Dark Tongues: The Art of Rogues and Riddlers
Human beings seem to have an innate impulse to “break and scatter” language, to alter their native idioms in order to conceal, bewilder and dissimulate. In his fascinatingDark Tongues—which might be construed as either a highly episodic history or a collection of case studies ranging across eras and cultures—Heller-Roazen investigates this tendency, paying particular attention to those instances when secret language becomes intertwined, if not interchangeable, with poetry.  —Elizabeth Schambelan