Hello, friends! I have returned from my week-long vacation to go camping in the interesting state of Oregon, and despite getting food poisoning and being very sick for the drive home I am alive and (mostly) well today. I can’t stand the state of Oregon itself (lunatic prices, among other things)—but I met very many individual Oregonians who are very nice people, and the coast is beautiful and has a pleasant climate.

One of my biggest highlights of the trip was having my baby see the ocean and play on a beach for the first time. As is to be expected for a 1-year-old, I think the majesty of the moment was entirely lost on her, but the joy of rubbing sand in her hair and throwing it at everyone that approached was not. Nor did she fail to capitalize on doing the same with the dirt and pine needles at our campsite. What a rascal.

While I knew that Oregon didn’t allow you to take care of your gas yourself at the gas pumps, how annoying that limitation is doesn’t really sink in until you experience it yourself. There’s a significantly faster and more efficient way to take care of gas that nearly every other state does—it’s called self-serving. Works great for ice cream, buffets, and gas stations.

And, as a final thought (having trolled through my memory for non-identifying anecdotes in an effort to keep my family’s life somewhat private), I was reintroduced to the hidden identity game Salem on this trip. If you haven’t played it before, it’s in the same general category of game as Mafia, Werewolf/One Night Werewolf, and Secret Hitler (the last of which I particularly like). I didn’t like Salem when I last played it, but this experience was much better, and it’s hard to say whether or not the game actually “clicked” for me this time or whether I was just playing with a better group of people. I decided to introduce myself as completely new to the game (it’s been years since the one other time I played it), then I picked up on the rules much faster than I expected to and had the advantage of very believably being able to play dumb all game while being the secret witch and killing everyone off. Only poor luck ended my witchy run, unfortunately.

Bloggyness Review: In the Land of Invented Languages

I re-read In the Land of Invented Languages (Arika Okrent) this week, and it is absolutely delightful. The book is a light history of invented languages, beginning with the earliest invented language we have record of (Ignota, by Hildegard von Bingam) and continuing on to the best-known modern invented languages, including Modern Hebrew, Klingon, and Esperanto, as of the book’s publication in 2009. The book is easy to read and is written with a great sense of humor.

What I found most interesting in this book was how Okrent delved into the relationship between languages and meaning—what humans find meaningful and their ability to express that, as well as the human search to express meaning. Okrent does a really good job at focusing on the people rather than getting muddled in a linguistic mess that the average person couldn’t appreciate, and I think it elevates the overall product while still teaching you a lot about invented languages (as would be expected from this book).

In the Land of Invented Languages should be worth your time if you enjoy learning about languages and how people think, if you enjoy history, if you find unexpected real-world cultures (and cultural endeavors) delightful treats to discover, or if you just enjoy general education. It also might inspire you if you are writing a language yourself, whether for personal fulfillment or as part of another project. You do not need to be a linguist (or a philologist, hah) or have much linguistic knowledge at all to appreciate this book.

Here’s another thought I had while reading. Despite already knowing that real-world fluent Klingon speakers exist, my mind gets boggled every time I re-read the chapters on Klingon. If an apocalypse ever happens while the Klingon Convention is in session, it is entirely possible for those people to survive together and form an apocalypse-tribe thing, decide to speak Klingon primarily (so that outsiders/competitors can’t understand them), and teach Klingon to their children as a native language, and then rebuild their human civilization with Klingon as its primary language. The odds of this happening are vanishingly small, spending much time thinking about a world where this happens is completely pointless, but the fact that it’s a possibility at all is fascinating. Not even Tolkien could say that about any of his lovingly-crafted languages—not that I think he’d care. (Although I could be wrong, maybe there are fluent Quenya or Sindarin speakers out there. Sound off if you are one of them.)

If you really wanted to, you could even take this scenario a step further. The Klingon community thrives in this apocalyptic scenario. Humanity rebuilds and reinvents, united (or conquered) under the Klingon banner, eventually becomes a spacefaring people, and discovers aliens. Now we are the Klingons to the rest of the galaxy. All we need are the funny ridged foreheads.

I should note that the above two paragraphs have nothing to do with In the Land of Invented Languages, they are just evidence that real-world factoids sometimes brings my brain to strange places of possibility.

The Failed Technomancer

I didn’t do any writing or editing last week because I was camping and wasn’t able to charge my phone, much less care for a laptop. However, before I left, several people committed to read and provide copyedit-related feedback, so that was nice. I’m giving this book a month, maybe two, before I take it out of the copyedit phase.

Interestingly enough, The Failed Technomancer is selling the best as an audiobook, and it’s selling the best in Great Britain… No idea how that is going with that, but I appreciate it. Keep on being robot cannibals, Britainnites.

Send-Off

Tell me… what’s your favorite invented language? You don’t have to be someone who studies or learns the languages, I’m curious what you remember from books you’ve read or TV shows you’ve watched. Were you captivated by the passion the actors in Game of Thrones put into Dothraki? Do you love listening to Klingon in the various Star Trek shows that feature it? Does reading Quenya or Sindarin fill your mind with music? Let me know.