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In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language

Arika Okrent

4.09 · Rating details · 2,453 ratings · 381 reviews

Just about everyone has heard of Esperanto, which was nothing less than one man's attempt to bring about world peace by means of linguistic solidarity. And every Star Trek fan knows about Klingon, which was nothing more than a television show's attempt to create a tough-sounding language befitting a warrior race with ridged foreheads. But few people have heard of Babm, Bli ...more

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Hardcover, 352 pages

Published May 19th 2009 by Spiegel & Grau

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Start your review of In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language

Dec 15, 2020 Petra-X Off having adventures rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020-100-reviews, getting-a-bit-personal-here, reviewed, misc-reference, 2020-read

It's a kind of grand, philosophical undertaking to invent a universal language. A generic language. And that's the problem not one of them has overcome. We learn languages from babyhood, everyone's mother tongue is easy to them. It expresses shared experiences, the way we do things, our culture that makes us different from everyone else.

The main reason all invented languages and almost all revived ones fail is that the acquistion of language comes naturally from the cradle and after that most o ...more

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Jan 22, 2021 K.J. Charles added it

Shelves: language

Absolutely terrific read on the history of invented languages, which is weirder, sadder, funnier and more heartwarming than you might think. Great stories here about some really, uh, unique people, as well as a lot of interesting stuff on the nature of language and our relationship to it. Well written, funny and extremely involving. I wolfed it down with great enjoyment and have a newfound and unexpected respect for people who speak Klingon (not to mention the guy who invented it, who is clearly ...more

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Jun 09, 2009 David rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2009, words-and-language

Initially this book was fairly amusing, but somewhere around the half-way mark its charms began to fade, and by the end it was just plain exhausting. This was certainly not the fault of the author, who was an engaged and enthusiastic tour guide throughout. But ultimately the cumulative craziness of the various language inventors takes its toll.

Okrent's tour of the "land of invented languages" covers a lot of ground, making five major stops, each of which considers a particular example in depth: ...more

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Jan 15, 2018 Wanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: linguistics-languages, read-in-2018, non-fiction, female-authors, university-library, word-nerdism

I think I would really enjoy sitting down for a cup of coffee and a discussion with this author! She is a linguist and linguistics is a favourite subject of mine. She knows a thing or two about the Library of Congress classification schedules too (or at least the P section of them, linguistics & languages), which appeals to my inner cataloguing nerd. Plus, she is just interested in words and their history and in the psychology of people who strive to build better languages.

I was absolutely gobsm I think I would really enjoy sitting down for a cup of coffee and a discussion with this author! She is a linguist and linguistics is a favourite subject of mine. She knows a thing or two about the Library of Congress classification schedules too (or at least the P section of them, linguistics & languages), which appeals to my inner cataloguing nerd. Plus, she is just interested in words and their history and in the psychology of people who strive to build better languages.

I was absolutely gobsmacked at how many artificial languages are lurking out there and how often that particular bee seems to get into someone’s bonnet! Mostly, the creators seems to be altruists—Esperanto was going to be the language that allowed us all to understand one another and prevent future wars. Many of these language developers were hoping to express “pure” concepts and keep prejudice and politics out of things. Unfortunately for them, language just doesn’t work that way! One of the best uses of language is politicking! Also unfortunate is the tendency of these men (and I think we can say that it’s mostly men who attempt this) to be unable to let go and let their languages run free, to change during regular use. Their rigid attempts to control the people using their languages seemed to negate any positive uses for their creations.

I was amused as the author’s type-A, gung-ho attempt to learn Klingon. If I had been at that particular conference, I would have been right at her side competing to my heart’s content! I loved that in her author note at the end of the volume, she listed both PhDs and her Klingon 1st level pin as her accomplishments.

What I found a bit freaky: I returned to work on Monday (having read the book on the weekend) and the very first volume that I picked up to catalogue was written in Esperanto! (I’ve been working on a big collection of materials by and about H.G. Wells and am busy with translations right now.) That little piece of synchronicity was amusing. ...more

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Nov 08, 2009 Emily rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2009

In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent is a book ostensibly about invented languages (like Esperanto) that is filled with love for the beauty and inventiveness of natural languages.

Okrent gives us the tour we'd expect of funny invented languages like Esperanto and Klingon (she even attends a Klingon convention). She has sport with many of the creations.

For the childish mind the temptations of Volapük are great. If you think the word pük is funny, then you will love how it figures in

For the childish mind the temptations of Volapük are great. If you think the word pük is funny, then you will love how it figures into all kind of other words related to the concept of language [like püked, "sentence"]. ... I can't help throwing in another example here. "To succeed"? Plöpön.

