In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent

This book was a pleasure to read; it was like having a friend describe an incredibly interesting PhD thesis over lunch. In this book, Okrent surveys five types of languages that have been intentionally invented by individuals or groups.

The first section covers several attempts at "philosophical language" starting in the 1600's, which sought to improve people's ability to communicate. Then she covers several attempts at a universal language, such as 1800's Esperanto. She goes on to discuss symbolic languages, including different countries' 'dialects' of sign language. The following section is on logical languages, concluding with a final section on, no kidding, Klingon.

What I most liked about this book was that it was not out to prove or claim anything important - it was a pleasant survey of the different attempts humans have made to invent language, and a cursory evaluation of their level of success. Okrent did a nice job of characterizing the language inventors, many of whom are quite...err...quirky to say the least. It is the rare humanitarian who has no selfish motives for inventing a language.

Okrent also drew a few light conclusions about why different types of languages because popular at certain times. For example, Esperanto and Modern Hebrew both emerged in the late 1800's amidst a socialist ethos and as a reaction to nationalism. I had never thought of it that way.

I also enjoyed Orkent's attempts to learn each of these languages. She makes several efforts to converse with practitioners of many of the languages, and her experiences are both funny and informative - without drawing any major conclusions, she demonstrates the difficulties in having a natural language brain process an invented language.