About Linguality

Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist, once famously remarked that reading a work of literature in translation is like making love through a blanket. (Of course, since only a scandalously small percentage of literary translation worldwide is from other languages into English, that assumes you can actually find a translation of the book you want to read!)

While we tip our hats to translators who make some of the world's great literature available to us, Linguality is excited to be able to offer anglophone readers the opportunity to enjoy outstanding foreign books in the original language by providing extensive parallel English glossaries. Nothing is lost in translation: all the word play, the neologisms, the colorful idiomatic expressions remain intact. Moreover, readers gain a sense of accomplishment that can rekindle or encourage an interest in language study.

Founded in January 2007, Linguality is a group of talented publishing professionals in the U.S. and Europe with a passion for languages and great books. As a team, we share a vision of making wonderful foreign literature accessible to anyone who’s spent a year or two in the trenches learning grammar, verb tenses, and basic vocabulary.

The Linguality Theory

All languages have a core lexicon—those words and expressions that are used most frequenty to communicate. Prepositions, conjunctions, and common verbs all make the list, as do perhaps two-to-three thousand nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. Those language building blocks comprise 70-80 percent of the words one encounters in just about any conversation or non-technical text. If the remaining less-common words are defined, voilà!, those with a command of the core lexicon have "access to meaning."  No complete translation necessary—or desirable.