Every Word Is a Bird We Teach to Sing: Encounters with Language

“Words have been knots of beauty and mystery as long as I can remember,” writes the author of this insightful collection of 15 essays that explore language and its underappreciated nuances. The title, taken from the final line of the essay “You Are What You Say,” extols how we “animate words with our imagination” in order to communicate with one another. Tammet (Thinking in Numbers) has high-functioning autism and he relates how, when young, he thought not in words but numbers, each one assigned a different meaning—89, for instance, meant “snow.” Although his condition initially made him socially withdrawn, it taught him an appreciation of the different ways in which we confer meaning on words and vocabulary. His essays include personal accounts of his experiences teaching English to Lithuanian students and interacting with psychologists studying speech patterns, a history of the would-be universal language Esperanto, and appreciations of the works of Australian poet Les Murray (himself autistic) and of writers working in the indigenous Nahuatl language of Mexico and Kikuyu language of Kenya. Tammet is generous in his acceptance of many different forms and styles of communication. His essays will be eye-openers for anyone who takes the meaning of words on the printed page for granted. [em]Agent: Andrew Lownie, Andrew Lownie Literary Agency. (Sept.) [/em]