000			nam a22 4500
999			_c32213 _d32213
008			231024b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780262547154
082			_a499.99 _bYAG
100			_aYaguello, Marina
245			_aImaginary languages : myths, utopias, fantasies, illusions, and linguistic fictions
260			_bMIT Press, _c2022 _aCambridge :
300			_axxii, 325 p. ; _c20 cm
365			_b2050 _cINR _d01
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520			_aTrade 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. This book 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.
650			_aMore's Utopia
650			_aLanguage inventions
650			_aNikolai Marr
650			_aGlossolalia
942			_2ddc _cBK