BOOK REVIEW 161 differing areas of conceptual richness of their languages. These may be privileged for a variety of socio-historical reasons in different cultures. Similarly, it is the status of language users that is reflected in the pre-eminence, or lack of it, acquired by their languages. The present work emphasises, by a gentle but clearly humbling display/the essential linguistic equality of languages by showing, not merely the origins of magic in the ancient use of linguistic symbolisms to acquire control over the elements, events and persons, but also the extent of linguistic mystique and superstition that still holds in dominant areas of contemporary linguistic usage. The use of suggestive alliteration, the ritualistic recitation of words and phrases, the prohibition of taboo-words and the shock value of the transgression of such taboos, all prominent features of cults incorporating^ belief in the supernatural powers of language, have continued well into modem times. The continuities are encountered not only in the traditional areas of religious belief and ritual (e.g. the formal incantation of prayers), or of persistent social practices (e.g. the prohibition denying a wife the right to address or refer to her husband by name, which reflects both the fear of misfortune that may befall him, as well as the wife's subsidiary social status), or even superstitions (e.g. the chances of another ocean liner being called Titanic* are not just slim; a degree of perversity may be attributed in such an eventuality). In the totally modern fields, of advertising, as also of urban graffiti, the genre of these distinctive forms of language not only continues to grow but also to exercise a powerful social influence. Theoretically too, the idea that language brings order and control finds an echo in the principle of linguistic determinism advocated in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that drew wide support in the middle decades of this century. According to Whorf, "the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of impressions which has to be organised by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up and organise it in concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organise it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is of course an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory^ we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organisation and classification of data which the agreement decrees." Although the absolute linguistic relativism that was an accompanying principle could not hold out against successful attempts at mutual comprehension through translation between supposedly 'conceptually unique* languages, a weaker version of the thesis is generally accepted. The encyclopedia, organised in 11 parts, and comprising 65 thematic sections, has the merit of being a fresh venture in terms of treatment