century. Xenolinguistics 101 Oral forms of language such as humans use are probably not the only methods of communication to be found around the galaxy.

Outside, someone was dragging Oona’s battered duffel bag with its faded Xenolinguists’ Guild insignia across the compound to the guest quarters.

The experiment he’d designed wasn’t a new idea; in fact, early theoretical xenolinguists such as Elgin and Watson had discussed it centuries before. Raise a human child with an alien, and she’ll have the other’s language in her head from birth, as well as her native tongue.

The Anaconda, Martian physicists decided, had had a Schwarzschild radius—defined as the radius below which, if you squeezed the mass, it would become a black hole—larger than the tunnel’s capacity to handle. From the disaster, xenolinguists had learned the meaning of the alien marking for ‘disruption’.

He meant to carry her to sick bay himself, but met Dr. Hamilton on the way—looking frantic but whole, healthy, and unblooded. Xenolinguists were not on board for their fighting skills.