Lingo

Why the Spanish speak so fast, the Dutch are gender-benders and it's hard to add up in Breton.

Dorren has such a light touch and a brilliantly roving eye that every page is to be savoured, like a local delicacy. His book is a wonderful celebration of cultural as well as linguistic diversity.

Through sixty compelling stories about European linguistics, it tells us an impressive amount about Europe ... An entertaining, accessible guide.

Dorren's tour of the continent is a richly diverting exercise. He has something interesting to point out about nearly every topic ... brilliant.

The depth and breadth of Dorren's understanding and knowledge are awesome.

A new approach to understanding the world ... ideal for any cunning linguist.

Gaston Dorren offers an excellent overview of Europe's languages ... It's very enlightening, and very well done

Joyful ... Lingo is that rare thing: a book about language the manages to be both genuinely interesting and enormous fun. Particularly impressive is Dorren's ability to flip with ease from jokes and surprising facts to the discussion of complex linguistic ideas ... For the sadly monoglot, Lingo is a wake-up call: a book that brims with joy at linguistic variety and invention, and reminds us what he - and we - are missing

Full of charm and pleasing detail ... [an] amusing tour of Europe's linguistic landscape

I love this book. It's witty and informative, with a wealth of engaging comments on all things language-related on our continent ... highly amusing ... the book's mine of information, make[s] this a great seasonal stocking filler - whether you're a lingophile or not.

This year's sleeper Christmas hit ... an amiable and entertaining examination of European languages in all their idiosyncratic glory.

Full of odd linguistic facts ... fascinating

I can't praise it enough. If you ever wanted to know how exactly Finnish and Hungarian are related and how Turkish fits in, it is clearly explained here in two to three pages. And so is everything else you ever wanted to learn about European languages but were afraid to ask. Brilliant, witty, excellent!

Gaston Dorren has written two Dutch books on language and contributes regularly to Onze Taal, a popular linguistics magazine. A true polyglot, Gaston speaks Dutch, Limburgish, English, German and Spanish, and reads French, Afrikaans, Frisian, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Luxembourgish and Esperanto.