There are more than 7,000 languages in the world. Hundreds of millions of people study foreign languages, tens of thousands teach them, and thousands develop translation apps — yet misunderstandings caused by language barriers still arise every day. For centuries, linguists, philosophers, mathematicians, and simply curious enthusiasts have been trying to invent a universal language — one that all of humanity could understand with ease. Is this possible? Linguist Boris Iomdin will speak about these attempts and invite the audience to decipher texts written in such languages, in order to test whether they really can be understood without any prior preparation.