β Scribed by Okrent, Arika
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Starred Review. Efforts to make language simpler, clearer, less divisive and more truthful have backfired spectacularly, to judge by this delightful tour of linguistic hubris. Linguist Okrent explores some of the themes and shortcomings of 900 years worth of artificial languages. She surveys philosophical languages that order all knowledge into self-evident systems that turn out to be bizarrely idiosyncratic; symbol languages of supposedly crystalline pictographs that are actually bafflingly opaque; basic languages that throw out all the fancy words and complicated idioms; rigorously logical languages so rule-bound that it's impossible to utter a correct sentence; international languages, like Esperanto, that unite different cultures into a single idealistic counterculture; and whimsical constructed languages that assert the unique culture and worldview of women, Klingons or chipmunks. Okrent gamely translates to and from these languages, with unspeakably hilarious results, and riffs on the colorful eccentricities of their megalomaniacal creators. Fortunately, her own prose is a model of clarity and grace; through it, she conveys fascinating insights into why natural language, with its corruptions, ambiguities and arbitrary conventions, trips so fluently off our tongues.(May 19)
Copyright Β© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
βHats off to Okrent, who expertly exposes the history, culture, and preoccupations of this insular tribe who live among us. She rescues language inventors, or conlangers, from the oddball binβutopianists all, they're the first biotechnologists, trying to leapfrog evolution and improve human life. They'll thank her but everyone else will, too, for finally making sense of the conlangers' discontents.β βMichael Erard, author of Umβ¦: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean
βA lively, informative, insightful examination of artificial languagesβwho invents them, why, and why most of them fail. I loved this book.ββWill Shortz, Crossword Editor,New York Times
βLinguist Okrent explores some of the themes and shortcomings of 900 years worth of artificial languages. β¦Okrent gamely translates these languages with unspeakably hilarious results, and riffs on the colorful eccentricities of their megalomaniacal creators. Fortunately, her own prose is a model of clarity and grace; through it, she conveys fascinating insights into why natural language, with its corruptions, ambiguities and arbitrary conventions, trips so fluently off our tongues.β β Publishers Weekly , starred review
"Arika Okrent is a linguist whose fascination with the "faded plastic flowers" in the "lush orchid garden of languages" is recounted to delightful, often comic effect in "In the Land of Invented Languages."...Okrent's style is eminently suited to her approach, which is at once serious and playful, exemplified by her marvelous, snappy opening sentence: "Klingon speakers ... inhabit the lowest possible rung on the geek ladder."β _Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
_
"The author...examines a variety of would-be languages and related philosophical tenets (there are no pure ideas, all signs depend on conventions) in a rigorously linguistical way. And yet her book is a pleasure to read. It shows how language systems connect, or donβt connect, with people."β New York Times
"Anyone who has felt the lure of words, odd grammatical systems or the potential connections between human thought and speech, is likely to enjoy this book just as much as I did."β Locus
"'In the Land of Invented Languages is a delight to read. It's humorous, intelligent, entertaining and highly informative. And it's a great source of knowledge about human languages and why they exasperate some people - because they are not perfect. But neither are we."β San Francisco Chronicle
"Okrent is a professional linguist and relates the place of these artificial languages in the confusion of human languages. She is also a great storyteller, and eccentric characters and dashed dreams are the stuff of this delightful book. "β _Denver Post
_
From the Hardcover edition.
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
### From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Efforts to make language simpler, clearer, less divisive and more truthful have backfired spectacularly, to judge by this delightful tour of linguistic hubris. Linguist Okrent explores some of the themes and shortcomings of 900 years worth of artificial la
El Martin has worked hard for a job in IT, but his slang-ridden speech could crush his dreams. Linguistics researcher Henry Fairhaven can help... and get the evidence he needs to publish. When their dreams collide, they must choose between their careers and a future together.
Over the course of his career, author Percy F. Westerman penned dozens of action-adventure tales, many of which were set during World War I. However, the book that launched his literary career, _A Lad of Grit_ , is set in the mid-seventeenth century. Readers of all ages will enjoy this tale of an in
"[A] sensitive, finely wrought debut ... sharply observant of immigrants' intricate relationships to their adopted homelands, this exciting novel announces the arrival of a psychologically and socially astute new writer." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A mesmerizing debut novel of an Egyptian Amer