The Loom of Language

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People still tell me they cannot possibly learn a language because they took classes in school and failed to become fluent (although they usually also admit they passedthe classes, which should be evidence enough that something is wrong). Bodmer knew what was wrong seven decades ago, noting the drudgery of the so-called ‘direct method’ of language instruction, which bans the use of the native language. There is zero evidence that this approach works, while there isevidence that it actually inhibits learning. Yet here we are, still following the same approach. The Loom was an interesting high-level academic read of the history of many languages. Its primary focus is on Western European languages. It uses written Chinese as a language to use as a grammar syntax benchmark, and takes a shallow look into other languages like Persian, Bantu, Arabic, and others — including some Slavic. What I also love about Bodmer’s work is the sense of joy he tries to convey, the idea that languages are a wonderful puzzle worth solving. When I first read the book many years ago I was inspired by it, driven to master languages the way Bodmer suggested, and I still use many of the ideas in the book as a guide towards my own continuing education in languages and cultures of the world. It’s exhilarating to read, even today, seven decades later, the thoughts of a brilliant mind on the necessity and joy of learning language, and how this goal can best be achieved. Five = penta / πέντε = panch / पाच (Marathi / Hindi) = cinqo = cinco = quinque (Latin); fünf German; fiif Frisian (closet to English or old English) ; cinci Romanian; pyat' пять Russian. The first half of the 20 th century was a heady time for language learning and study. The field of philology (now commonly called historical linguistics) was at its zenith. Much of the evolution of the Proto-Indo European language family had been worked out. The hope that a world-wide auxiliary language, such as Esperanto, would be adopted internationally had not yet been utterly dashed by the two World Wars.

The spoken language of a speech community is continually changing. Where uniformity exists, local dialects crop up. LANGUAGE implies more than learning to signal like a firefly or to talk like a parrot. It means more than the unique combination which we call human speech. The third part of the book gives information on other languages in more detail, including non-Indo-European and constructed languages and leads into a discussion on language planning and a “true Interlingua” that would be “a passport to a wider international culture.” The last paragraph is still relevant today, though written during WWII. It is divided into four parts. Part I is a “natural history” of language. Part II covers the “hybrid heritage” of English as a language which straddles the Germanic and Romance branches of the Indo-European language tree. Part III covers language problems and planning movements. Part IV is a “language museum” of comparative vocabulary tables. Of itself, no such change can bring the age-long calamity of war to an end; and it is a dangerous error to conceive that it can do so. We cannot hope to reach a remedy for the language obstacles to international co-operation on a democratic footing, while predatory finance capital, intrigues or armament manufacturers, and the vested interest of a rentier class in the misery of colonial peoples continue to stifle the impulse to a world-wide enterprise for the common wealth of mankind. No language reform can abolish war, while social agencies far more powerful than mere linguistic misunderstandings furnish fresh occasion for it. What intelligent language planning can do is to forge a new instrument for human collaboration on a planetary scale, when social institutions propitious to international strife no longer thwart the constructive task of planning health, leisure and plenty for all.”

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As I said above, Part II is a treasure trove. Bodmer distills everything a student needs to know about sound correspondences, etc. to make connections across the outlined languages and accelerate learning. The only annoyance is that the huge tables in Part IV aren't available online somewhere as spreadsheets (the book was written in the '40s) so one could import them into a spaced repetition system like Anki for efficient learning. I'm working on typing these out for my own purposes, but this will take awhile. One difference between speech and writing is important to anyone who is trying to learn a foreign language, especially if it is closely related to a language already familiar. There are examples like "I wash" (which means I'm bathing myself in that era) which are used to show how "English has evolved so much further than other European languages" by even being able to remove personal pronouns via the use of context. Given that I would never say "I wash" but instead, "I'm washing myself", I lost trust in a lot of what the book said about the "advanced evolution of Anglo-American".

Sidenote: In linguistic circles people love to dig into exceptions and point out when rules break down, which can make learners abandon something incredibly useful for fear of making mistakes. But you should not be discouraged by ivory-tower elitism. You are going to make mistakes and fall into traps no matter what, so don’t get discouraged by exceptions. Finally, he provides a vocabulary of 500 words for the major Romance languages and for the major Germanic languages. His argument is that if a person learned the Latin and Greek vocabulary lists and all of the 500 word vocabulary lists of all of the languages he provides that a person could understand and make himself understood anywhere in Europe. It is divided into four parts. Part I is a "natural history" of language. Part II covers the "hybrid heritage" of English as a language which straddles the Germanic and Romance branches of the Indo-European language tree. Part III covers language problems and planning movements. Part IV is a "language museum" of comparative vocabulary tables. Other similar books teach you to learn any language, including those outside the Indo-European language family that share literally nothing with your native tongue, English. The Loom of Language starts with multiple chapters about linguistics. (contra Benny the Polyglot, Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World who counsels speaking on Day 1, and Kaufmann, The Way of the Linguist: A Language Learning Odyssey who would have me reading text with native speaker audio on Day 1). In less than a thousand years what was a local dialect may become the official speech of a nation that cannot communicate with its neighbors without the help of an interpreter or translator.

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It also includes how a man can communicate across continents and down the ages through the impersonal and permanent record which we call writing.

I give it five stars for a very specific reason: the incredible time-saving insights. Here's an example.

The loom of language

This book is a product of its time. The author was multilingual but not a linguist. The book was written right after WWII. The author's purpose was to aid people to be able to communicate with each other so that understanding between people would contribute to the prevention of future wars. The Loom of Language shares much information and spirit with The Seven Sieves. The latter is also very good, but Loom is more comprehensive and easier to find. There is even a scanned copy available on Archive.org.

A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge 6 Volume Set I’m looking forward to someday using the section about working within the Romance and Teutonic languages. e.g. if you know the German or Dutch word, you can deduce the meaning of Swedish or Danish words. Here's an example from the Lord's Prayer that many English speakers could probably read already.

As I said above, Part II is a treasure trove. Bodmer distills everything a student needs to know about sound correspondences, etc. to make connections across the outlined languages and accelerate learning. The only annoyance is that the huge tables in Part IV aren’t available online somewhere as spreadsheets (the book is almost a century old after all) so one could import them into a spaced repetition system like Anki for efficient learning. I typed these out as Google spreadsheets for my own use. I’ve made them available here: Romance Word List, Germanic Word List, and the Greek Roots List from the language museum. Importing into Anki or suchlike is pretty easy. There is so much great information in here that it requires repeat readings over several years, especially Part II. Consider this book a meta-manual for learning how to learn languages. Bodmer also knew seventy years ago that children do not learn new languages any more easily than adults, but this also remains a popular misconception. I personally think this idea prevails because it lends an obscure layer of magic to the act of learning a language – the idea of a preternatural skill only the very young possess, perhaps because they are closer to their origins or something equally silly. This excuses adults who have failed to learn, and more importantly excuses the techniques that have failed to teach them! Joy and Wonder The book explains why these shifts happen, why French and English have hundreds of common words like this, and how to learn them without any mental strain.