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Re: THEORY: The search for the perfect language (was: RE: THEORY: French ...

From:Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 9, 1999, 5:37
Joe Mondello wrote:
> > In a message dated 6/8/99 9:04:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, > fflores@ARNET.COM.AR writes: > > << > Who has read it? I'd like to know -- I'm going to buy > it this week (so far). Is it technical, poetic, dense, > speculative, what? > >> > > I read it a long time ago, when i was on an Eco kick. Eco seemed fairly > neutral on the subject of Auxiliary languages, and the best and most > informative parts of the book are certainly on the oldest conlangs > (Hildegardis and Francis Bacon are in there, iirc).
Hildegard is regrettably not there. For a discussion of Hildegard in context with language invention, see Jeffrey Schnapp, _Exemplaria_, 1993, I believe. Hildegard, as Eco says on page 3, along with other mystical invented languages, cannot be a topic of his book, regretably. most of the information
> on modern conlangs will probably be familiar to anyone who has looked into > Esperanto, Volapu:k, Loglan/Lojban (are they in there? I dont remember.) etc. > Personally, I would reccomend that you get it at the library as opposed to > buying it, because I dont think from a Conlanging standpoint it is worth > owning.
Oh Joe... that depends on whether Pablo is into collecting books on language at all. Let him make that decision. It is a wonderful collection of arcane materials, and a history of some peculiar philosophies and inventions. You can get it in paperback, Pablo, so didn't listen to Joe. ;-) I paid nineteen dollars for it. A little expensive for a student, but as I said, if Pablo wants it... go for it. It's not a waste of money, and very informative. Sally