What do you think?
Rate this book
Le lingue impossibili
Un biologo potrebbe definire impossibile un animale che contraddicesse le leggi fisiche della natura (l’entropia, per esempio, o la gravità). Esistono leggi simili in grado di condizionare le lingue? In questo libro, Andrea Moro, autorevole linguista e neuroscienziato, esplora la possibilità delle lingue impossibili, alla ricerca dell’“impronta digitale” del linguaggio umano.
L’autore ci conduce oltre i confini di Babele, attraverso l’insieme di proprietà che, al di là delle apparenze, tutte le lingue condividono, e indaga le fonti dell’ordine, facendo riferimento a esperimenti che egli stesso ha contribuito a progettare. Descrive il cervello come un setaccio e ascolta il suono del pensiero attraverso la registrazione dell’attività elettrica encefalica. Parole e frasi, ci dice, sono come sinfonie e costellazioni: non hanno contenuto proprio; esistono perché le ascoltiamo e le guardiamo. Siamo parte dei dati.
Biografia dell'autore
Andrea Moro è professore di Linguistica generale presso la Scuola universitaria superiore (IUSS) di Pavia, dove ha fondato il centro di ricerca in Neuroscienze, epistemologia e sintassi teorica. Tra le sue pubblicazioni, Breve storia del verbo essere (Adelphi 2010) e Parlo dunque sono (Adelphi 2012).
L’autore ci conduce oltre i confini di Babele, attraverso l’insieme di proprietà che, al di là delle apparenze, tutte le lingue condividono, e indaga le fonti dell’ordine, facendo riferimento a esperimenti che egli stesso ha contribuito a progettare. Descrive il cervello come un setaccio e ascolta il suono del pensiero attraverso la registrazione dell’attività elettrica encefalica. Parole e frasi, ci dice, sono come sinfonie e costellazioni: non hanno contenuto proprio; esistono perché le ascoltiamo e le guardiamo. Siamo parte dei dati.
Biografia dell'autore
Andrea Moro è professore di Linguistica generale presso la Scuola universitaria superiore (IUSS) di Pavia, dove ha fondato il centro di ricerca in Neuroscienze, epistemologia e sintassi teorica. Tra le sue pubblicazioni, Breve storia del verbo essere (Adelphi 2010) e Parlo dunque sono (Adelphi 2012).
140 pages, Paperback
First published September 2, 2016
20 people are currently reading
335 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 29, 2018
Every linguist should read Moro. Especially those linguists who proudly crow "I hate syntax!" or "Syntax is dumb". Moro makes it clear here the questions of syntax are questions about possible and impossible languages, and ultimately questions about being human. As with The Boundaries of Babel. The Brain and the Enigma of Impossible Languages, you're not going to get a laundry list of "here are the impossible languages". Rather, he manages in 150-pages to discuss how to think about the concept of "what are possible and impossible languages". Which are not a trivial questions at all.
Moro shows how philosophers and philosophic thinkers have addressed questions of languages throughout the centuries—he cites Emil du Bois-Reymond, Descartes, Juan Caramuel y Lobkowits, Leibniz, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, and discusses Aristotle and Plato. Moro is a true interdisciplinary scholar: drawing deeply on neurobiology and linguistics, rather than just independently dipping into those separate fields, he's able to actually make something of that interaction, analogizing from brain studies to language studies and vice versa, and showing how he places his research at the meeting between the two disciplines. The main value is here for linguists: most of the material about a potentially genetically encoded grammar is well-known to linguists, but Moro talks about the difficulties and strategies used in neurobiology, and how fMRIs and subtraction work. He's the guy to go to for questions like "is there a language center of the brain?" and if you're bugged at "why don't we at this point have the technology or methods to see syntax in the brain?"
His main points are mostly repeated from The Boundaries of Babel. The Brain and the Enigma of Impossible Languages (and plugs for Dynamic Antisymmetry), but this is a much slimmer volume with more popular appeal. I'd recommend this to any friend interested in learning about linguistics, or grad students from other departments, although I'd say it's a step up in difficulty from your typical trade non-fiction. Whereas Boundaries of Babel is more rigorous and really more suited for linguists or neurobiologists in particular looking to learn about the other field. Moro is quickly becoming my favorite linguist qua writer, he definitely has a gift for beautiful but also rigorous language. It's written with poetic analogies throughout, and it always seems like he wants to actually write a novel, but has to rein in his creative writing because it's serious non-fiction (Turns out he did actually just release his first novel in Italy, Il segreto di Pietramala).
Moro shows how philosophers and philosophic thinkers have addressed questions of languages throughout the centuries—he cites Emil du Bois-Reymond, Descartes, Juan Caramuel y Lobkowits, Leibniz, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, and discusses Aristotle and Plato. Moro is a true interdisciplinary scholar: drawing deeply on neurobiology and linguistics, rather than just independently dipping into those separate fields, he's able to actually make something of that interaction, analogizing from brain studies to language studies and vice versa, and showing how he places his research at the meeting between the two disciplines. The main value is here for linguists: most of the material about a potentially genetically encoded grammar is well-known to linguists, but Moro talks about the difficulties and strategies used in neurobiology, and how fMRIs and subtraction work. He's the guy to go to for questions like "is there a language center of the brain?" and if you're bugged at "why don't we at this point have the technology or methods to see syntax in the brain?"
