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This book is a plea for the study of psychological factors in the evolution of language, an approach which seems badly neglected by linguists. Language is fashioned by the needs and aspirations of men. Words and phrases keep up a constant struggle for existence. The author is particularly interested in glossodynamics, i.e. the psychology of language from a motivational angle, either on the level of sound or of meaning or of grammar, and believes that there is room for a 'metaglottology'. Some of Freud's observations concerning language are used as illustrations. In a chapter entitled 'Destiny in Names' he deals with what psycho-analysts have called 'the determining power of the name', and demonstrates the ways in which repression obscures the original sexual origin of words and phrases. Certain linguistic formations owe their existence to oral regression where the underlying libidinal tendencies had been most repressed by spiritual injunction. The author believes that language affords a deep insight into the minds of its creators and he attempts to demonstrate the ways in which national mentality is reflected in language. An interesting chapter deals with the development of slang and its emphasis on sexual factors. The author is critical of attempts made by some psycho-analysts to use linguistics to bolster up psycho-analytic propositions, but he believes that psycho-analysis may throw light on taboo words, on the rôle of repression in the disappearance of words, on euphemisms and certain metaphors. The struggle between words reflects conflicts in the unconscious. This book is of considerable interest to the psycho-analyst, who is frequently faced with linguistic problems. To the student of language it opens up a new and fundamental approach.