Language in Action is a big book on a big subject, all about geolinguistics (who speaks what language or languages where and what that means in terms of culture and politics, trade and all other aspects of life) and also onomastics (the study of proper nouns, names in life and literature). Subjects addressed are Early American, US dialects, the differences between the British and American languages, English in India, Freshman English as a Second and Foreign Language, Burundi and French in Africa, various Celtic languages, Cuban Spanish, Dutch and English, the language of the Gilbert & Ellis Islands, Gobbledygook and jargon, Kamtok in Papua New Guinea, Spanglish, the placenames of the Dakotas, Norwegian and English, odd languages of Europe (living and dead), origins of 55 common expressions, Polish and Polish-Americans, rules of the language game, secret languages, Spanish regional languages, Suriname as a multilingual society, English in Switzerland, Yiddish and Yinglish, strange languages of Africa, classical languages, Amerindian names, names in business and real estate, the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, changing names, names for houses, names in magic, placenames of Iowa, word games, names in satire and in literary onomastics in general, Martin Amis’ Money: A Suicide Note and satire as sociolinguistics, names in folklore, political language, slang in US politics, personal and national identity, and the language of minority politics—all in terms the average reader can easily understand.

Nobel is a pictographic language based on some 120 basic signs and many arrows of different shape that are mutually combined. It is named after Alfred Nobel (1833–1896), Swedish chemist and industrialist, inventor of dynamite, who left most of his fortune to a foundation that annually gives awards to individuals whose work is characterized as “greatest benefit to mankind,” known as Nobel Prizes. Besides the awards for sciences and literature significantly, Alfred Nobel included, among others, a prize for peace (that besides individuals, also organizations may obtain). Although it would be utopian to believe that human conflicts could be avoided if communication tools would improve, the emergence of universal languages certainly cannot make the situation worse! Universal languages are a communication tool, which makes it possible for people of no common language to communicate. They are graphic, but they should be distinguished from picture writings, which only passively offer information on some event or give messages. Universal languages have more similarity with the sign languages that are used for people who lost hearing or the sign language of American Plains Indians, who spoke different languages and could communicate by sign language that they developed. However, written language has some advantages over hand sign languages in that one can communicate at a great distance, particularly today in the age of fax and computer communications, and that one can leave messages for posterity. This is not the place to argue for or against the promise of written sign languages. Graphic (written) sign languages exist today, and the best known are Chinese characters used in China and Japan. The problem with Chinese characters is that there are too many characters and it is difficult to learn so many. It takes years for children in China and Japan to learn so many different characters, and the task would be even harder for grown people to learn if they have not done this when young. Nobel is designed to remove this difficulty and is based on the following requirements: 1. SMALL NUMBER OF BASIC SIGNS 2. SIGNS SHOULD BE EASY TO RECOGNIZE 3. SIGNS SHOULD BE EASY TO REPRODUCE 4. COMBINATIONS LIMITED TO THREE SIGNS 5. COMPLEMENTARY We have already mentioned that Nobel uses about 120 basic signs, which can be viewed as a small number, particularly in view of over 100 signs of Nobel that are so obvious that they can be easily absorbed. The other requirements are also very important. There are many signs that can be easily recognized, but in order to be acceptable for Nobel, they also need to be easily reproduced, because that will facilitate communication. Also, when making combinations of signs, one has to make some restriction in order to maintain clarity, so we decided to have no more than three signs combined into single word. Finally, the last requirement, that of complementarities, needs some explanation. Besides having signs that one can easily recognize and easily draw, one needs some structure to be embedded into composition of signs that facilitates one to remember and learn signs easily. We refer to this structure as complementary or, broadly speaking, associational, and what it implies is that words and objects that are related should have related signs. Thus, for example, pairs of words like man-woman, cat-dog, coffee-tea, good-bad, love-hate, etc., should have signs that are in some opposition, while words like smoke-flame-fire, tree-wood-forest, water-sea-ocean, good-better-best should have signs that are in competition. With this in mind when one sees and learns the basic signs, the meaning of many combinations of signs can be in advance anticipated. This helps one to learn Nobel rather fast; not months, not weeks, perhaps not even days, but a couple of hours may suffice that one may learn hundreds and hundreds of words. In this respect, Nobel may be unique among languages written, spoken of, gesticulated. Soon you will have an opportunity to see for yourself whether this author is exaggerating or not in the promotion of Nobel. We may add also that for artificial languages, whether spoken (like Esperanto, Interlingua, and such) or written (like Nobel and Blissymbolic), the major difficulty is to build sizable vocabulary, while grammar usually represents a minor task—Nobel is not an exception. Sizable vocabulary is essential if one is interested in communications that go beyond concerns of mere survival—or, as Ukrainian writer Vladimir Dmitriyevich Dudintsev (1918–1998) entitled his book, if one aspiration is Not by Bread Alone.

