Communication

Volume V, Number 2 | spring 2012

Preamble

Word Order

By Lewis H. Lapham

The Internet is blessed with undoubtedly miraculous applications, but language is not yet one of them. Technology cannot displace the primacy of words.

Essay

In the Panthéon

By Philipp Blom

History is written by the victors. So, too, in the world of ideas. Phillipp Blom on a group of thinkers far more daring than those enshrined in the Panthéon.

Map

Living Languages

Facts and figures on the languages of the world.

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Miscellany

The so-called Wicked Bible, published in 1631, accidentally printed the Seventh Commandment as “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The printer, Robert Barker, was fined three hundred pounds.

Voices In Time

c. 1185 | Troyes

Dating Manual

Andreas the Chaplain lays out the rules of conversation.More

Voices In Time

c. 2800 BC | Uruk

One World, One Language

The pursuit of a universal tongue.More

Voices In Time

c. 1725 | Atlantic Ocean

Talking Book

An unquenchable thirst for knowledge.More

Charts & Graphs

Marginalized

Notes in manuscripts and colophons made by medieval scribes and copyists.

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Political consultant and media advisor Mandy Grunwald.

Hungarian-born British novelist, journalist, and critic Arthur Koestler.

Contributors

American feminist, activist, and editor Gloria Steinem.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.

- E.M. Forster, 1910