Monthly Archives: July 2022

What does a language writer do?

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Screenwriters write for the screen, ghostwriters write like (invisible) ghosts and sports writers write about sports. As a language writer, I write in language about language. Or rather: in languages (English and Dutch) about languages (dozens of ’em).

From history and politics to spelling, vocabulary and grammar: no matter how mundane or arcane the linguistic issue, I will deal with it in a way that both enlightens and entertains you – or so readers and reviewers across Europe, North America and Asia persistently maintain.

Lingo, my first bestseller, is about sixty European languages. They all have their own chapters, which are therefore short and sweet. (Here are some reviews.) Lingo has been published in twelve languages.

Babel, which has seen editions in seven scripts representing fifteen languages, is about the twenty most widely-spoken languages in the world. Since these stories are roughly three times as long as those in Lingo, Babel had appealed even more to language enthusiasts. (More reviews.)

Not a book but a board game, The League of the Lexicon was developed and written by Joshua Blackburn of Two Brothers. My contribution is the Global Edition, an expansion set consisting of 500 multiple-choice questions about languages other than English.

And then there’s my song Mother Tongue. Listen to it here.

Reading ‘Western European’ through a Dutch lens

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I’ve just published a Dutch-language book titled Seven Languages in Seven Days. It teaches the Dutch-speaking reader how to understand written Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and West Frisian based on the languages they already know: their native Dutch, their (semi-)fluent English and their typically rusty school German and French. For them, I made the below video.

This book could also be written – rather than simply translated, since it will require quite an overhaul – for speakers of German and the Scandinavian languages. To make the video accessible for them, I’ve added English subtitles (machine-translated and lightly edited). But of course, if you’re a native speaker of yet another language, such as English, you’re still cordially invited to have a peek. Be welcome!

By the way, I’m delighted to say that the book has been very successful in the first three weeks of its life. Loads of media attention, extremely positive response from potential readers and even an official bestseller listing – my first ever in the Netherlands. There was even a great blogpost in English about it, written by my Portuguese language friend Marco Neves.