Frederick Bodmer (1894–1960)

This is too awesome not to own. I guess this is the text that set Sun Ra on his whole freaky language trip? Anyways it's not the kind of book I can't read cover to cover but even a partial reading gives you a much better and more holistic sense of how language works.

This is a fascinating book. It is not an easy from-to back read, but for everyone who wants to think about the origin of language and the way that different languages interact, it is a key text. I would also add that if you want to learn another language, this gives great tips for doing so - and has greatly helped me.

Somewhat dry but necessary if one is interested in learning mulitple languages as well as history of languages.

Just over a half-century old, this introduction to language and languages is still worthwhile.