"The basic assumption of academia and religious leaders from recorded antiquity down to the present day is that language forms the foundation of human thought and societal interaction, and is what fundamentally distinguishes homo sapiens from the other species. The Lure Of The Linguistic: Speculations On The Origin Of Language In German Romanticism by academician and translator Shelley Frisch is a seminal and groundbreaking study focusing an impressive scholarship addressing how Romantic speculations on the origin of language blended eighteenth-century European mystical and Enlightenment musings about language to produce lyrical and compelling depictions of its origins and development. The first work of substantive scholarship to bring together divers strands of mystical and Enlightenment speculations on language, The Lure Of The Linguistic descriptive showcases the unique manner in which eighteenth-century thought has shaped our modern twenty-first century understanding of language. No academic library's Linguistic Studies collection can be considered either comprehensive or complete without the inclusion of Shelley Frisch The Lure Of The Linguistic!"—Midwest Book Review