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Jessica Koon was a teenager when she first learned that linguistics is a thing.

She stumbled upon story of your life, a science fiction novella by Ted Chang.

It's all about a linguist trying to figure out how to communicate with, well, aliens.

I think it was actually probably the first time I heard about the field of linguistics.

And yeah, then I started college the next year.

I saw an introduction to linguistics course and signed up for it.

These days, Jessica's a field linguist at McGill University.

In particular, I work on syntax.

Basically, the way words combine to make sentences.

And a few years ago, she got an email to be a consultant on a movie.

A movie that was coincidentally based on the exact novella she read as a teenager.

I'm not trying to draw any connections that aren't there, but you read about linguistics

for the first time in a book that became a movie that you became the person they consulted with.

It's amazing, right?

It's pretty wild.

I mean, when I first got the email that asked me to work on this film,

I was really ready to push spam because it sounded very strange.

And then at some point, I saw the story of your life.

And I said, wait a minute, I haven't thought about that in years.

And then I responded.

That film 2016 sci-fi hit arrival.

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