His main points are mostly repeated from The Boundaries of Babel. The Brain and the Enigma of Impossible Languages (and plugs for Dynamic Antisymmetry), but this is a much slimmer volume with more popular appeal. I'd recommend this to any friend interested in learning about linguistics, or grad students from other departments, although I'd say it's a step up in difficulty from your typical trade non-fiction. Whereas Boundaries of Babel is more rigorous and really more suited for linguists or neurobiologists in particular looking to learn about the other field. Moro is quickly becoming my favorite linguist qua writer, he definitely has a gift for beautiful but also rigorous language. It's written with poetic analogies throughout, and it always seems like he wants to actually write a novel, but has to rein in his creative writing because it's serious non-fiction (Turns out he did actually just release his first novel in Italy, Il segreto di Pietramala).
Read
November 7, 2021More short books like this please! This is an elegant discourse on big-picture questions about syntax and the nature of human language that at times could be the kind of thing a character in a Neal Stephenson novel could be monologuing about: parallels between human language, math, music, and speculating about the underlying material of internal and external languages being *waves* (electric and acoustic), plus light-touch summaries of some pretty wild sounding neurolinguistic experiments, including "awake surgery" experiments where participants were asked to read, aloud and silently, sentences while they were undergoing open-skull brain surgery.
September 19, 2021
My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.
February 16, 2022
Al lettore non arriva chiara la collocazione di queste pagine: si tratta di un saggio tecnico o di un testo per un primo approccio alla materia? Moro oscilla tra i due estremi, e sebbene affermi di aver condensato il più possibile i riferimenti bibliografici onde non appesantire la lettura, riporta titoli specialistici che non servono di certo al lettore "che vuole farsi un'idea". Tra questi, forse una parte eccessiva sono suoi lavori, ciò che farebbe pensare più a un compendio del Moro pensiero che a un approccio generale alla materia.
Nei primi capitoli, quelli ricchi di frasi esemplificative, il testo soffre di una traduzione traballante, che avrebbe dovuto avere miglior cura visto che inglese e italiano molto distano rispetto a diverse tematiche affrontate nel libro.
Il fil rouge de _Le lingue impossibili_ non è in definitiva molto chiaro, ed è giusto sollevato da qualche passaggio più curioso. A suo pregio, lascia la curiosità di approfondire alcuni degli aspetti trattati con altre letture, non per forza quelle suggerite da Moro (chissà perché).
Nei primi capitoli, quelli ricchi di frasi esemplificative, il testo soffre di una traduzione traballante, che avrebbe dovuto avere miglior cura visto che inglese e italiano molto distano rispetto a diverse tematiche affrontate nel libro.
Il fil rouge de _Le lingue impossibili_ non è in definitiva molto chiaro, ed è giusto sollevato da qualche passaggio più curioso. A suo pregio, lascia la curiosità di approfondire alcuni degli aspetti trattati con altre letture, non per forza quelle suggerite da Moro (chissà perché).
August 19, 2024
Andrea Moro's Impossible Languages takes you into the uncharted territories of linguistic theory and cognitive science. He challenges readers to explore the boundaries of human language by posing an intriguing question: are there languages that are impossible for the human brain to comprehend or produce?
March 2, 2021
A fantastic book on both how languages are created and both decipered and a perfect companion book to 'Alien Languages' also released by MIT press. Real science and not some History channel kookery....
February 24, 2023
Molto interessante, difficile e a tratti difficilissimo per chi come me, non conosce la linguistica e nemmeno di cosa si occupa. Ora lo so e devo dire che la parte sugli esperimenti mi é piaciuta piú di tutte.
May 25, 2019
Interesting book!
October 5, 2020
un libro che chiude in bellezza
ben scritto, i concetti poi sono esposti nella maniera più chiara possibile grazie all’utilizzo di un linguaggio molto curato
ben scritto, i concetti poi sono esposti nella maniera più chiara possibile grazie all’utilizzo di un linguaggio molto curato
July 30, 2025
DNF
Extremely dry and academic, with a massive number of citations. Obviously meant for other researchers rather than curious laypeople.
Extremely dry and academic, with a massive number of citations. Obviously meant for other researchers rather than curious laypeople.
February 3, 2026
Moro has succeeded in writing a wonderful book that elaborates on some of the fundamental questions we strive to answer in the tradition of generative linguistics. He was less successful at making it the most accessible. I would definitely recommend this to students of linguistics who have some background on syntactic theory, without which you might have trouble following. A great reminder of why we study linguistics.
January 16, 2025
I can’t find the words
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews