If you stumble when you need to talk to someone in a language that isn’t your native language, do you think: “I just don’t have the knack for languages” or “Maybe I am not cut out to learn another ...

A novel by Jack Vance pre-empts, to some extent, the language-shapes-mindset view of Caleb Everett in his book A Myriad of Tongues. Vance’s The Languages of Pao tells the story of the placid people of ...