Barry J. Blake

Secret Language is a delightful romp over the breadth of language used in any way to conceal, deflect, imply, and infer. Examples and puzzles showcase fascinating language features from a wide cultural array. Linguist Blake draws on his deep knowledge not to present anything scientific and precise – and thus dry – but rather a playful celebration of what can be hidden in human communication.

I have a things for codes and ciphers, despite lacking the mathematical or logical facility to be any good with them. So a book like this is right up my alley.

Well I say a book like this, it does seem to be in almost two separate sections, the bit about ciphers and codes, and the longer bit about secret, hidden languages, and while the ciphers and codes section is good and useful and solid, and he does try to link the two parts but I think they could have done with being two separate books. show more Mostly because then there would have been more on the languages part.

According to the blurb, Blake is a specialist in Aboriginal languages, and it shows because there are far more Australian (and indeed Oceanian) examples than normal. It also meant his example of English secret languages were very London-based.

I really enjoyed the book. show less

Aborigine Language