There is no such thing as a perfect language.
Linguist and author Arika Okrent will headline the Center for the Humanities Symposium with her keynote presentation, “Babel Rousers: The 900-Year Quest to Build a Better Language,” April 24, 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. in Monsanto Auditorium, Bond Life Sciences Center.
Languages, Okrent explains, must balance between two competing needs: flexibility and stability.
“Languages need to be flexible so we can talk about things that don't exist, ideas that have never been expressed,” she said. “At the same time, they need to be stable enough so they can be passed down from generation to generation and shared within a community. The messiness comes from that tension. A perfect language can’t do both.”
Okrent is the author of “In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius” and “Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don’t Rhyme—And Other Oddities of the English Language.” Her writing has appeared in Mental Floss, The Week, Slate, The Smithsonian, Lapham's Quarterly, and Aeon.
She has a joint PhD in Linguistics and Psychology from the University of Chicago and is fluent in several languages including English, Hungarian, American Sign Language, Klingon, and some Esperanto.
Hosted by the Center for the Humanities, the Humanities Symposium is a part of Show Me Research Week, Mizzou’s annual celebration of student scholarship and creative work. For the Symposium, which takes place on April 23-24 in the Bond Life Sciences Center, students will showcase their expertise with 10-12 minute presentations on their undergraduate research projects.
Center for the Humanities Symposium
Thursday, April 23, 2026
- Student Panel I from 2:00-3:15 p.m. in Bond LSC Rm. 572
- Student Panel II from 3:30-4:45 p.m. in Bond LSC Rm. 572
Friday, April 24, 2026
- Student Panel III from 9:30-10:45 a.m. in Bond LSC Rm. 572
- Keynote Lecture from 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. in Monsanto Auditorium
- Lunch from 12:30-1:45 p.m. in Bond LSC Rm. 572
- Student Panel IV from 2:00-3:15 p.m. in Bond LSC Rm. 572