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Charlie_C's picture

A Recommendation

Submitted by Charlie_C on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 12:34pm.

Our conversation in class about the sound of words versus their meaning got me thinking about one of my favourite short plays: "The Universal Language" by David Ives. In it, a student attempts to learn the "universal language," Unamunda, by someone who only speaks it. I mean, it's only a warped version of English, but watching the play, you start off with this character who only speaks in weird sounds and phrases you don't understand, yet at the end, come to understand them completely. At one point, all of the dialogue is solely in Unamunda, yet an audience member retains a good understanding of what's going on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DJzIUuJmOs This is someone's production of it, that they put up on Youtube. It's much more effective to watch it than to read it, because the author includes translations of the lines. Otherwise, it's in All in the Timing by David Ives.

It's also hilarious. :)

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