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Quote by Arika Okrent

“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.”

Quote by Arika Okrent

Work

In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language

In this comprehensive exploration, the book delves into the history and cultural impact of various artificial languages. It profiles individuals who have dedicated their lives to developing these languages, from Esperanto enthusiasts to fans of Star Trek's Klingon. The narrative also examines the social and linguistic implications of these constructed languages, offering a unique perspective on human creativity and communication. more

Author

Arika Okrent
Arika Okrent

Arika Okrent is an American poet whose work has been showcased in various literary magazines and anthologies. The precise dates of her birth and death are unknown, but her poetry has made a lasting impression on the literary world. more

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“The best type of instruction is individual instruction. A course where one teacher instructs one pupil is clearly by far the best type of course. It is only under such conditions that human potentialities can develop to their greatest degree. It is clear that the formal school, characterized by classes in which one teacher instructs many children, is an immensely inferior system. Since each child differs from the other in interest and ability, and the teacher can only teach one thing at a time.”

“It has become fashionable to speak of the Enlightenment as an idiosyncratic construction by European males in a bygone era, one way of thinking among many different constructions generated across time by a legion of other minds in other cultures, each of which deserves careful and respectful attention. To which the only decent response is yes, of course - to a point. Creative thought is forever precious, and all knowledge has value. But what counts most in the long haul of history is seminality, not sentiment. If we ask whose ideas were the seeds of the dominant ethic and shared hopes of contemporary humanity, whose resulted in the most material advancement in history, whose were the first of their kind and today enjoy the most emulation, then in that sense the Enlightenment, despite the erosion of its original vision and despite the shakiness of some of its premises, has been the principal inspiration not just of Western high culture but, increasingly, of the entire world.”