Frederick Bodmer (1894–1960)

This is too awesome not to own. I guess this is the text that set Sun Ra on his whole freaky language trip? Anyways it's not the kind of book I can't read cover to cover but even a partial reading gives you a much better and more holistic sense of how language works.

One of the 'Primers for the Age of Plenty'.

Somewhat dry but necessary if one is interested in learning mulitple languages as well as history of languages.

Just over a half-century old, this introduction to language and languages is still worthwhile.