Houman Barekat

A universal language will always be an unattainable dream

For centuries, idealists and crackpots tried to invent a global tongue, but even Esperanto never took off. Marina Yaguello explains why

‘Joyfully the hope caresses us, because the future goal becomes apparent, that the international language progresses, finding friends everywhere’. [Getty Images] 
issue 23 April 2022
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  • Imaginary Languages: Myths, Utopias, Fantasies,Illusions and Linguistic Fictions

    Marina Yaguello,translated by Eric Butler

    MIT, pp. 352, £25

The comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in his stage persona as the dim-witted interviewer Ali G, once asked Noam Chomsky if a person could simply invent a new language from scratch. The renowned linguist gave him short shrift: ‘You can do it if you like and nobody would pay the slightest attention to you because it would just be a waste of time.’

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