The Linguist

28 The Linguist Vol/61 No/5 thelinguist.uberflip.com REVIEWS A thought-provoking, moving film about loss and how we deal with it, Drive My Car centres on director Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), who is known for his multilingual theatre productions. A grieving man, he begins work on a production of Uncle Vanya in Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and Korean Sign Language. Based on a story by Haruki Murakami, the Oscar-winning film by director Ryusuke Hamaguchi reflects on the way people communicate, and the pauses in between. The cast of Uncle Vanya have no common language, and much of the emotional connection comes via the telling of stories, notably lines from Chekhov's play. Watching with English subtitles, I felt that I missed some of the code switching – there are certainly more linguistic riches to be found in the rewatching. MM DVD £9.99; Blu-ray £14.99 For film buffs Perez women are loud, strong, beautiful survivors of everything life has thrown their way. They are a microcosm of the Puerto Rican community in Philadelphia, where family identity holds everyone tight and all live on not enough money but plenty of prejudice. Quiara is one of them, but she's going to emerge and tell her story via their collective stories, using all her talents. Told in English, Spanish and many words in between, My Broken Language: A memoir reminds us that harnessing what is broken is the best way to tell it. KT Babel: An arcane history is one of the best novels I've ever read. This gripping fantasy thriller centring around four students at Babel – a fictional translation department at Oxford University – offers an important alternative narrative to the institutionalised history of the British empire. R F Kuang's narration and dialogue are full of wit (she is a translator herself, who studied at Oxford). Linguists will appreciate the novel's multilingualism and interaction with translation theory, and while it is set in a mythical Victorian England, its devastating reflections on how the real world came to be will haunt any reader. I can't stop thinking about it, and I won't stop talking about it. AZ Quiara Alegría Hudes (2022) £9.99 R F Kuang (2022) £16.99 Gifts for linguists Looking for language-related ideas? Here's some of the best 2022 has to offer REVIEWS BY ANAM ZAFAR, KATE TROTMAN, SAMARA SERRALHEIRO AND MIRANDA MOORE For book lovers For game fans For kids The I Speak 6 Languages game asks players to name the object on a card in a language shown on a dice; each turn offers the chance to learn the word to win next time. Adults will love the classic Scandi design; children will love knowing the answer in languages they never thought they could 'speak'. MM £21.95; amnestyshop.org.uk For podcast enthusiasts David Crystal and writer Jonathan Green, enrich the conversation. Silly discussions about mundane things like rain and coffee lighten more challenging topics. For bonus episodes and access to the show's Discord community, the paid-for 'Listener' level offers interviews, answers to questions from the audience and more, and enables the podcast to keep going. A fun listen for anyone interested in languages. SS Listener Level £5+VAT pcm; becauselanguage.com If you're looking for a podcast that talks about language in a fun way, Because Language is a smart pick. Hosted by linguists Daniel Midgley and Hedvig Skirgard, and "average listener" Ben Ainslie, it started during the pandemic, covering such relevant topics as the use of slang, translation technologies, how sci-fi books can impact real language, the language connection with Black Lives Matter, and even special episodes on Generativism. Guest experts, such as renowned linguist With a beautiful steam-punk design, League of the Lexicon is a Trivial Pursuit-style game for language lovers. Players win artefact cards (from George Eliot's Poison Ring to Cervantes' Glass Eye) by answering questions covering linguistic curiosities, etymology and more. As we pick up intriguing facts along the way (the meaning of 'jactate'; who a Bloody Mary is named after), there is as much enjoyment to be had in the playing as in the winning. MM £35; twobrothersgames.co.uk

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