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Peter Jameson's Secret Language
Book by Zaft, Sylvan
152 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 15, 2021
Even though it says I started this book 2 weeks ago, and I did… The vast majority of the book I read during part of this afternoon. I bought this book a few years ago prior to taking a post-beginner Esperanto immersion course. I finally got around to reading it. And for the most part I loved it.
The story is about a young boy named Peter who is a bit of a daydreamer. And one day at a common family restaurant, he notices two men sort of remarking on the appearance of his older sister and laughing. Peter soon realizes they’re speaking another language, one that he doesn’t know and can’t understand. He also notices right away that neither can anyone else, which gives the two the freedom to say whatever they would like to. This immediately sets our young daydreamer on a quest to find a secret language that he can use with his friends the way that he saw the two men being able to talk amongst themselves with near complete privacy and impunity.
He tries to ask several teachers, but unable to find what he’s looking for… Finding out that many languages take years to reach a communicative level (according to the book) The boy encounters a retired anthropology professor who is also a polyglot who then intern introduces him to a woman who knows Esperanto. Looking for something to do that is both gratifying and interesting, the professor decides to teach himself the language sufficiently enough to guide the youngsters on their own language journey.
There is a middle section of the book in which the children meet some resistance from their peers in the school principal, and this is where I thought it was a little weird. I’ve certainly experienced social resistance like that, but not quite to that degree and not all at once the way it seemed in the narrative, so the transition from a story about curiously learning a language to all of a sudden being persecuted solely on the basis of the language being used felt a little too fast. That being said, I think the book does a very good job of dealing with some difficult aspects of being different.
One section that I particularly enjoyed it was the resolution between one of the antagonizes and the main boy from the group of Esperanto learners. Both of them had begun learning the language together, and one of the two begins to distance himself from the group and take on his fathers hateful attitudes. And toward the end of the book, we find out that the boy’s father had turned abusive and outright malignant. The way the two decided to reconcile their differences was heartwarming to me.
There’s also a section in the book where the main protagonist find himself confronted with an opportunity to speak with a man in Esperanto who does not speak English but who speaks Esperanto, Russian, German, and Lithuanian. The conversation reminded me so much of what I value about having conversations with people that don’t take place in my native tongue, and reminded me why I love language learning so much. If you are even remotely curious about Esperanto, why someone might learn it, or language learning more generally… I think this is quite an inspiring story. One thing I will say though, is that there is a formatting issue with the digital version of the book, some of the characters in Esperanto are displayed incorrectly on the Kindle version of the book. It doesn’t make the book unreadable at all, but it is kind of an annoyance.
The story is about a young boy named Peter who is a bit of a daydreamer. And one day at a common family restaurant, he notices two men sort of remarking on the appearance of his older sister and laughing. Peter soon realizes they’re speaking another language, one that he doesn’t know and can’t understand. He also notices right away that neither can anyone else, which gives the two the freedom to say whatever they would like to. This immediately sets our young daydreamer on a quest to find a secret language that he can use with his friends the way that he saw the two men being able to talk amongst themselves with near complete privacy and impunity.
He tries to ask several teachers, but unable to find what he’s looking for… Finding out that many languages take years to reach a communicative level (according to the book) The boy encounters a retired anthropology professor who is also a polyglot who then intern introduces him to a woman who knows Esperanto. Looking for something to do that is both gratifying and interesting, the professor decides to teach himself the language sufficiently enough to guide the youngsters on their own language journey.
There is a middle section of the book in which the children meet some resistance from their peers in the school principal, and this is where I thought it was a little weird. I’ve certainly experienced social resistance like that, but not quite to that degree and not all at once the way it seemed in the narrative, so the transition from a story about curiously learning a language to all of a sudden being persecuted solely on the basis of the language being used felt a little too fast. That being said, I think the book does a very good job of dealing with some difficult aspects of being different.
One section that I particularly enjoyed it was the resolution between one of the antagonizes and the main boy from the group of Esperanto learners. Both of them had begun learning the language together, and one of the two begins to distance himself from the group and take on his fathers hateful attitudes. And toward the end of the book, we find out that the boy’s father had turned abusive and outright malignant. The way the two decided to reconcile their differences was heartwarming to me.
There’s also a section in the book where the main protagonist find himself confronted with an opportunity to speak with a man in Esperanto who does not speak English but who speaks Esperanto, Russian, German, and Lithuanian. The conversation reminded me so much of what I value about having conversations with people that don’t take place in my native tongue, and reminded me why I love language learning so much. If you are even remotely curious about Esperanto, why someone might learn it, or language learning more generally… I think this is quite an inspiring story. One thing I will say though, is that there is a formatting issue with the digital version of the book, some of the characters in Esperanto are displayed incorrectly on the Kindle version of the book. It doesn’t make the book unreadable at all, but it is kind of an annoyance.
November 15, 2020
This is a great book for a future esperanto learner
I’m currently learning esperanto as an adult. Had I recieved this book as a child I may have learned it then. While there isn’t much esperanto in the book, and the circumstances of how the children learned the language would not be easy to replicate, it’s a nice idea. I read it in one sitting.
I’m currently learning esperanto as an adult. Had I recieved this book as a child I may have learned it then. While there isn’t much esperanto in the book, and the circumstances of how the children learned the language would not be easy to replicate, it’s a nice idea. I read it in one sitting.
January 24, 2016
Sure this book is aimed at kids and is a poorly disguised Esperanto proselytizing tool but I love it. I reread it every couple of years and it never gets old.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews