The Power Of Babel by John Mcwhorter

The Power Of Babel by John Mcwhorter

In this work, the author shares his expertise as a linguist to introduce us to Russonorsk, a creole of Russian and Norwegian once spoken by trading fur trappers in the summer, the ways in which Yiddish, a dialect of German, has been influenced by the grammar of Polish and a dialect of an Australian aboriginal language which only has three verbs. Along the way we learn how English absorbed French at two stages of its history, giving us Norman French warranty and the standard French guarantee, while Japanese has been infused with Chinese vocabulary at four distinct periods, and that Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are best regarded as three dialects of Scandinavian.

There are some 6,000 human languagesBut how and why are there so many? How do languages evolve over time - and is there some original or ur-language from which they all developed? Is language fundamentally encoded in us when we are born, or completely learned? These and many other related questions are investigated in this intriguing book. McWhorter is an American Professor of Linguistics and speaks many languages. But he wears his learning lightly and wittily, and has managed to make this book both accessible and authoritative. He's especially good at teasing out how English and French are shot through with fragments of other tongues, and reflective of their only partially buried pasts.

John McWhorter is Associate Professor of Linguistics at UC Berkeley. He is the author of a book about black English The Word on the Streets.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780434007899
ISBN 10	0434007897
Title	The Power Of Babel
Author	John Mcwhorter
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Cornerstone
Year published	2002-03-07
Number of pages	336
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable