What Language Is
What Language Is

Author: John McWhorter

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2013-02-12

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1101644451

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New York Times bestselling author and renowned linguist, John McWhorter, explores the complicated and fascinating world of languages. From Standard English to Black English; obscure tongues only spoken by a few thousand people in the world to the big ones like Mandarin - What Language Is celebrates the history and curiosities of languages around the world and smashes our assumptions about "correct" grammar. An eye-opening tour for all language lovers, What Language Is offers a fascinating new perspective on the way humans communicate. From vanishing languages spoken by a few hundred people to major tongues like Chinese, with copious revelations about the hodgepodge nature of English, John McWhorter shows readers how to see and hear languages as a linguist does. Packed with Big Ideas about language alongside wonderful trivia, What Language Is explains how languages across the globe (the Queen's English and Surinam creoles alike) originate, evolve, multiply, and divide. Raising provocative questions about what qualifies as a language (so-called slang does have structured grammar), McWhorter also takes readers on a marvelous journey through time and place-from Persian to the languages of Sri Lanka- to deliver a feast of facts about the wonders of human linguistic expression.

Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica

Author: Hugh Chisholm

Publisher:

Published: 1910

Total Pages: 1090

ISBN-13:

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This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

The Loom of Language
The Loom of Language

Author: Frederick Bodmer

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 724

ISBN-13: 9780393300345

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Here is an informative introduction to language: its origins in the past, its growth through history, and its present use for communication between peoples. It is at the same time a history of language, a guide to foreign tongues, and a method for learning them. It shows, through basic vocabularies, family resemblances of languages -- Teutonic, Romance, Greek -- helpful tricks of translation, key combinations of roots and phonetic patterns. It presents by common-sense methods the most helpful approach to the mastery of many languages; it condenses vocabulary to a minimum of essential words; it simplifies grammar in an entirely new way; and it teaches a language as it is actually used in everyday life.

What Is Your Language?
What Is Your Language?

Author: Debra Leventhal

Publisher: Putnam Juvenile

Published: 1998-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780140563153

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Emphasizes that many different languages are spoken in different parts of the world, giving examples from French and German to Arabic and Spanish.

The Truth about Language
The Truth about Language

Author: Michael C. Corballis

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-03-29

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 022628719X

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Background to the problem -- The Rubicon -- Language as miracle -- Language and natural selection -- The mental prerequisites -- Thinking without language -- Mind reading -- Stories -- Constructing language -- Hands on to language -- Finding voice -- How language is structured -- Over the Rubicon

Why Language?
Why Language?

Author: Jacques Moeschler

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-08-23

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 3110723387

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There is, at present, no book introducing the general issue of why language is specific to human beings, how it works, why language is not communication and communication is not language, why languages vary and how they evolved. Based on the most recent works in linguistics and pragmatics, Why Language? addresses many questions that everyone has about language. Starting from false claims about language and languages, showing that language is not communication and communication is not language, the first part (Language and Communication) ends by proposing a difference between linguistic rules and communicative principles. The second part (Language, Society, Discourse) includes domains of language and language uses which are generally taken as extrinsic to language, such as language variety, discourse and non-ordinary (literary) usages. Special attention is given to figures of discourse (metaphor, metonymy, irony) and literary usages such as narration and free indirect style. The reader, either specialist or amateur in language science, will find a first and unique synthesis about what we know today about language and what we have yet to learn, sketching what could be the future of linguistics in the next decades.

Say You're One of Them
Say You're One of Them

Author: Uwem Akpan

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2008-06-09

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 0316032522

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An Oprah's Book Club selection: this "electrifying" book (Washington Post) pays tribute to the wisdom and resilience of children even in the face of the most agonizing circumstances. Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord. In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa. Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent. One of the best books of the year: Wall Street Journal, People, Bloomberg News, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post Book World, and Entertainment Weekly

Dialect
Dialect

Author: Hakan Seyalioglu

Publisher:

Published: 2018-07

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780999870013

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The Five Love Languages
The Five Love Languages

Author: Gary Chapman

Publisher: Moody Publishers

Published: 2009-12-17

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1575678853

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Marriage should be based on love, right? But does it seem as though you and your spouse are speaking two different languages? #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Gary Chapman guides couples in identifying, understanding, and speaking their spouse's primary love language-quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch. By learning the five love languages, you and your spouse will discover your unique love languages and learn practical steps in truly loving each other. Chapters are categorized by love language for easy reference, and each one ends with simple steps to express a specific language to your spouse and guide your marriage in the right direction. A newly designed love languages assessment will help you understand and strengthen your relationship. You can build a lasting, loving marriage together. Gary Chapman hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio program called A Love Language Minute that can be heard on more than 150 radio stations as well as the weekly syndicated program Building Relationships with Gary Chapman, which can both be heard on fivelovelanguages.com. The Five Love Languages is a consistent New York Times bestseller - with over 5 million copies sold and translated into 38 languages. This book is a sales phenomenon, with each year outselling the prior for 16 years running!

The Way of the Linguist
The Way of the Linguist

Author: Steve Kaufmann

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2005-11

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 1420873296

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The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey. It is now a cliché that the world is a smaller place. We think nothing of jumping on a plane to travel to another country or continent. The most exotic locations are now destinations for mass tourism. Small business people are dealing across frontiers and language barriers like never before. The Internet brings different languages and cultures to our finger-tips. English, the hybrid language of an island at the western extremity of Europe seems to have an unrivalled position as an international medium of communication. But historically periods of cultural and economic domination have never lasted forever. Do we not lose something by relying on the wide spread use of English rather than discovering other languages and cultures? As citizens of this shrunken world, would we not be better off if we were able to speak a few languages other than our own? The answer is obviously yes. Certainly Steve Kaufmann thinks so, and in his busy life as a diplomat and businessman he managed to learn to speak nine languages fluently and observe first hand some of the dominant cultures of Europe and Asia. Why do not more people do the same? In his book The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey, Steve offers some answers. Steve feels anyone can learn a language if they want to. He points out some of the obstacles that hold people back. Drawing on his adventures in Europe and Asia, as a student and businessman, he describes the rewards that come from knowing languages. He relates his evolution as a language learner, abroad and back in his native Canada and explains the kind of attitude that will enable others to achieve second language fluency. Many people have taken on the challenge of language learning but have been frustrated by their lack of success. This book offers detailed advice on the kind of study practices that will achieve language breakthroughs. Steve has developed a language learning system available online at: www.thelinguist.com.