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The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language
Download Ebook The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language
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About the Author
John McWhorter, associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of The Word on the Street. He lives in Oakland, California.
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Product details
Paperback: 350 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Softcover Edition edition (January 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 006052085X
ISBN-13: 978-0060520854
Product Dimensions:
5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.1 out of 5 stars
105 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#58,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The book presents an explanation of a very fascinating topic: how human languages change over time. When you consider that French, Spanish and Italian all started as dialects of the same language, you know something interesting underlies language evolution. The book is thorough, interesting and requires no prior knowledge of linguistics.While I enjoyed the book, I have two negative issues: first, the book is repetitive, repetitive, repetitive. The same points over and over again when it just wasn't necessary because the concepts are not that difficult. In addition, some of the examples used to were too detailed and too lengthy for the book's intended audience.The second thing that I found a little annoying about the book is that it is filled with footnotes and asides that I'm sure the author meant to be entertaining, but they frequently came across as glib and self serving. It was as if the author was imitating David Foster Wallace - but the author is not David Foster Wallace.All in all, it's a good book and worth reading, but if you stop reading after chapter 4 (about half way) you won't miss much.
This book by John McWhorter, whom I met a few weeks ago at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, is not only an erudite look at language, but is full of insights and is funny to boot. The book, labeled a natural history of language, discusses how all languages come from a shared root language, how those languages branched into the many languages we know today, and how languages come to die. Sprinkled throughout are anecdotes, normally in footnote form that not only serve to illustrate the point Prof. McWhorter is trying to make, but also lighten up the reading. It's a fantastic read for anyone interested in language and the human experience.
Another great book by my favorite writer on linguistics and race relations. Not quite as good as Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, it is nevertheless typical McWhorter - fast moving, clear, well developed and insightful. There is an embarrassment of riches here, but I would say among the main themes are how languages develop and change, that all languages are really dialects, the differences between pidgins and creoles and in the epilogue, that we cannot trace back to the original language through linguistic reconstructions.To steal a word from Homer which has little changed in meaning (and which I think the author would appreciate) - kudos!
My first exposure to John McWhorter was in the Great Courses DVD lecture series he does on Linguistics, called The Story of Human Language, and it was absolutely fascinating, although his voice is more than a bit oversoothing and can easily put you to sleep, and only his lively and expressive personality counters that effect.This book seems to me to be very much the book form of that lecture series, and for that it is definitely worth the purchase. McWhorter's writing style is very informal and conversational when it needs to be, and very analytical and formal when it also needs to be. He does not disappoint with this or any of his other books.
I had to buy this book for a class. It primarily for uses on information regarding the usage and development of language. I did not find it to be a particularly entertaining read, but if linguistics are an area of personal interest for you, the author's style is pleasant and he provides some novel information. It was helpful for my class and was easy to navigate to find the indentation that I needed for various assignments.
Yes, I've really done that. All I needed was a discussion with a fellow community band musician over whether "in excelsis deo" should be pronounced in church Latin or classical Latin, which then led to whether Russian is a dialect of Ukranian or Ukranian is a dialect of Russian (can you tell we are working on music for the Christmas season?) and I realized that here was a person who thinks language is as much fun as I do. So I grabbed his lapels and told him he had to go get this book.I've recommended it to any number of other people as well. Here's the sorts of people who would like this book: people who have ever tried to learn a foreign language and gotten distracted by cognates, people who not only know what cognates are but go looking for them for fun, people who deliberately try to read the liner notes in their CDs in one of the foreign languages and then check back with the English version to see how far off you were; people who debate whether Shakespeare is early modern English or modern English; people whose idea of a good time is playing word games; people who have ever participated in the User Friendly message boards translating the day's strip into ever-more outlandish languages...Have you ever read any of the "Asterix" comic strips? Would you like to see how Asterix looks in three different dialects of German?This book is not as downright serious as some, nor as deeply footnoted as a truly academic book would be. For that, you'd want to read "Empire of the Word" by Nicholas Ostler. It's much more thorough, and more academic, and dryer, and has far less humor. On the other hand, if you want to have FUN reading about language, "The Power of Babel" is the right book. Some other reviewers have referred to the book's "cheesy humor" or other lack of seriousness. I consider that a GOOD thing; this is a book that a person can sit and read, and enjoy, and share bits out loud with someone else in the room, rather than requiring the reader to squint and take notes and study. If it's wrong to appreciate books written for a popular audience rather than a scholarly one, then I don't wanna be right.One warning: after you read this book, you will have trouble falling asleep for a while because thoughts about the vast connectedness of everything will keep you awake, jumping from topic to topic and word to word. Also, you will annoy many of your friends by repeatedly announcing that "there are no languages, only dialects." So far, none of my friends has hit me over the head for this, so the side effects are safe enough to be worth the read.
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