Lunatic Lovers of Language

Lunatic Lovers of Language

Author: Marina Yaguello

Publisher:

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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Examines the creation of imaginary languages in history and fiction as an expression of the search for an original and primitive or universal language. The author's other works include "Les Mots et les Femmes" (1978) and "Alice au pays du Language" (1981).


Imaginary Languages

Imaginary Languages

Author: Marina Yaguello

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2023-09-19

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0262547155

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An exploration of the practice of inventing languages, from speaking in tongues to utopian schemes of universality to the discoveries of modern linguistics. In Imaginary Languages, Marina Yaguello explores the history and practice of inventing languages, from religious speaking in tongues to politically utopian schemes of universality to the discoveries of modern linguistics. She looks for imagined languages that are autonomous systems, complete unto themselves and meant for communal use; imaginary, and therefore unlike both natural languages and historically attested languages; and products of an individual effort to lay hold of language. Inventors of languages, Yaguello writes, are madly in love: they love an object that belongs to them only to the extent that they also share it with a community. Yaguello investigates the sources of imaginary languages, in myths, dreams, and utopias. She takes readers on a tour of languages invented in literature from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, including that in More’s Utopia, Leibniz’s “algebra of thought,” and Bulwer-Lytton’s linguistic fiction. She examines the linguistic fantasies (or madness) of Georgian linguist Nikolai Marr and Swiss medium Hélène Smith; and considers the quest for the true philosophical language. Yaguello finds two abiding (and somewhat contradictory) forces: the diversity of linguistic experience, which stands opposed to unifying endeavors, and, on the other hand, features shared by all languages (natural or not) and their users, which justifies the universalist hypothesis. Recent years have seen something of a boom in invented languages, whether artificial languages meant to facilitate international communication or imagined languages constructed as part of science fiction worlds. In Imaginary Languages (an updated and expanded version of the earlier Les Fous du langage, published in English as Lunatic Lovers of Language), Yaguello shows that the invention of language is above all a passionate, dizzying labor of love.


Lunatics, Lovers & Poets

Lunatics, Lovers & Poets

Author: Daniel Hahn

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13:

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Twelve contemporary stories inspired by Shakespeare and Cervantes, to mark the 400th anniversaries of their deaths. Introduced by Salman Rushdie.


Language Through the Looking Glass

Language Through the Looking Glass

Author: Marina Yaguello

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 9780198700050

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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.


In the Land of Invented Languages

In the Land of Invented Languages

Author: Arika Okrent

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2009-05-19

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0385529716

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Here is the captivating story of humankind’s enduring quest to build a better language—and overcome the curse of Babel. 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. But few people have heard of Babm, Blissymbolics, Loglan (not to be confused with Lojban), and the nearly nine hundred other invented languages that represent the hard work, high hopes, and full-blown delusions of so many misguided souls over the centuries. With intelligence and humor, Arika Okrent has written a truly original and enlightening book for all word freaks, grammar geeks, and plain old language lovers.


A Lover's Discourse

A Lover's Discourse

Author: Roland Barthes

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0809066890

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"Barthes's most popular and unusual performance as a writer is "A Lover's Discourse," a writing out of the discourse of love. This language primarily the complaints and reflections of the lover when alone, not exchanges of a lover with his or her partner is unfashionable. Thought it is spoken by millions of people, diffused in our popular romances and television programs as well as in serious literature, there is no institution that explores, maintains, modifies, judges, repeats, and otherwise assumes responsibility for this discourse . . . Writing out the figures of a neglected discourse, Barthes surprises us in "A Lover's Discourse" by making love, in its most absurd and sentimental forms, an object of interest." Jonathan Culler


Imagining Language

Imagining Language

Author: Jed Rasula

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 9780262681315

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When works such as Joyce's Finnegans Wake and Stein's Tender Buttons were first introduced, they went so far beyond prevailing linguistic standards that they were widely considered "unreadable," if not scandalous. Jed Rasula and Steve McCaffery take these and other examples of twentieth-century avant-garde writing as the starting point for a collection of writings that demonstrates a continuum of creative conjecture on language from antiquity to the present. The anthology, which spans three millennia, generally bypasses chronology in order to illuminate unexpected congruities between seemingly discordant materials. Together, the writings celebrate the scope and prodigality of linguistic speculation in the West going back to the pre-Socratics.


Stalin on Linguistics and Other Essays

Stalin on Linguistics and Other Essays

Author: P. Gray

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2002-05-21

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1403919232

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Piers Gray was one of the most brilliant literary writers of his generation. These essays ranging from Oscar Wilde to Levin, from Shakespeare to pulp fiction, use the full resources of literary and linguistic analysis to produce a reading of European culture and society in the twentieth century. In his final posthumous essay On Linearity , Gray summons all his reading and knowledge to deliver his final judgement on life and death.


A Graveyard for Lunatics

A Graveyard for Lunatics

Author: Ray Bradbury

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2013-04-16

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 006224213X

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Halloween Night, 1954. A young, film-obsessed scriptwriter has just been hired at one of the great studios. An anonymous investigation leads from the giant Maximus Films backlot to an eerie graveyard separated from the studio by a single wall. There he makes a terrifying discovery that thrusts him into a maelstrom of intrigue and mystery—and into the dizzy exhilaration of the movie industry at the height of its glittering power.


Verbal Hygiene

Verbal Hygiene

Author: Deborah Cameron

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-03-15

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1136342079

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In Verbal Hygiene, Deborah Cameron takes a serious look at popular attitudes towards language and examines the practices by which people attempt to regulate its use. Instead of dismissing the practice of ‘verbal hygiene’, as a misguided and pernicious exercise, she argues that popular discourse about language values – good and bad, right and wrong – serves an important function for those engaged in it. A series of case studies deal with specific examples of verbal hygiene: the regulation of ‘style’ by editors, the teaching of English grammar in schools, the movements for and against so-called ‘politically correct’ language and the advice given to women on how they can speak more effectively. This Routledge Linguistics Classic includes a new foreword which looks at how the issues covered in the case studies have developed over time and a new afterword which discusses new concerns which have emerged in the last 15 years, from the regimentation of language in the workplace to panics about immigration and terrorism, which are expressed in linguistic terms. Addressed to linguists, to professional language-users of all kinds, and to anyone interested in language and culture, Verbal Hygiene calls for legitimate concerns about language and value to be discussed, by experts and lay-speakers alike, in a rational and critical spirit.