Cultish (by Amanda Montell) is great. It also defines really well how Claude speaks currently---avant la lettre, of course. Language is a big part of the book: one example is how Scientologists can recognize each other in the wild from the language they have unknowingly adopted even for everyday conversations.
I’m native French speaker and do not understand what you mean with “avant la lettre”. That translates to “before the letter”, what do you mean?