Nobel is a pictographic language based on some 120 basic signs and many arrows of different shape that are mutually combined. It is named after Alfred Nobel (1833–1896), Swedish chemist and industrialist, inventor of dynamite, who left most of his fortune to a foundation that annually gives awards to individuals whose work is characterized as “greatest benefit to mankind,” known as Nobel Prizes. Besides the awards for sciences and literature significantly, Alfred Nobel included, among others, a prize for peace (that besides individuals, also organizations may obtain). Although it would be utopian to believe that human conflicts could be avoided if communication tools would improve, the emergence of universal languages certainly cannot make the situation worse! Universal languages are a communication tool, which makes it possible for people of no common language to communicate. They are graphic, but they should be distinguished from picture writings, which only passively offer information on some event or give messages. Universal languages have more similarity with the sign languages that are used for people who lost hearing or the sign language of American Plains Indians, who spoke different languages and could communicate by sign language that they developed. However, written language has some advantages over hand sign languages in that one can communicate at a great distance, particularly today in the age of fax and computer communications, and that one can leave messages for posterity. This is not the place to argue for or against the promise of written sign languages. Graphic (written) sign languages exist today, and the best known are Chinese characters used in China and Japan. The problem with Chinese characters is that there are too many characters and it is difficult to learn so many. It takes years for children in China and Japan to learn so many different characters, and the task would be even harder for grown people to learn if they have not done this when young. Nobel is designed to remove this difficulty and is based on the following requirements: 1. SMALL NUMBER OF BASIC SIGNS 2. SIGNS SHOULD BE EASY TO RECOGNIZE 3. SIGNS SHOULD BE EASY TO REPRODUCE 4. COMBINATIONS LIMITED TO THREE SIGNS 5. COMPLEMENTARY We have already mentioned that Nobel uses about 120 basic signs, which can be viewed as a small number, particularly in view of over 100 signs of Nobel that are so obvious that they can be easily absorbed. The other requirements are also very important. There are many signs that can be easily recognized, but in order to be acceptable for Nobel, they also need to be easily reproduced, because that will facilitate communication. Also, when making combinations of signs, one has to make some restriction in order to maintain clarity, so we decided to have no more than three signs combined into single word. Finally, the last requirement, that of complementarities, needs some explanation. Besides having signs that one can easily recognize and easily draw, one needs some structure to be embedded into composition of signs that facilitates one to remember and learn signs easily. We refer to this structure as complementary or, broadly speaking, associational, and what it implies is that words and objects that are related should have related signs. Thus, for example, pairs of words like man-woman, cat-dog, coffee-tea, good-bad, love-hate, etc., should have signs that are in some opposition, while words like smoke-flame-fire, tree-wood-forest, water-sea-ocean, good-better-best should have signs that are in competition. With this in mind when one sees and learns the basic signs, the meaning of many combinations of signs can be in advance anticipated. This helps one to learn Nobel rather fast; not months, not weeks, perhaps not even days, but a couple of hours may suffice that one may learn hundreds and hundreds of words. In this respect, Nobel may be unique among languages written, spoken of, gesticulated. Soon you will have an opportunity to see for yourself whether this author is exaggerating or not in the promotion of Nobel. We may add also that for artificial languages, whether spoken (like Esperanto, Interlingua, and such) or written (like Nobel and Blissymbolic), the major difficulty is to build sizable vocabulary, while grammar usually represents a minor task—Nobel is not an exception. Sizable vocabulary is essential if one is interested in communications that go beyond concerns of mere survival—or, as Ukrainian writer Vladimir Dmitriyevich Dudintsev (1918–1998) entitled his book, if one aspiration is Not by Bread Alone.

