Category: Livres anglais et trangers,Reference,Words & Language

Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World Details

Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world's great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating failures of once "universal" languages. A splendid, authoritative, and remarkable work, it demonstrates how the language history of the world eloquently reveals the real character of our planet's diverse peoples and prepares us for a linguistic future full of surprises.

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Reviews

This is a very interesting approach to the study of languages - their histories as connected to the peoples who spoke them and, as a natural consequence, these peoples cultures and cultural impact on other people. Mr. Ostler prose could maybe be more elegant, but the book will not fail to fascinate anyone who loves languages and their magic.

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