February 2006
Intermediate to advanced
332 pages
9h 3m
English
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Hack #51. Learn an Artificial Language
Since the language you speak influences your thoughts, speak some unusual languages and open your mind to unusual thoughts.
A conlang is a constructed language, more commonly known as an artificial language. Unlike C and Java, which are artificial languages created by humans for computers to use, conlangs are created by humans for humans to use.
Over the centuries, hundreds of conlangs have been created, and certainly many more projects that are private have never been published. Many conlangs were created with a specific purpose in mind, such as J.R.R. Tolkien's Elvish languages Sindarin and Quenya, which were created for their sheer beauty. Others were created for a laugh or to be used in movies or books.
Some languages are working languages, however, designed to liberate and empower human minds in a specific way. Esperanto, for example, was designed to break down cultural barriers between people of different cultures, and Lojban was designed to remove as many limitations on human thought as possible.
In Action
Here are six well-known constructed languages that can help you think and express yourself in novel ways.
Esperanto
Esperanto is the most widely spoken conlang on Earth, with an estimated 2 million speakers, putting it on par with Lithuanian, Icelandic, and Hebrew.1 It was designed in 1887 by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof as a kind of neutral, universal second language that would allow native speakers of all languages to meet one another on even ground, ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.