But the book is much smarter than this. It gives a history of invented languages in a historical context, showing how the form and function of the languages fit in with the scientific or linguistic fads of the time. In the 17th century, scholars were just discovering the power of mathematical notations to reveal concrete truths and permit international debate. Many became convinced that nonmathematical concepts could be expressed in similar ways, resulting in a language where every concept had to be looked up and its meaning made precise, through a table, and then all the concepts jammed together into an unreadable "sentence." The language failed, but the table gave us Roget's Thesaurus. In the late 19th century, scholars were mesmerized by the idea of Proto-Indo-European as an ancestor of most European languages and wanted to create easy-to-learn languages that drew on those commonalities--of which Esperanto was the most successful among hundreds of attempts. In the 1960s, some people wanted to have a human language with precision and unambiguity of computer languages, which led to Loglan.

As Okrent goes through these examples, she is really giving us a history of what people think their languages should be. The attempts at invented languages could be roughly said to progress from systems that are very unnatural (unspeakable assemblages of numbers or letters) to systems that seek to combine all of the inventor's favorite aspects of natural languages. For example, one language created by a feminist fantasy author includes words like "radiidin: non-holiday, a time allegedly a holiday but actually so much a burden because of work and preparations that it is a dreaded occasion" and requires a syntactic structure "indicating the speech act being performed (statement, question, command, request, promise, warning)." Both Klingon and Lobjan (a fork of Loglan) are essentially composed of elements from obscure natural languages that some linguistics nerds found interesting and wanted to play with.

This is simultaneously a quirky book about silly languages, a respectful book about language communities, and an informative book about linguistics--much more than I expected it to be. ...more

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Feb 21, 2017 ALLEN rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Whatever happened to Esperanto -- is it still ticking? And Volapük, does anyone still speak it? Here's the low-down on invented languages, starting with the mystical Seventeeth and enlightened Eighteen centuries, when serious attempts were made not only to name BUT TO ORDER every word out there in wholly new languages that would be not only rational but would unpack our (now we know) unpackable universe.

Then came the One Worlders: the rise of nationalism in the Nineteenth Century provoked a rea Whatever happened to Esperanto -- is it still ticking? And Volapük, does anyone still speak it? Here's the low-down on invented languages, starting with the mystical Seventeeth and enlightened Eighteen centuries, when serious attempts were made not only to name BUT TO ORDER every word out there in wholly new languages that would be not only rational but would unpack our (now we know) unpackable universe.

Then came the One Worlders: the rise of nationalism in the Nineteenth Century provoked a reaction in Esperanto, Ido, Volapük and other invented languages that were meant to cross national boundaries, be easy to learn, simplify grammar, and generally pull humankind together.

Those movements generally went into decline after the Second World War. However, don't accept the blithe assumptions that English has become the world's *lingua franca* and that's that. A lot more is going on and new invented languages are popping up all the time, though often, as with the "Blissymbol" system, they find uses other than pure communication. (Blessedly, author Akira Okrent knows just when to stop shy of entering the realm of computer languages, so if you're looking for a taste of Fortran, Cobal or Linux, go elsewhere.)

A recurring theme in this insightful work is that no perfect language can be obtained because by the time one can be compiled, the social uses of it change and prompt either schisms or evolutions in the invented language. **SPOILERS**: An example of breach is Loglan, whose adherents so strongly rebelled against its conservative founder that they came up with Lojban, originally meant to incorporate changes the master would not permit. (For the record, these are both difficult and complicated languages and would probably have any old-school Esperantist shaking his *kapo* (or her *kapa*) in dismay.)

Esperanto itself is an example of a created language refusing to remain static, as younger speakers casually drop the "n" accusative ending of nouns much as English-speakers commonly dismiss with terminal "g" from our words, and slang expressions and colorful idioms continue to bloom and grow.

You can probably see that I enjoyed Akira Okrent's book very much. If you like books about language, you probably will too. ...more

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Feb 19, 2011 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, languages

The author looks at the history of invention surrounding well, invented languages.

And if you like languages at all, then it's fascinating. Although I could have wished for a little better organization. The author seems to jump about in time here and there, which can be confusing. And there is some repetition of information, as if she forgot she already told us that.

Oddly, I was at least a third if not halfway through the book before I realized the author was a woman. It was an odd experience ha ...more

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Jan 08, 2020 Dani Dányi rated it it was amazing

Language nerds are my kind of people.
Arika Okrent too, and this is a really well-writ book, informative, contiguous with stuff familiar to me yet full of new stories and information. Shout-outs to kids' invented languages, to Tolkien's massive works, Esperantist congresses, computer code, Newspeak, among other things, made me feel semi-initiated in this weird and quite wonderful pseudo-culture of obscure, eccentric and often as not misguided concepts, notions, and of course whatever may or may n ...more

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Dec 20, 2010 Jimmy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: female, non-fiction, year-2000s

This book was the perfect balance of everything: humor, information, history, thought-provocation, etc. And the exact book I needed to get me out of the rut of non-reading I've been in the last 2 months.

