Marina Yaguello, a distinguished linguist and professor, explores language with a passion and curiosity that extends beyond academic circles. Her work delves into the intricacies of French, English, and Wolof, emphasizing that an understanding of language is accessible to all. Through her innovative scholarship and her pursuits as a collector and creator of jewelry, she brings a unique perspective to the form and function of language.
"Trade book on the history of imaginary languages by a French linguist who was one of the first to write on the topic and to popularize linguistics for a general and literary audience"-- Provided by publisher
What can wordplay--as understood in the broadest sense--teach us about language, its functions, characteristics, structure, and workings? Using Lewis Carroll's Alice as a starting point, Yanguello takes the reader on a vivid and unconventional voyage into the world(s) of language, charting the major themes of linguistics along the way. This is an entertaining and original introduction to the nature of language that will appeal to students and teachers alike.
This book examines the creation of imaginary languages in history and fiction as an expression of the search for an original, primitive or universal language. Its subjects include the philosophers Descartes and Leibnitz, inventing universal, philosophical languages for the promotion of truth and knowledge; novelists from Cyrano de Bergerac to George Orwell, whose fictions include the languages of inhabitants of imaginary worlds; the spiritualist Swedenberg, claiming to speak with tongues; the Soviet linguist Nicholas Marr, whose attempts to reconstruct the origin of language were adopted as official Marxist science; and other 20th century linguists such as Chomsky, who have returned full circle to the pursuit of linguistic universals initiated by the French grammarians in the 17th century.