The Guild was founded on Earth in the middle of the 22nd century after first contact with a race from somewhere in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. This alien visit was traumatic enough to bring the last holdouts into a united world government that made exploration and research of extra-solar space a priority. A few early linguists, neurolinguists, ethnographers and computer scientists established the Guild which then took over the responsibility for training xenolinguists to make first contact and to record alien languages in the field. Later, the Guild provided translation services for the expanding commerce and colonization of the following centuries. (To read more about the history of the Guild, click here.)

The Two [most important] Laws of the Guild:

1. Never let emotion color the interface.

2. Never judge the message or its sender.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LINGSTER MATERIAL

Novels:

Reading the Bones, Tachyon Press, 2003
Triad, Bantam Books, 1986

Short Stories:

"First Was The Word," F&SF, June 2008
"Stranger Than Imagination Can," Guild of Xenolinguists, Sept 2008
No Brighter Glory, F&SF, April 99
The Naked Face of God, F&SF, June 99
Reading the Bones, F&SF, January 98
The Roaring Ground, F&SF, April 97
A Flight of Words, F&SF, February 97
Out of the Mouths, F&SF, Nov-Dec 96
Communion of Minds, F&SF, September 96
A World Waiting, F&SF, August 89
Babel Interface, Amazing Stories, May 88

Related stories:

Nor Unbuild the Cage, F&SF, September 2000
Sequoia Dreams, Amazing Stories, July 90

Non-fiction:

Future Tense: Reflecting Language Change in SF, SFWA Bulletin, Spring 2004
Berlitz in Space, Amazing Stories, May 88.