In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences, and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first def...
Language is the most human invention. Spontaneous, unruly, passionate, and erratic it resists every attempt to discipline or regularize it--a history celebrated here in all its irreverent glory.Language is a wild thing. It is vague and anarchic. St...
Renowned linguistic anthropologist Don Kulick first went to study the tiny jungle village of Gapun in New Guinea over thirty years ago to document how it was that their native language, Tayap, was dying. But you can't study a language without settli...
The English language is spoken by more than a billion people throughout the world. But where did English come from? And how has it evolved into the language used today?
In this Very Short Introduction Simon Horobin investigates how we have arrived ...
Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow spent a decade traveling back and forth to Paris as well as living there. Yet one important lesson never seemed to sink in: how to communicate comfortably with the French, even when you speak their language. In Th...
What does it mean to talk like an American? According to John Russell Bartlett's 1848 Dictionary of Americanisms, it means indulging in outlandish slang—splendiferous, scrumptious, higgeldy piggedly—and free-and-easy word creation—...
Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a "bombshell" linguist and "instant folk hero" (Tom Wolfe, Harper's)...
In the same engaging style and humor that has attracted 4.5 million downloads of the Podictionary podcast, Global Wording traces the development of our language using easily recognizable milestones such as Beowulf, William the Conqueror, Chaucer and...
Talking Back, Talking Black takes us on a fascinating tour of a nuanced and complex language that has moved beyond America's borders to become a dynamic force for today's youth culture around the world.
