McGill linguist helped on upcoming movie Arrival

The upcoming Denis Villeneuve movie Arrival was filmed in Montreal and when the filmmakers went looking for a linguistics scholar to consult on the screenplay and offer on-set advice, they turned to McGill. Prof. Jessica Coon supplied feedback on the film’s script, worked with the set crew, and some of her books from her office even wound up in the film. (McGill News)

Jessica Coon, Department of Linguistics, McGill University

“Once aliens land, all bets are off,” she jokes. “We think we have some ideas about human cognition and how that works, but no one has ever had to learn an alien language before—as far as we know.”—Jessica Coon

She’s an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Syntax and Indigenous Languages. Her research is focused on syntax and morphology, especially of understudied languages of the Americas

Jessica.coon [at] mcgill.ca (English)