It's a look into the amusing world of invented languages, ones invented by a single person as opposed to a language arising organically through a community of users who create it on the fly, evolving it to their needs. And there have not been a shortage of them: an estimated 900 in the last 900 y This book was the perfect balance of everything: humor, information, history, thought-provocation, etc. And the exact book I needed to get me out of the rut of non-reading I've been in the last 2 months.

It's a look into the amusing world of invented languages, ones invented by a single person as opposed to a language arising organically through a community of users who create it on the fly, evolving it to their needs. And there have not been a shortage of them: an estimated 900 in the last 900 years. Almost all of these are complete failures, if you define a failure of a language as one that isn't used by anyone. But what drives these people to create them in the first place, against all odds of mass adaption?

Well, first of all, it takes a hell of an eccentric to come up with a language and have the guns to stick with the laborious task of creating a full vocabulary, rules, syntax, etc. These folks are usually dreamers. They were unsatisfied with natural languages for various reasons: inconsistencies, illogicality, difficulty, imprecision, etc. so they set out to create a language of their own that would be free from these flaws.

This book follows five main invented languages as well as covering many other competing ones in lesser detail: Wilkin's Philosophical Language, Esperanto, Blissymbolics, Loglan, and Klingon. Each one had a different history, a different ideal that the inventor wanted to achieve, and a different outcome in terms of real world use.

But what makes this book head and shoulders above most other books that cover a fascinating subject is…

1.

Unlike some books written by a journalist who has dabbled in a weird subculture, Arika Okrent is herself a linguist that just happens to be a really good writer, and so she is more than equipped to bring out subtle insights (without getting too technical for the layman)... things like what made this language unique, and why did it succeed/fail? I particularly enjoyed the section on why the many flaws and imperfections in natural languages are actually necessary and/or good for certain things (usability for example). And she's more than just a distant academic voice, throughout the book she makes a good effort to learn each language that she talks about, and when available, immerses herself in the subculture of its speakers (Esperanto, Klingon). Even though she is an academic, there is no sober stuffiness here, her enthusiasm for her subject is evident on every page.

2.

The book is hilarious! I laughed through many parts of it, especially the part where she described going out to a restaurant with a bunch of Klingon speakers who have sworn to speak only Klingon that day, and how she died of shame as they started to order in their made-up language, pointing and grunting at the menu despite the poor waiter's confusion.

But the humor isn't a cheap one. It would be easy to just poke fun all day at this cast of characters (they definitely give her plenty of material). But because she relates to them (to a degree), she sees through to what drives them, what makes them devote so much time to such a futile enterprise. And so the humor is very good natured, very balanced and genuine, and in a way, it's as if she's having a good chuckle at herself at times.

3.

She doesn't just highlight these languages and the people behind them, providing factoids and interesting tidbits good for dinner-party conversations. No, at the beginning of each chapter she gives a timeline of the key events before and after. This allows you to see that these languages weren't invented in a vacuum, but that they represented a real continuity sprung from a certain context. These inventors were idealists, but idealists within their time, and so the languages they invented reflected these dreams: the need for an ultimate order to the world for example (Wilkins), or the need to circumvent the duplicity of words (Blissymbolics). She's somehow able to tell very human stories through the medium of linguistics. ...more

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May 14, 2016 AdiTurbo rated it it was amazing

Fantastic book! I have been in love with languages since childhood, and this book fed my obsession fully. It is amazingly well-researched and the writer is clearly knows more about languages than any person should, but the writing feels natural and not academic-dry, is full of humor and keeps you turning the pages to learn what other crazy stuff people have come up with, and what it can teach us about how language and the human mind work. One of the best non-fiction books I've read this year, an ...more

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Sep 29, 2020 Louise rated it really liked it

Shelves: language-studies

Despite the many obstacles, individuals and groups continue to be inspired to invent a language. Arika Okrent is a linguist who has studied these languages and tried to learn a few of them. She reports on them and brings to life their colorful developers. The result a handy guide to this unusual world.

The developers have had different goals and approaches. Some developers, such as John Wilkins in the 1660’s had the goal of making language more rational. To do this he created philosophical group Despite the many obstacles, individuals and groups continue to be inspired to invent a language. Arika Okrent is a linguist who has studied these languages and tried to learn a few of them. She reports on them and brings to life their colorful developers. The result a handy guide to this unusual world.

