In Spain during the Francoist dictatorship, a girl's father insists that their family will never speak Spanish again in favor of Basque — a small act of political defiance that slowly changes their lives, until they can never go back.

A linguist is called to investigate robots that seem to have created their own language.

A grieving mother and accomplished linguist relives her child's lost life as she learns to communicate with the aliens that have landed on earth.

An old linguistics researcher is ousted from his university position on the frontier of a small island he acculturated. Upon his return home, he begins to believe that he and his life's work are marginal.

A Los Angeles speech pathologist is assigned to the case of a presumably mentally-ill woman who speaks in gibberish that turns out to be Old English. When the woman disappears, deciphering her mysterious writing leads the pathologist to wonder if she has stumbled across a time traveler.

A young woman from Dahomey is stolen during the Dutch colonization. She is separated from her brother and hopes to go on a mission to find him.

A grad student helps two unlikely lovers connect in a future state of a damaged world.

A Laotian six-year-old, whose parents can't read English, struggles in school.

An American man on a train in France encounters a peasant man and his family who try to speak to him despite the fact that French is not his first language.

A second-generation Russian immigrant living in contemporary Michigan finds himself caught up in a sad but emotive group of friends when he takes a continuing education course on Intermediate German.