Sci-Fi book about female pilot in the distant future who is a linguist and has to decipher an alien language/code

Question

This book I read in college, I think it was published between the 1970s to 1990s.

It's about a female pilot (I think her first name began with an R) in the distant future who is famous and is also known for being a linguist. She's recruited by the government/military to decipher an alien transmission/code they got from outer space.

It's set in the way distant future, transmogrification and extreme cosmetic surgery exists (like to resemble animals, have wings, etc.). She recruits some of these persons to be in her flight crew to travel in space while researching the language. Along the way they meet a guy who can only say a certain word or something.

In the end I remember it being a major plot twist and the language was moreover like a programmable psychic code. She and the guy with few words figured it out and could communicate telepathically and I think they do some damage to the military.

I just really want to find this book because it was just so weird yet so amazing in its delivery, it reminds me little of Neuromancer or Ubik. I know for sure the title of the book is what they named the alien language/code the protagonist was researching.

Answer 1

This is probably Samuel Delany's Babel-17 (1966). The hero is a linguist and captain named Rydra Wong, recruited by the military to decode an enemy language called Babel-17.

During an interstellar war one side develops a language, Babel-17, that can be used as a weapon. Learning it turns one into an unwilling traitor as it alters perception and thought. The change is made more dangerous by the language's seductive enhancement of other abilities. This is discovered by the beautiful star-ship captain, linguist, poet, and telepath Rydra Wong. She is recruited by her government to discover how the enemy are infiltrating and sabotaging strategic sites. Initially Babel-17 is thought to be a code used by enemy agents. Rydra realizes it is a language in and of itself, and furthermore that she has a traitor on the ship. Rydra later finds that she herself is becoming the traitor as she learns more about Babel-17. She is rescued, however, by her dedicated crew, who figure out the danger and neutralizes its effects.

_{Plot summary from Wikipedia}