The developers have had different goals and approaches. Some developers, such as John Wilkins in the 1660’s had the goal of making language more rational. To do this he created philosophical groupings of vocabulary words. Other styles, such the one used by Cave Beck, tried numbering words that are grouped by type. Modern day Loglan and Lojban similarly try to be rational using grammar and to refine meaning (such as eliminating words with double meanings and adding ways to add clarity to action).

Once vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation systems are developed, the challenge becomes getting people to learn and use the new language.

Invented languages seem to attract speakers when they fill a need. A good example is American Sign Language. A little known language based on symbols (Blisssymbolic) is a success for helping a small number or severely disabled people communicate. Hebrew, like Latin waned in use to mostly serve academic and religious purposes, was revived to unite a new nation of immigrants.

Okrent brings to life other invented language attempts. Some have have been to blend regional languages into one or to facilitate world peace by communication in a language free of colonial connotations. One developer, noting the male bias in language, developed a new system with vocabulary to reflect a woman’s point of view. Some languages have roots in popular culture such and Klingon from StarTrek and languages in the Lord of the Rings books.

With Esperanto being the highest name recognition language of all but ASL, I was glad for Okrent’s discussion of it. She writes of its idealistic origins and how today speakers are spread around the world, welcoming each other to their homes. The annual convention sounds like a fun event. The speakers of Klingon have fun too at the Star Trek conventions. They can join in the cosplay, but have to pass a vocabulary test to be officially in the Klingon language group.

Appendix A is a chronological list of 500 languages which Okrent winnowed from a list of over 900 such languages. Throughout the book there are samples sentences with English translations; Appendix B has more good examples. The notes list sources, some academic and some general but the most interesting parts of the book are the interviews and the author’s personal experiences.

This is an engaging informative work. For the lay person it is a handy guide to languages with a light does of linguistics. For those language professionals it can provide a welcome break from academic papers. ...more

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Oct 13, 2010 Ian Tregillis rated it it was amazing

Delightful, fascinating, funny. This could have been written for me.

I read this over a year ago and can't stop recommending it to anybody who will listen to me. While writing up my thoughts on something else tonight, I realized that Okrent's book has become the gold standard for a particular strain of my non-fiction reading.

So I thought it only fair that I state in public that I loved this book, and wish it had been twice as long. Even longer. If I could, I would have this book's babies.

I'm not ...more

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Dec 01, 2016 Nicky rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

I’m not much of a linguist in the technical sense, though I do enjoy learning languages (and especially doing translation), so I wasn’t sure if reading a book about invented languages might be too technical. Luckily, it isn’t: In the Land of Invented Languages is actually a really easy read, with a more personal than professional analysis of the languages discussed — although it does go into some details about how each one works, why it’s effective or not, how much it’s used, etc.

Better, Okrent ...more

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Jul 31, 2010 Erik rated it liked it

You’ve heard of Esperanto and Klingon, but did you know that there have been over five hundred invented languages that have seen some sort of publication or scholarly effort in the past several hundred years? I, too, thought that an astonishingly high number.

Okrent’s narrative takes us from the playful invented languages (like Klingon, which have no “real use” according to hard-core Esperantists), to the pictoral/symbolic used to assist young children with language production disorders, to the You’ve heard of Esperanto and Klingon, but did you know that there have been over five hundred invented languages that have seen some sort of publication or scholarly effort in the past several hundred years? I, too, thought that an astonishingly high number.

Okrent’s narrative takes us from the playful invented languages (like Klingon, which have no “real use” according to hard-core Esperantists), to the pictoral/symbolic used to assist young children with language production disorders, to the universal philosophical ones (like John Wilkins’ efforts), to the highly logical ones (like Loglan and its offspring) that their creators hope will cure all social ills and create everlasting peace on Earth. (Esperantists also hope for that last bit, too.)

One delight was learning that Roget’s Theasaurus – which I discovered when I was the ripe age of twelve, and which I devoured throughout my teenage years (it came in mighty handy whenever I was writing my own comic book stories, or for those tough high school writing assignments) – was directly inspired by the universal philosophical language efforts of Wilkins. Sure, his language is undoubtedly cumbersome. But its schematic organization had a direct influence on Roget’s work, as well as the classification systems used in many of the sciences (particularly biology).

Of course, the claim that a pure logical, universal language can “bring about peace, dissolve selfishness, and align the conscious and subconscious mind” (Weilgart) is an illusion, the efforts of the die-hard linguists is nothing short of admirable. In fact, one could argue that these efforts – although they often ended up fruitless as actual spoken languages – have had a major influence on modern logic, law, and mathematics – if not the computer sciences.

