Disclosure : This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Babel: Around the World in 20 Languages

If you were to master the twenty languages discussed in `Babel`, you could talk with three quarters of the world`s population. But what makes these languages stand out amid the world`s estimated 6,500 tongues?Gaston Dorren delves deep into the linguistic oddities and extraordinary stories of these diverse lingua francas, tracing their origins and their sometimes bloody rise to greatness. He deciphers their bewildering array of scripts, presents the gems and gaps in their vocabularies and charts their coinages and loans. He even explains how their grammars order their speakers` worldview. Combining linguistics and cultural history, `Babel` takes us on an intriguing tour of the world, addressing such questions as how tiny Portugal spawned a major world language and Holland didn`t, why Japanese women talk differently from men, what it means for Russian to be `related` to English, and how non-alphabetic scripts, such as those of India and China, do the same job as our 26 letters. Not to mention the conundrums of why Vietnamese has four forms for `I`, or how Tamil pronouns keep humans and deities apart.`Babel` will change the way you look at the world and how we all speak.

Related Products:

Concise Compendium of the World`s Languages The Languages of the World The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language Hello World: A Celebration of Languages and Curiosities Animal Languages: The Secret Conversations of the Living World My French Sticker Atlas: Discover the languages of the world My Spanish Sticker Atlas: Discover the languages of the world Default ThumbnailThe Atlas of Unusual Languages: An Exploration of Language, People and Geography A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages Languages Are Good For Us The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast: Learn Any Language in as Little as a Week! The Study Of Animal Languages: A Novel Spoken Here – Travels Among Threatened Languages How to Speak Any Language Fluently: Fun, Stimulating and Effective Methods to Help Anyone Learn Languages Faster Arm of the Sphinx: Book Two of the Books of Babel Japanese Whisky: The Ultimate Guide to the World`s Most Desirable Spirit with Tasting Notes from Japan`s Leading Whisky Blogger A Certain je ne Sais Quoi: Words We Pinched from Other Languages The Hod King: Book Three of the Books of Babel Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020 Directory of World Cinema: Russia In Other Words: Weird and Wonderful Words from Around the World The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai A Brief History of the Crusades: Islam and Christianity in the Struggle for World Supremacy Pop-Up World of Animals Japanese Stories for Language Learners: Bilingual Stories in Japanese and English Eve in Overalls: Women at Work in the Second World War Lift-the-Flap Questions and Answers About Our World The Art of Language We Do Things Differently: The Outsiders Rebooting Our World Odessa Stories An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin`s Master Agent May We Borrow Your Language?: How English Steals Words from All Over the World When China Rules the World Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World Activity Book Japanese a Language Map We Need to Talk About Putin: Why the West gets him wrong, and how to get him right Dent`s Modern Tribes: The Secret Languages of Britain Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits 101 Small Ways to Change the World