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Words have bones

Words have bones. Basic Manual of Endolinguistics. Alejandro Toledo Martínez, 2026.

Cover: Words have bones. A stone letter a, cut open, shows a bone structure inside. A handwritten note asks: what holds a word together?
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Your words are much older than you are. Strip away the flesh —the vowels— and keep the bone —the consonants— and you discover that father and Spanish padre are the same word with another accent, that the silent h of Spanish hijo used to be an f, and that much and mucho are near-twins without being relatives, a mystery endolinguistics takes seriously. This manual teaches you to look this way, and to use that way of looking to learn Spanish, French, German, Italian or Portuguese.

Start

  1. Before You Begin

Part I · Looking Inside

  1. 1Your Words Are Very Old
  2. 2Bone and Flesh
  3. 3Seven Regions of the Mouth
  4. 4The Code

Part II · Using It to Learn Languages

  1. 5Relatives on the Road
  2. 6The Rules of the Road
  3. 7Pocket Maps
  4. 8The Method, Step by Step
  5. 9When There Are No Relatives

Part III · The Music of the Voice

  1. 10Bone, Color, and Music
  2. 11From Thought to Sound

Part IV · Thinking Carefully

  1. 12The Mirage
  2. 13What We Don't Know Yet

Closing

  1. To the Reader

Appendices

  1. Appendix A. Quick Reference
  2. Appendix B. Solutions
  3. Appendix C. Glossary
  4. Appendix D. Going Further