For a delightfully wondrous and equally bizarre journey into the extreme fringe of the field of linguistics, Okrent’s book can’t be beat. And if that isn’t recommendation enough, consider that she learnt Klingon and passed a proficiency exam at an annual Klingon qep’a’ when writing her book. You can’t slight someone who practices what they preach.
...more

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Feb 01, 2011 CarolineFromConcord rated it really liked it

This was a hoot! Even though some parts were penetrable only by a linguist like the author, I really enjoyed it. Okrent is a very good writer and knows how to choose and lead up to the funniest aspect of a constructed language -- or of the inventor. I learned a ton of random facts, and I thought I knew it all, having a decent knowledge of Esperanto. Turns out, there are more than 900 known invented languages. One that was invented to express a woman's perspective is Laadan and has words like thi ...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Jenn Golden rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, language

In the Land of Invented Languages was an impulse purchase that came about while I was browsing the heavily discounted “Philosophy and Linguistics” section at the Borders where I’ve worked for six years. I’ve never come across a more readable book written by a linguist in all my time earning an undergraduate and master’s degree in the subject.

And where was this book when I was working on my undergraduate thesis paper on Tolkien’s invented language and the difference between truly natural languag ...more

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Jan 25, 2011 TBML rated it it was amazing

This book is a joy. Okrent offers 26 chapters of insights into some of the world's hundreds of invented languages. She is selective, of course, and organizes the material around a few key themes about language that resonate with any reader: transparency, perspective, accuracy, and invention. And Okrent has a feel not just for the languages but also for the people behind them. She peppers this subject with some of the heroes and villains behind invented languages; enter John Wilkins (who construc ...more

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Jan 30, 2018 Anne rated it really liked it

3.5 stars

Go ahead and consider my mind blown. I had no idea that that many people (going back to the 1600s in Europe!) have taken that much time and energy to create new languages for such a plethora of idealistic, silly, and/or creative reasons. I laugh that so many seem(ed) to think that their precious baby language was going to be The One. The One that solved all our problems, that united all of humanity. LOL. Fail.

The two types of invented languages that caused my head to throb in agony were ...more

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May 26, 2009 Vanessa rated it really liked it

Shelves: language, npr

If you've listened to any stories about conlangs (or "constructed languages") on NPR over the past few years, you've almost definitely heard the author, Arika Okrent (her first name is pronounced like "Erica.")

In this fun read, Okrent charts the colorful history of invented languages--from Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century up through Mark Okrand's invention of a full Klingon lexicon for the Star Trek films and TNG. Until several decades into the 20th century, language inventors were Utopi If you've listened to any stories about conlangs (or "constructed languages") on NPR over the past few years, you've almost definitely heard the author, Arika Okrent (her first name is pronounced like "Erica.")

In this fun read, Okrent charts the colorful history of invented languages--from Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century up through Mark Okrand's invention of a full Klingon lexicon for the Star Trek films and TNG. Until several decades into the 20th century, language inventors were Utopians who dreamed of fixing the flaws of natural languages and/or bringing about world peace. Alas, many of them were also cranks who were legendarily difficult to get along with, their death grip on their inventions and general litigiousness dooming their projects virtually out of the gate--see the chapters on the inventors of Blissymbolics and Loglan.

With Tolkien, a new type of conlanger came about: creators of fiction who developed languages to enrich and deepen their world-building (see any number of Middle Earth languages, Klingon, Dothraki, or Láadan, for example.) My favorite of all of these now is Láadan, a language created by feminist scifi writer Suzette Haden Elgin. If you want a language that distinguishes ways to menstruate (for the first time, late, “joyfully”), here is your solution.

(“I menstruated with great joy and felicity,” said no woman ever.)

Okrent also takes a brief detour into the resurrection of Hebrew from a strictly liturgical language into a daily form of communication after an almost 2000 year hiatus (I could have read a lot more about Hebrew than the few pages here. That story is fascinating.)

One of the first things you learn in linguistics is that living languages change, so any language that is used-really used-is inevitably going to evolve in meaning, in grammatical standards, in spelling. So any "perfect" language is destined to deviate from perfection as soon as it becomes a spoken thing. This is virtually a moot point though as the most arguably successful conlangs, Esperanto and Klingon, are still relegated to a small community of speakers globally.

The chapters on Klingon were the most entertaining (tugh qoH nachDaj je chevlu'ta', am I right?), but the whole book is worthwhile. Being a language nerd helps, but I think any non-fiction reader or even a scifi/fantasy fan would enjoy this. ...more

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Jun 14, 2010 Res rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

Nonfiction: A brief and breezy overview of the history of artificial languages.