Nobel is a pictographic language based on some 120 basic signs and many arrows of different shape that are mutually combined. It is named after Alfred Nobel (1833–1896), Swedish chemist and industrialist, inventor of dynamite, who left most of his fortune to a foundation that annually gives awards to individuals whose work is characterized as “greatest benefit to mankind,” known as Nobel Prizes. Besides the awards for sciences and literature significantly, Alfred Nobel included, among others, a prize for peace (that besides individuals, also organizations may obtain). Although it would be utopian to believe that human conflicts could be avoided if communication tools would improve, the emergence of universal languages certainly cannot make the situation worse! Universal languages are a communication tool, which makes it possible for people of no common language to communicate. They are graphic, but they should be distinguished from picture writings, which only passively offer information on some event or give messages. Universal languages have more similarity with the sign languages that are used for people who lost hearing or the sign language of American Plains Indians, who spoke different languages and could communicate by sign language that they developed. However, written language has some advantages over hand sign languages in that one can communicate at a great distance, particularly today in the age of fax and computer communications, and that one can leave messages for posterity. This is not the place to argue for or against the promise of written sign languages. Graphic (written) sign languages exist today, and the best known are Chinese characters used in China and Japan. The problem with Chinese characters is that there are too many characters and it is difficult to learn so many. It takes years for children in China and Japan to learn so many different characters, and the task would be even harder for grown people to learn if they have not done this when young. Nobel is designed to remove this difficulty and is based on the following requirements: 1. SMALL NUMBER OF BASIC SIGNS 2. SIGNS SHOULD BE EASY TO RECOGNIZE 3. SIGNS SHOULD BE EASY TO REPRODUCE 4. COMBINATIONS LIMITED TO THREE SIGNS 5. COMPLEMENTARY We have already mentioned that Nobel uses about 120 basic signs, which can be viewed as a small number, particularly in view of over 100 signs of Nobel that are so obvious that they can be easily absorbed. The other requirements are also very important. There are many signs that can be easily recognized, but in order to be acceptable for Nobel, they also need to be easily reproduced, because that will facilitate communication. Also, when making combinations of signs, one has to make some restriction in order to maintain clarity, so we decided to have no more than three signs combined into single word. Finally, the last requirement, that of complementarities, needs some explanation. Besides having signs that one can easily recognize and easily draw, one needs some structure to be embedded into composition of signs that facilitates one to remember and learn signs easily. We refer to this structure as complementary or, broadly speaking, associational, and what it implies is that words and objects that are related should have related signs. Thus, for example, pairs of words like man-woman, cat-dog, coffee-tea, good-bad, love-hate, etc., should have signs that are in some opposition, while words like smoke-flame-fire, tree-wood-forest, water-sea-ocean, good-better-best should have signs that are in competition. With this in mind when one sees and learns the basic signs, the meaning of many combinations of signs can be in advance anticipated. This helps one to learn Nobel rather fast; not months, not weeks, perhaps not even days, but a couple of hours may suffice that one may learn hundreds and hundreds of words. In this respect, Nobel may be unique among languages written, spoken of, gesticulated. Soon you will have an opportunity to see for yourself whether this author is exaggerating or not in the promotion of Nobel. We may add also that for artificial languages, whether spoken (like Esperanto, Interlingua, and such) or written (like Nobel and Blissymbolic), the major difficulty is to build sizable vocabulary, while grammar usually represents a minor task—Nobel is not an exception. Sizable vocabulary is essential if one is interested in communications that go beyond concerns of mere survival—or, as Ukrainian writer Vladimir Dmitriyevich Dudintsev (1918–1998) entitled his book, if one aspiration is Not by Bread Alone.

I have often been frustrated and amused by natives who want to be understood only by the collusive, other natives and thus resort to the use of esoteric expressions the meanings of which are only privy to their people or even group. The most enduring manner to memorialize the truth is to render the language understandable, even if it entails going back to its proper roots. Typical of me, I chose the hardest of them all: English, specifically because its rules have been intentionally overlooked or, in some cases, glossed over in favor of a wider comprehensibility, as happened in plastics, computer science or military jargon. Let me put it this way: if there already is a way to say something well, there is no need to create a new way of saying it…to the glaring degradation of the language. The purpose of a language is universal understand of what is said. In the case of the English language, make that ‘what is said, how it is said, how it is written and even how it is pronounced’. It is pointless for English-speaking people to wrongly interpret the intent of another of their kind or to answer in an equally obfuscating fashion. If I say something, I want to be universally understood in as clear a manner as possible!

I have often been frustrated and amused by natives who want to be understood only by the collusive, other natives and thus resort to the use of esoteric expressions the meanings of which are only privy to their people or even group. The most enduring manner to memorialize the truth is to render the language understandable, even if it entails going back to its proper roots. Typical of me, I chose the hardest of them all: English, specifically because its rules have been intentionally overlooked or, in some cases, glossed over in favor of a wider comprehensibility, as happened in plastics, computer science or military jargon. Let me put it this way: if there already is a way to say something well, there is no need to create a new way of saying it…to the glaring degradation of the language. The purpose of a language is universal understand of what is said. In the case of the English language, make that ‘what is said, how it is said, how it is written and even how it is pronounced’. It is pointless for English-speaking people to wrongly interpret the intent of another of their kind or to answer in an equally obfuscating fashion. If I say something, I want to be universally understood in as clear a manner as possible!

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