The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language

Idiosyncratic and dogged, frequently surprising, continually surprising and at time tremendously moving. And all from a scrap of paper inside a chocolate egg. Bravo!

Book is predictably wacky, OK? I knew this before purchase. As with anything in life it is up to the partaker to judge, not an unknown punter such as myself. MM

Fascinating and delightfully geeky!

I will never look at warning messages on or in products with the same eyes ever again. Taking the one found inside Kinder Surprise Eggs as his starting point, Keith Kahn-Harris goes on to examine language in general, the wonderful diversity of the world’s different languages and the cultural differences found in them in this astonishingly intriguing and endlessly fascinating book that kept me enthralled. Who would have thought that a little piece of paper inside a Kinder Egg, a little piece of paper that I wager no one ever actually even reads (I will from now on) and which is simply thrown away could inspire this marvellously idiosyncratic and thoroughly researched exploration. Luckily for us Keith Kahn-Harris was so inspired. A must-read for all linguists, language enthusiasts, whether layman or academic, or simply anyone who wants to have their minds expanded.

Fun book, discursive, disquisitive, distracting and good stuff for a rainy day, but the author's family nonsense word 'compocorant' (pp. 34-35) really does exist — it's Latin, and means something like 'they've arranged'. So grandad's friend wasn't being creative, just a bit punnishing.Very good book all the same.

As a linguist I loved this, but it’s completely accessible and great fun for anyone with a passing interest in language. I’d say I couldn’t put it down - but in truth I had to stop dozens of times to Google all the most fascinating bits and found myself researching things for hours. The sign of a very good book in my opinion!

I found this book quite fascinating, for a number of reasons. First, I’m Italian and I can enjoy a bit of national pride in finding an Italian brand like Ferrero being under the spot like this; also, Kinder Surprise Egg is a major part of my childhood as well.Second, my first language is Italian, I’m fluent in English and I’ve studied Portuguese and German as well. I can totally understand Kahn-Harris’s enthusiasm when it comes to languages other than your own.Kahn-Harris is on a mission to investigate all the possible translations of the Message, the leaflet contained in the capsule of every Kinder Surprised Egg produced by Ferrero.I enjoyed every bit of the linguistic journey offered by this book, including the self-criticism and self-doubt on the way the author was approaching some specific languages and tongues, considering the colonialist past that permeates the British history.Another fascinating chapter is the one related to the man-made languages such as Esperanto and Klingon, and the subsequent attempt by the author to come up with his very own, still unnamed, language to translate the Message.A language is never just a language, it’s culture, it’s society, it’s politics. No one is immune to the power a languages has over its speakers and non-speakers.For every language enthusiast out there – Iltigõš zānigõmo! You’ll understand later.

The warning message inside a kinder egg, not exactly high literature but it forms the basis for this exploration of language. Looking at which languages are included and which are not, Kahn-Harris considers the important of society and the connections between languages. His etymology considers the families of language and the subtle differences between them and how this relates to history and politics. He also explores the obscure languages of the world, either those where kinder eggs may never be seen, eg. languages that have no words to translate the message, or those that are so obscure they are only spoken by a handful of people. He also considers 'new' languages, ones that are being added to all the time eg. Hebrew, and those that are purely fictional eg Klingon, Dothraki. All in all this book takes a preposterous premise and produces something magical.

Keith Kahn-Harris hat den Beipackzettel in Kinderüberraschungseier als Anlass genommen, über Sprache nachzudenken. Natürlich ist das offensichtliche in diesem Buch enthalten: Viele, viele Übersetzungen der Warung, dass Kleinteile verschluckt werden können - neben den Originalübersetzungen eine große Zahl an Neuübersetzungen. Ein bisschen erzählt er auch etwas über Sprachen, aber ganz ehrlich: Da ist z.B. Babel von Gaston Dorren deutlich ergibiger. Die Stärke dieses Buches liegt in den Überlegungen bezüglich Sprachen - z.B. den Status von Pidgin-Sprachen oder die Frage ab wann ein Slang/Dialekt als Sprache gilt und ob die Aussage, eine bestimmte Gruppe spräche nicht die Muttersprache sondern etwas anderes, auch beleidigend wahrgenommen werden kann. Auch geht es natürlich um künstliche Sprachen und der Autor versucht sich an einer eigenen. Das sind alles interessante Kapitel, dazwischen sind auch mal ein paar weniger gelungene Kapitel, die ein bisschen nur zu existieren scheinen, um noch mehr Übersetzungen zeigen zu können.Alles in allem aber ein gutes Buch über andere Sprachen und den Reiz, den diese aussüben. Es ist mit eienm Augenzwinkern geschrieben, aber nicht so witzig, wie man vielleicht aufgrund des Themas meinen könnte - es sind durchaus ernsthafte Überlegungen. Und es geht bemerkenswert wenig um Ferrero. Kinderüberraschung oder auch den beipackzettel, sondern tatsächlich um Sprache. Das ist wertneutral, aber wissen sollte man es schon..