His tour of the continent is a richly diverting exercise, organised into sections on languages and their families, history, politics, writing, vocabulary, grammar and state of endangeredness. He has something interesting to point out about nearly every topic...and delivers a brilliant lesson in how to decipher Cyrillic.
Mr. Dorren doesn’t seek to develop a bold argument. Instead this is one of those books—now abundant—that bulge with linguistic trivia. Fortunately, he has an eye for genuinely surprising detail. He is also, for the most part, a witty commentator, though occasionally his efforts to be amusing fall flat...
In keeping with a book about language, communication and the art of being understood, let’s not mince words and instead come straight to the point: Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages
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