Is Math a language?

Orlin, Ben.  Math for English Majors: A Human Take on the Universal Language.  New York: Black 

        Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2024. 

So, when you think of mathematics, do you come up with images of a dry subject that you were forced to study in school, but no longer remember much of the content?  Or do you think of mathematics as the elegant description of everything?  Maybe you are somewhere in between these polar opposites.   But no matter where you fall on this sliding scale, Ben Orlin wants you to think of math as more than a game of "meaningless marks on paper" (David  Hilbert).  

Ben Orlin lays out his premise in the introduction and then dives the reader into it.  He discusses the syntax of Algebra, looking at numbers and treating numbers as nouns in that syntax.  After he has gone through symbols, equations, graphs, errors, and rules, he takes a break and provides a phrase book - A Local's Guide to  Mathematical Vocabulary.  Orlin then drags the reader into the actions of mathematics - what he calls the Verbs.  Verbs for Orlin include the standards - addition, subtraction, multiplication, division plus squaring/cubing, exponents, logic and proofs, infinity and a host of others.  Orlin finishes off the book with famous names and mathematical folklore followed by citations and where a reader could learn more.

If the reader is looking at a different approach to mathematics, Ben Orlin's Math for English Majors will aid in that quest.He accompanies the text with bad drawings (he has written another book called Math with Bad Drawings) to illustrate his points.  Give it a try and maybe you will retain more math knowledge then when you started!