Empires of the Word

Empires of the Word
Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
Total Pages : 644
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780066210865
ISBN-13 : 0066210860
Rating : 4/5 (860 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Empires of the Word by : Nicholas Ostler

Download or read book Empires of the Word written by Nicholas Ostler and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2005-06-28 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the world in the last five thousand years is above all the story of its languages. Some shared language is what binds any community together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. Yet the history of the world's great languages has been very little told. Empires of the Word, by the wide-ranging linguist Nicholas Ostler, is the first to bring together the tales in all their glorious variety: the amazing innovations in education, culture, and diplomacy devised by speakers of Sumerian and its successors in the Middle East, right up to the Arabic of the present day; the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions; the charmed progress of Sanskrit from north India to Java and Japan; the engaging self-regard of Greek; the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe; and the global spread of English. Besides these epic ahievements, language failures are equally fascinating: Why did German get left behind? Why did Egyptian, which had survived foreign takeovers for three millennia, succumb to Mohammed's Arabic? Why is Dutch unknown in modern Indonesia, though the Netherlands had ruled the East Indies for as long as the British ruled India? As this book splendidly and authoritatively reveals, the language history of the world shows eloquently the real character of peoples; and, for all the recent tehnical mastery of English, nothing guarantees our language's long-term preeminence. The language future, like the language past, will be full of surprises.


Empires of the Word Related Books

Empires of the Word
Language: en
Pages: 644
Authors: Nicholas Ostler
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2005-06-28 - Publisher: Harper Collins

GET EBOOK

The story of the world in the last five thousand years is above all the story of its languages. Some shared language is what binds any community together and ma
The Language of Empire
Language: en
Pages: 233
Authors: John Richardson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-12-18 - Publisher: Cambridge University Press

GET EBOOK

This book seeks to discover what the Romans themselves thought about their empire by examining the changing meaning of key terms.
English and Empire
Language: en
Pages: 371
Authors: David West Brown
Categories: Language Arts & Disciplines
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-10-18 - Publisher: Cambridge University Press

GET EBOOK

Combining statistical modelling and archival study, English and Empire investigates how African diasporic, Chinese, and Indian characters have been voiced in Br
The Language of Empire
Language: en
Pages: 298
Authors: Robert H. MacDonald
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 1994 - Publisher: Manchester University Press

GET EBOOK

The debate about the Empire dealt in idealism and morality, and both sides employed the language of feeling, and frequently argued their case in dramatic terms.
Speak Not
Language: en
Pages: 370
Authors: James Griffiths
Categories: Language Arts & Disciplines
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-10-21 - Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

GET EBOOK

A New Yorker Best Book of 2022 A Globe & Mail Book of the Year "A stimulating work on the politics of language." LA Review of Books As globalisation continues l