Speaking in Tongues

Language, historically speaking, has always been slippery. Two dictionaries provide two different maps of the universe: which one is true, or are both false? Speaking in Tongues—taking the form of a dialogue between Nobel laureate novelist J. M. Coetzee and eminent translator Mariana Dimópulos—examines some of the most pressing linguistic issues that plague writers and translators well into the twenty-first century.

The authors address questions that we must answer in order to understand contemporary society. They inquire if one can truly love an acquired language, and they question why certain languages, like Spanish, have gender differences built into them. They examine the threat of monolingualism and ask how we can counter, if at all, the global spread of the English language, which… Keep Reading