Inquiry: Arika Okrent: IN THE LAND OF INVENTED LANGUAGES

A language is a messy, inconsistent and unruly thing. All those tenses and irregular verbs! All those exceptions to the rules! For centuries there have been small number of utopian and eccentric linguists who have taken on the task to create their own artificial and more perfect language in the hopes of creating a better world. There have been logic-based languages; feminist inspired languages, symbolic languages and even a language based on chipmunk noises. Unsurprisingly, none of these have captured the wide audience their inventor desired, and that can tell us a lot about how traditional spoken languages evolve. Tonight on Inquiry, we talk with linguist ARIKA OKRENT about her latest fascinating and very entertaining book IN THE LAND OF INVENTED LANGUAGES: ESPERANTO ROCK STARS, KLINGON POETS, LOGLAN LOVERS AND THE MAD DREAMERS WHO TRIED TO BUILD A PERFECT LANGUAGE.