From Interlingvistikaj Kajeroj, Ken Miner (Kansas): The Impossibility of an Esperanto Linguistics. From Diversities, a special issue on language and superdiversities. Why do languages die? The very existence of a modern nation-state, and the ideology it encompasses, is antithetical to linguistic diversity. A review of Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World by Philippe van Parijs. The new science of the birth and death of words: Have physicists discovered the evolutionary laws of language in Google's library? Language and its discontents: A review of From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages. Victor Ginsburgh on Lawrence Summers and the uselessness of learning foreign languages. From Intelligent Life, which is the best language to learn? French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, or Latin? (Maybe Esperanto, or Gaelic?) For a world in economic crisis, could Spanish be a lifeline? David Bellos demolishes the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax — New Yorkers have more words for coffee than Eskimos do for snow.
