I’ve been thinking about a book I read earlier this year, In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and The Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language, by Arika Okrent. I thought it was a hoot! Even though some parts were impenetrable to anyone not 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 this: “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; especially when there are too many guests and none of them help.”
Okrent gets into the wildly varied reasons people invent a language and why natural languages are more flexible. She covers some languages in depth (like Star Trek’s Klingon, invented only for artistic fun). I loved the part about the U.S. Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation asking “semiotician” Thomas Sebeok in the 1980s how to post warnings that would last 10,000 years on waste-storage sites. Sebeok recommended posting signs in all known languages, plus pictures, icons, and all sorts of symbols, and having the keepers every 250 years rethink the warnings based on current messaging. He also recommended creating a spooky mythology around the site that would be passed on from “priest” to “priest” beyond the time they could be expected to know the reason for it. All they would know is the “curse.”
Too many great tidbits to describe here. I laughed all the way through.
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Asakiyume writes: Your mention of Thomas Sebeok’s foray into how to convey a warning about nuclear waste sites reminded me of this article, “This Place Is Not a Place of Honor,” by Alan Bellows, which includes interesting images designed to convey horror and stay-away-itiveness.
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