I've just read a delightful book,
In the Land of Invented Languages, by Arika Okrent. I read it as research, but it turned out to be great fun; she's a linguist with a clear style and a wonderful sense of humor, and she studied Klingon, among other invented languages. I learned more about L.L. Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, and the burgeoning of universal languages in his time, and I learned how Hebrew, though not an invented language, took on some characteristics of one (new vocabulary, particular to its regions of use) as an ancient language resurrected 1000 years later!
I also learned that James Cooke Brown, the inventor of Loglan, a "logical language," lived in Gainesville, Florida, when I did, as a little girl, and was, evidently, a colleague of my father's at the University of Florida.
Brown also invented the game Careers, the antithesis of Monopoly, about finding happiness and a sense of satisfaction, not just money, in one's work. Who was it who recently told me about loving the game Careers? Who? Who?
Zamenhof was an eye doctor, and I am off to get an eye exam, making this a Random Coinciday in the blog. As well as a Slattern Day as, thus far, I am not cleaning my house.
3 comments:
No recollection of the Careers board game, but I often feel like one of those pegs driving the plastic cars in LIFE. I should drive my plastic car to the eye doctor soon so I can keep driving my car to the eye doctor (repeat as needed).
You make me laugh! I would have read more of the next book--The Fault in Our Stars--but my eyes were blurry all afternoon. Dilated!
That book sounds fascinating. I'm off to look it up!
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