Re: Alan Libert: 'A Priori Artificial Languages' recommendable?
| From: | Doug Dee <amateurlinguist@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, March 25, 2004, 1:01 |
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In a message dated 3/24/2004 10:38:09 AM Eastern Standard Time,
theiling@ABSINT.COM writes:
>Does anyone know the following book? Is it recommendable?
>> LW 24: A Priori Artificial Languages
>>
I have the book, and I consider it worthwhile purchase. Some of the
languages covered I'd never even heard of elsewhere, so it's not easy to recommend
something else that would cover the same ground. .
It has some drawbacks:
1. It's very short (only 135 pp of actual text, excluding table of contents,
index etc.)
2. It's expensive for its size. (I bought it together with its twin, _Mixed
Artificial Languages_ and paid something over $100 for the pair, including
shipping.
3. Coverage is uneven since the author did not always have a good source for
information on a language
4. The author, apparently assuming that anyone interested in this topic must
be a Serious Scholar of Languages, does not bother to translate the numerous
quotations from sources in French, Spanish, and German. (E.g., the information
given on the writing system for the language Chane Abane in section 3.2
consists entirely of a 5-line quotation in French.)
Doug
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