The author travels to hidden corners, island nations, and large cities digging into what's going on politically and culturally with languages spoken by relatively small groups of people. I loved learning about some completely different ways of viewing time or personal relationships in, say, Mohawk or Tayal; discovering that in Boro a single verb, "gagrom," means "to search for a thing below the water by trampling" while "mokhrob" means "to express anger by a sidelong glance." Abley found languages where there are virtually no nouns, languages where "you" is the first person, rather than "I."

I would have enjoyed more exploration of African and South American languages, but loved bringing various tidbits of delightful information to the dinner table conversation each night.

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