Joshua Foer on the artificial language Ithkuil.

In the December 24th & 31st issue of the magazine, Joshua Foer profiles John Quijada, the inventor of Ithkuil, a language that tries to be both maximally precise and concise. Here Sasha Weiss talks with Larissa Macfarquhar and Foer about Quijada’s motivation to create Ithkuil, and what an invented language no one is fluent in can reveal about about how we think and speak. Also, Giles Harvey on the problem of cultural overload.