This is a short piece describing some lost/little-known, made-up civilizations and their languages which an unnamed scholar comes upon and discusses with their friend over dinner. The theme of this story is very similar to Jorge Luis Borges’s short story Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (although this is not mentioned anywhere). Nothing happens in this game; it is just a description of different concepts of language. One civilization employs actions as the means of describing things: for example a road is a ‘crosser’, or a ‘walker’, while another civilization employs qualities: for example, a book is ‘readable’ or ‘bound’, etc. After a while, the descriptions start going in a loop and there is no obvious way to proceed. Maybe the goal is just to explore what different languages and language theories and views these unknown civilizations developed, and to see the practical examples. The tone here is very scholarly, with made-up cultures, dictionaries and encyclopedias, and it is appealing in a way to a language-minded reader. But, as mentioned, it does owe a lot to the above-mentioned Borges story and goes nowhere after a while (at least I couldn’t figure a way out). But the author has taken a lot of trouble to come up with the various theories and approaches, so there is some merit to it, even if it is very short (15 minutes or less, like the blurb advises). It is a safe “adventure” in the theoretical realm of ancient civilizations and languages. If it only had proceeded somewhere (or if it does, had the way to proceed been more obvious), it could maybe have made me score it a bit higher.
6