«Language Made Plane» by Anthony Burgess (yes, the author of A Clockwork Orange) is a brief overview of linguistics. It is the first book (beyond papers and other academic documents) in this field that I have read, and I really liked it.

This book was found by my daughter at a book auction. It is one of those rare finds that uncovers a treasure. When I saw it, after taking note of the title, the author’s name caught my attention. So, it began the romance. Since then, I have offered my daughter to buy it from her, but she doesn’t agree 😞.

I don’t remember if this book motivated me to add Russian to my Duolingo account, but it definitely motivated me to add Welsh (dw i dysgu Cymraeg).

In general terms, it is a good book to get started in understanding what linguistics is. The book covers several topics, starting with phonology (human vocal abilities and the representation of said sounds), continuing with the symbology of alphabets, the agglutination of characters in words, and these in sentences to conclude the first part of this work on an overview of the science of linguistics.

The second part is dedicated to learning foreign languages ​​(from the author’s point of view) and describes the general classification of languages. Later, he focused on English, the Teutonic languages, Latin and its descendants, Russian, and Malay. It concludes with a brief review of some invented languages ​​and the future of the English language.

It is a book that should be read several times.