I enjoyed this; it's very much like a series of magazine articles in the sort of magazine that only exists in my dreams. It was full of those interesting tidbits that make you annoy the people in the room by interrupting them to say, "Wow, did you know that ..." (the table-form thesaurus seems to have been accidentally created by people who were trying to make a language? As native speakers use Esperanto, it's changin ...more

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Dec 04, 2015 Bandit rated it it was amazing

I really enjoyed this book. After reading it, almost wish I was able to express my admiration and appreciation in an invented language. Well, I suppose technically I can. I just need to invent one. Apparently it's been done for centuries to varied (albeit mostly low, very low) degrees of success and recognition. I'm not a linguist per se, just someone who holds language structures and words in general in high esteem, fan of crosswords, polysyllabics, word games, etc. If you're like me, if you th ...more

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Jul 09, 2010 John rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: language

This book is a gem for linguists - it is a fun, breezy account of invented languages and their place in linguistics. The writer clearly knows her stuff and talks as a linguist to other linguists, discussing how these languages have developed following the patterns of other, existing languages (though I will note that from this standpoint she could have left the lengthy explanation of Whorf out). Her account is humorous and detailed, with the introduction of her own opinions about the subject a w ...more

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Sep 16, 2014 Joshua Buhs rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, reference

Fun.

Arika Okrent is intrigued by languages that have been created whole-cloth--like Esperanto or Klingon or the elvish tongues of Tolkien. Ultimately, it is, as she says, a story of failure--depending upon your definition, either very few or no invented languages have really succeeded. And most are forgotten. But it is still worthwhile to explore the various impulses that lead to these attempts, and contemplate the reasons for their failure.

After a couple of introductory chapters, Okrent divides Fun.

Arika Okrent is intrigued by languages that have been created whole-cloth--like Esperanto or Klingon or the elvish tongues of Tolkien. Ultimately, it is, as she says, a story of failure--depending upon your definition, either very few or no invented languages have really succeeded. And most are forgotten. But it is still worthwhile to explore the various impulses that lead to these attempts, and contemplate the reasons for their failure.

After a couple of introductory chapters, Okrent divides the story into five, based on both chronological and thematic considerations. The first section looks at Enlightenment attempts to create perfect languages. It was during the Enlightenment that mathematical symbols--+ - x, etc.--were first introduced, and this helped give shape to how a perfect language could be imagined: like a mathematical formula, or a calculus of thought. All of which relied on another Enlightenment fascination: cataloguing the entire known universe. In order to have a perfect language, one needed to know all the possible words, and so language inventors spent most of their time classifying every possible thought, every possible nuance.

No one should be surprised that this project was doomed to failure.

Okrent is a game investigator, though, with a facility for languages, and so she tries out these invented tongues and, as most would, does so by considering swear words. Her struggles illuminate exactly why natural languages are superior, and why invented languages are so often ridiculed. For all that natural languages are riddled with inelegance, they can be used and improved from within. The investment of learning an entirely knew--and ugly--language to fix communication seems too high.

The second section focuses on Esperanto and its various competitors and successors. Arguably Esperanto is the most successful of the invented languages, created by a Pole--it is amazing how much of the story of invented languages is driven by Poles and Russians--Esperanto focused on a different way of creating a universal language. Rather than trying to classify every possible thought, Esperantists borrowed from a variety of languages to create a lingua franca, obviating the need for translations. It came at a time when French was losing status as _the_ language of diplomacy and Germany was losing its place as _the_ language of science. Unfortunately, it was undone by the very political forces it was trying to combat: Esperantists were one-worlders, but the one world was being riven by deep nationalist divides and pride in language. Indeed, nationalism and ethnic pride led to the (re-)creation of Hebrew, which had been a dead tongue of scholars and became a living language, somewhere on the continuum between natural tongue and artificial language. Esperanto found its adherents, and has even been passed down through the generations among families, but remains very circumscribed.

In the third section, Okrent turns to symbolic languages, invented mostly in the 20th century, and based on a simplistic understanding of Chinese graphology. This part of the story touches on attempts to simplify spellings. But mostly it's a throwback to 17th century attempts to discover the basic elements of thoughts, and turn these into symbols, which could be combined. But of course, one's ideas of basic concepts are another's of complicated thought, and so the various systems mostly failed. One, invented by an Australian named Charles Bliss, did have a bit of success, Okrent found with some deft reporting, in a Canadian school for disabled children--but only as a bridge to learning English.

A fourth attempt at inventing languages also comes from the twentieth century, this one trying to make languages adhere more closely to formal logic. There was some of this impulse in Korzybski's General Semantics, which sought to expose and eradicate hidden assumptions. But there were other, more complete revolutions; attempts to give (literal) voice to formal logic. Okrent roots these attempts in the Whorf hypothesis that different languages make different parts of reality available to be noticed. If a language was fully logical, advocates thought, then all the relationships could be seen. But of course, Okrent points out, one of the reasons that natural languages flourish is that the speaker need not consider every logical implication of what they say! That's a good thing. Okrent spent time trying to learn one of these languages--Lojban--and emerged feeling that "everything I heard seemed to be filtered through the sensibility of a bratty, literal-minded eight-year-old."

