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Arika Okrent

Arika Okrent Biography

Poet

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“All this fighting stems from the illusion that people choose to learn a language for rational reasons, that they are looking for the language that has the most useful features, the best agenda. But no one is out there comparison shopping for an artificial language. They find what they like, and there's no accounting for taste.”

LanguageLearningTaste
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
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“Before you judge me as some kind of 'anything goes' language heathen, let me just say that I'm not against usage standards. I don't violate them when I want to sound like an educated person, for the same reason I don't wear a bikini to a funeral when I want to look like a respectful person. There are social conventions for the way we do lots of things, and it is to everyone's benefit to be familiar with them. But logic ain't got nothin' to do with it.”

WayWantLooksKindPersonsReasonLanguageSocialSoundJudgingBenefitsStandardsLogicLet MeFamiliarEducatedFuneralConventionsRespectfulUsageBikinisHeathenJudge MeAnything GoesEducated PersonBefore You Judge Me
Author:Arika Okrent
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“The job of the linguist, like that of the biologist or the botanist, is not to tell us how nature should behave, or what its creations should look like, but to describe those creations in all their messy glory and try to figure out what they can teach us about life, the world, and, especially in the case of linguistics, the workings of the human mind.”

WorldShouldTryingMindHumansLooksJobsTeachCasesFiguresCreationGloryBehaveHuman MindMessyLinguisticsBiologistLinguists
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
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“The variety of shape, pattern, and color found in the languages of the world is a testament to the wonder of nature, to the breathtaking array of possibilities that can emerge, tangled and wild, from the fertile human endowments of brain and larynx, intelligence and social skills.”

WorldHumansFoundLanguageSocialBrainWonderPossibilityColorShapesSkillsPatternsVarietyTestamentFertileTangledEndowmentBreathtakingSocial SkillsWonder Of Nature
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
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