Language Invention

An insider’s tour through the construction of invented languages from the bestselling author and creator of languages for Legendary's Dune, the HBO series Game of Thrones and the Syfy series Defiance.

Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a "bombshell" linguist and "instant folk hero" (Tom Wolfe, Harper's), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than 7,000 languages that exist today.

We think of Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but that’s not how he saw his own career. As the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach deaf students to speak. Even his tinkering sprang from his teaching work; the telephone had its origins as a speech reading machine. The Invention of Miracles takes a new look at an American icon, revealing the astonishing true genesis of the telephone and its connection to another, far more disturbing legacy of Bell’s.

This twelfth e-book in the Dominating Discourses series concerns invention, which constitutes the very core of persuasive rhetoric. It is through invention that we decide precisely what we are going to say in order to lead the thoughts of our listeners toward our goals. Through invention we define the terms of the argument, creating a sense of urgency and commitment. We compare our argument to similar prior condition which comfirm our stance. We make connections which support our argument, making it more compelling. All of these things produce a strong argument, but we are still not ...

Ellen Lark is on the verge of marriage when she and her fiancé receive an unexpected visit from Alexander Graham Bell. While her fiancé is eager to make a potentially lucrative acquaintance, Ellen knows what Bell really wants from her. Ellen is deaf, and for a time was Bell's student in a technique called Visible Speech. As he instructed her in speaking, Bell also confided in her about his dream of producing a device which would transmit the human voice along a wire: the telephone.