If the bits in Klingon for the Galactic Traveler that unpacked why "nuqneH" isn’t a friendly hello, the formality of ritual insults, and the clipped military register fascinated you, you’ll love how Embassytown treats language as the heart of culture. Miéville builds the Ariekei’s "Language" — spoken simultaneously by twinned Ambassadors like CalVin and EzRa — into a full-blown cultural system where metaphor must be literally embodied (Avice becomes "the girl who was hurt in darkness"), and a diplomatic misstep at the Festival spirals into societal upheaval. It scratches the same itch as Okrand’s etiquette notes and idioms, but pushes it into mind-bending first contact.

Did you smile at the sly asides in Klingon for the Galactic Traveler — the warnings about ordering gagh in the wrong house or stumbling into a ritualized insult you didn’t mean to make? Adams turns that wry, faux-reference vibe up to eleven. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy greets you with snarky entries on towels and the Babel fish, flings Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect past Vogon poetry, and keeps footnotey wit flowing like a travel manual written by a stand-up comic. If you enjoyed KGT’s playful, practical tips for not getting your ridges knocked in, you’ll relish the Guide’s hilariously unhelpful advice for surviving the cosmos.

If Okrand’s careful breakdowns of Klingon idioms, toasts like "IwlIj jachjaj," and how military "clipped" speech shifts meaning made you feel like a savvy traveler, Foreigner will feel like the field mission. Linguist-diplomat Bren Cameron navigates the atevi’s honor-bound society, where concepts like man’chi (loyalty) and numerological taboos can turn dinner into a diplomatic incident. Watching Bren puzzle through pronouns, titles, and ritual forms has the same granular satisfaction as KGT’s sections on when not to say "nuqneH" — only now, the stakes are life, death, and interspecies peace.

If what hooked you in Klingon for the Galactic Traveler was the way etiquette, idiom, and ritual speech reveal an entire worldview, Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness offers that same anthropological richness. Envoy Genly Ai learns the Gethenians through concepts like shifgrethor (status and face) and customs around kemmer, and his fraught bond with Estraven culminates in that unforgettable crossing of the Gobrin Ice. As with KGT’s notes on how a simple phrase can carry layers of honor and intent, Le Guin shows how language and custom shape trust, politics, and identity.

If you enjoyed how Klingon for the Galactic Traveler masquerades as an in-universe handbook, complete with footnotes, sidebars, and scholarly asides, Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars turns that format into a narrative playground. Presented as interlocking encyclopedia entries from competing sources, it invites you to hop between cross-references and assemble a mythic history yourself. It’s the same delight of piecing culture from glossaries and annotations — like chasing KGT’s notes from curse words to opera to table etiquette — but transformed into a dreamlike, puzzle-box story.