{ "item_title" : "Vendergood Without Tears", "item_author" : [" Stéphane Bonlevent "], "item_description" : "Learn the secret language of a boy geniusAround 1905, a seven-year-old boy wrote the Book of Vendergood, the grammar of a language he had just invented. His name was William James Sidis. He would enter Harvard at eleven, lecture its mathematicians on the fourth dimension, and spend the rest of his life running away from fame.His language is full of surprises. It counts in dozens, because that is how things are sold. Its articles change shape with gender. Its verbs have eight moods, one of which Sidis made up entirely: the strongeable, the mood of obligation.The manuscript was never published. Of all Vendergood, we have five sentences, the numbers from 1 to 13 and a list of moods. It is not much. It is quite enough to play with.A whole language, rebuilt piece by pieceThis book starts from those fragments and rebuilds the whole language from Latin, Greek and German, the way Sidis did. Every form carries an icon: attested, hypothesis or extrapolated. You always know what came from the boy genius and what was invented for your benefit.Spelling and pronunciation, tongue-twisters includedThree genders, four cases, five declensions, no exceptionsCounting in base 12, from eis (1) to megros (1,728)Six tenses, the passive voice and Sidis's eight moodsQuestions, negation, subordinate and relative clausesA vocabulary of about 250 words, and the rules for building moreSix levels of exercises with answers, from single words to continuous textsTwo glossaries, Vendergood-English and English-VendergoodDescartes, Shakespeare and a stiff upper lipAlong the way, Tips boxes turn famous lines into Vendergood.I think, therefore I am becomes Cogiteuo, ergo esseuo.To be or not to be becomes Essere aut nec essere.Keep calm and carry on becomes Mane tranquillos et perge The book closes with Aesop's The Fox and the Crow, translated in full, cheese and all.Vendergood was invented by an American. This manual was written by a Frenchman. It has been given a British sense of humour anyway, on the grounds that a language nobody speaks deserves a sense of humour nobody else can export.Who is it for?For lovers of languages, the mathematically curious, lapsed Latin scholars, and anyone who has ever dreamt of inventing a language of their own. And a fine present for the friend who thinks they have read everything.Salve, and enjoy the journey ", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/79/816/154/9798161549940_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "12.99", "online_price" : "12.99", "our_price" : "12.99", "club_price" : "12.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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