The Miraculous Birth of Language by Richard A. Wilson, 1st ed.

The Miraculous Birth of Language, Richard A. Wilson. Preface by George Bernard Shaw. Philosophical Library, New York. First edition, 1948. Near fine hardcover with very good dustjacket. Dustjacket has small chips and tears. Faux leather cover. Clean, unmarked pages.

In a footnote in chapter 2 of Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda writes about the ideal construction of Sanskrit with its 50 letters, each one with a unique pronunciation. George Bernard Shaw’s preface to The Miraculous Birth of Language promotes a change in the English alphabet to include 42 letters that would solve the problem of mispronuncation. Sri Yogananda states: “Such an alphabet would approximate the phonetic perfection of the Sanskrit.”