The final section focuses mostly on Klingon--which is the language she first mentioned in the introduction--but touches on other languages invented by science fiction and fantasy aficionados. These are associated with less grandiose plans--not finding a universal language, not bringing about world peace--but mostly for fun. This marks them as strange--as does, say, their tendency to dress as Klingons--but it is a harmless, nerdy kind of fun. And a kind of fun not likely to change the world. ...more

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Oct 08, 2020 Austin rated it really liked it

Shelves: gift-from-kevin

Very fun read if you're interested in linguistics and/or invented languages. The author has a great sense of humor, and capably gives an overview of the ~400 years of consistent attempts at "conlangs" (constructed languages)—which at the beginning she notes is mostly "a history of failure." I appreciated the specific examples from so many languages, and why they all (basically) failed. It's a big task, though, so it can sometimes feel a bit repetitive when yet another language inventor comes up ...more

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Nov 10, 2008 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: esperanto

This book is excellent! If you're not familiar with the history of invented languages, this an excellent one-stop introduction. But even if you are (like me), you will still enjoy this book. The writing is excellent and engrossing -- I'm a slow reader and I can't stand to read for long periods, but I devoured this book in just two sittings. The material is covered with enough depth and facts to satisfy language nerds, while also being presented with a very personal -- and personable -- style tha This book is excellent! If you're not familiar with the history of invented languages, this an excellent one-stop introduction. But even if you are (like me), you will still enjoy this book. The writing is excellent and engrossing -- I'm a slow reader and I can't stand to read for long periods, but I devoured this book in just two sittings. The material is covered with enough depth and facts to satisfy language nerds, while also being presented with a very personal -- and personable -- style that makes the book approachable, and perhaps a bit philosophical. (And fun!)

Even when the material was familiar to me -- like the early history of invented languages, which is similarly covered in Pierre Janton's book Esperanto Language, Literature, and Community -- Okrent manages to find new material that hasn't been presented elsewhere or she is able to present a new viewpoint on the material. In fact, I would say that a theme of this book, which sets it apart from other books on invented languages, is that the author tries to experience the languages and communities herself and is reporting to us on those experiences. For example, she presents Wilkins' Philosophical Language by trying to do a translation into the language -- an experience which was surprisingly revealing! Had no one thought of doing anything like this before?! That personal exploration of the subject obviously develops further as the author gets into languages like Klingon and Esperanto, where she can go as far as taking a proficiency test and attending conventions. But it's also the personal experience of talking with the family and friends (or ex-friends) of people like Bliss and Brown. It definitely differentiates the book from previous works, and it's definitely a positive thing.

In my reading about invented languages, I'd also never seen mentions of pictorial languages, so it was very cool to see that included. The stories of the inventors of those pictorial languages also fits very well into the theme of "mad dreamers", which is the more explicit thread throughout this book: The story of Charles Bliss is an excellent example of the engrossing nature of this book. The first chapter on him sets up a very nice story about a sweet old man and the children he helped, and yet there are suggestions of dysfunction hiding just around the corner, and I could barely contain the anticipation of finding out what was going to go wrong. Would you believe that that's where I had to put down the book between sittings? What a cliff-hanger!!

As a collector of old books on invented languages (we're talking 1880s), I found myself becoming very jealous at the books that Okrent stumbles upon in her research. I am sure that there must be so much more (in the way of facts about invented languages) that she didn't put in the book -- I wish I could have been able to experience going to all of those libraries! :) (The author informs me, though, that many of the books are now browsable online through Google Books.)

As I said, I highly recommend this book both to language (and invented language) geeks and to the casual reader who is looking for some intellectual enlightenment while also a fun read. Also check out the many reviews and interviews with Arika:

NPR's "On Point": http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/06/i...
NPR's "Studio 360": http://www.studio360.org/episodes/200...
TIME: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article...

...more

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Aug 16, 2010 André rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to André by: Carolin Weemeyer, Robert Weemeyer

Shelves: linguistics

Finally a contemporary book about constructed languages! Not only was it interesting to learn about projects other than Esperanto and Klingon (about which I've heard and read so much already), but it offered also new insights into the field in general. Okrent (is it a coincidence that her name resembles that of Marc Okrand so much?) manages to write in a nice mixture of scientific, personal and trivial facts and explanations. Of course this book is not meant as a linguistic dissertation and of c ...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Stephen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2012

I truly love a journalistic, popular science-y kind of work, and I've read some great ones. This book ranks up there with the very best, like works by Jared Diamond, Michael Pollan or Mary Roach.

