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Re: Conlang Books - Reviews & Recommendations

From:John Quijada <jq_ithkuil@...>
Date:Saturday, January 26, 2008, 3:49
Sai Emrys wrote:

>So: I'd like to see what you all think of the various conlang books >out there, and what's worth reading. > >Feel free to include books that are not *about* conlangs as such, but >have significantly affecting your conlanging (e.g. WF&DT above). And >feel free to include reviews of books that have already been >mentioned.
================================================== Leonard Talmy's 2-volume "Toward a Cognitive Semantics" as well as the several books by Gilles Fauconnier on Mental Spaces theory were invaluable to me in my conlanging efforts, as was the Lakoff book already mentioned. Also, the classic "Language, Thought & Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf" edited by John B. Carroll was a seminal inspiration for me in branching out beyond the scope of Indo-European in my linguistic worldview, as was Charles Fillmore's classic paper from 1968: "The Case for Case." At this point, I'll also put in a word for Sarah Higley's (i.e., Sally Caves') new book on Hildegard of Bingen's Lingua Ignota and its relationship to conlanging. I just finished reading it and it's a great, fun read, both illuminating and insightful. --John Quijada