Okrent is a wonderful writer. She has compiled her (very thorough!) research here with an impressively fluid organization such that one concept flows seamlessly into the next.

Her writing has just the right balance of authority and humor. She writes like your smartest, funniest friend explaining somethin ...more

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Jan 04, 2016 Bastian Greshake Tzovaras rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction

The title of the book pretty much says it all. A great and fun journey into the world of invented languages. Recommended for everyone who's able to speak/read 2+ languages (or want to be able to!). ;) ...more

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Aug 07, 2013 Simon rated it really liked it

Shelves: language, philosophy-read

A very interesting and entertaining book, as much about the people who invent languages as the languages they invent.

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Aug 18, 2019 Ensiform rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, language

[Random Read. 18, Language.]

The author, a linguist, delves into the history of invented languages, from Lingua Ignota, created by a nun in the 12th century for reasons unknown, and Balaibalan, "an Arabic-Persian-Turkish mix" created sometimes in the Middle Ages possibly for religious purposes; to Francis Lodwick's and George Dalgarno's systems which used picture radicals that fit together like Legos to make words; to modern attempts that had the ambition to promote world peace, such as Esperanto [Random Read. 18, Language.]

The author, a linguist, delves into the history of invented languages, from Lingua Ignota, created by a nun in the 12th century for reasons unknown, and Balaibalan, "an Arabic-Persian-Turkish mix" created sometimes in the Middle Ages possibly for religious purposes; to Francis Lodwick's and George Dalgarno's systems which used picture radicals that fit together like Legos to make words; to modern attempts that had the ambition to promote world peace, such as Esperanto, Volapük, and Loglan; and down to modern conlangers with their Quenya and Klingon and so forth. Okrent studies the texts and shows how each language might have worked (or not worked), sketches biographies of these visionaries and cranks who so often railed against their unjust obscurity, and crams for the Klingon proficiency test like it was a career-defining moment ("I wanted one of those pins").

This book is terrifically informative, engaging, witty, and wise. Okrent translates a passage into a 17th century "Philosophical Language," the effort of which exhausts her — it's nigh impossible, and not at all human, to speak completely and utterly accurately so as to never have any misunderstanding, it turns out. There are a few successes in the story of invented languages, Klingon being one. However, most successes in this field come with a qualifier or two. Esperanto is still regarded as an amusing hobby at best, while Blissymbolics (itself based on the totally wrong idea that Mandarin characters represent a universally readable language) was actually used, but to communicate with aphonic children, which made its eccentric creator testy, ask for money, and send furious letters that threatened both lawsuits and marriage. Okrent clearly has a soft spot for the oddballs who continue to make languages (sometimes multiple languages) in the face of near-universal indifference. She speaks fondly of a man at a conlang conference who talks about his invention, based on his love of the Iroquoian language Mohawk. That's nice, but — call me a curmudgeon, nolo contendere — I can't help but wonder why he didn't just study Mohawk and other Native American languages, obscure and dying languages that deserve to be brought to light. A few minutes perusing the reddit page on conlangs gives you the same sense that while these creators are eager, intelligent people who work on their creations out of love not money, they're all just preaching to empty air. The "flaws" of organic language that these oddballs are trying to fix are, of course, features, not flaws, which is why these invented languages remain in the dustbin of history. We as humans are irrational and use ambiguity as a tool; our language reflects that. No amount of computer-style logic-language can change that. When languages are invented for fun, like Klingon, they might succeed. But as a universal tonic it won't happen. Okrent makes the futile effort fascinating, however. Maybe someday she'll write a sequel in which she learns Valyrian. ...more

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About Arika Okrent

Arika Okrent

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Arika Okrent is an American linguist, known particularly for her 2009 book In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language, a result of her five years of research into the topic of constructed languages.
Arika Okrent was born in Chicago and became fascinated with languages at an early age. She flitted ...more

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“The job of the linguist, like that of the biologist or the botanist, is not to tell us how nature should behave, or what its creations should look like, but to describe those creations in all their messy glory and try to figure out what they can teach us about life, the world, and, especially in the case of linguistics, the workings of the human mind.” — 29 likes

“Before you judge me as some kind of 'anything goes' language heathen, let me just say that I'm not against usage standards. I don't violate them when I want to sound like an educated person, for the same reason I don't wear a bikini to a funeral when I want to look like a respectful person. There are social conventions for the way we do lots of things, and it is to everyone's benefit to be familiar with them. But logic ain't got nothin' to do with it.” — 18 likes

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