Empires Of The Word: A Language History Of The World - Rilegato

Ostler, Nicholas

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0066210860 ISBN 13: 9780066210865

Casa editrice: HarperCollins, 2005

Riassunto

An offbeat natural history of language takes readers from the educational and cultural innovators of Sumeria, to the resilience of Chinese, to the global spread of English, in a volume that offers linguistic perspectives on numerous past and present civilizations. 20,000 first printing.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

“[A] wide-ranging history of the world’s languages... [Ostler] brilliantly raises questions and supplies answers or theories.” (Washington Post)

“Enlightening . . . Always challenging, always instructive--at times, even startling or revolutionary.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Delicious! Ostler’s book shows how certain lucky languages joined humankind in its spread across the world.” (John McWhorter)

“What an extraordinary odyssey the author of this superb work embarked upon.” (Literary Review)

“Covers more rambunctious territory than any other single volume I’m aware of...A wonderful ear for the project’s poetry.” (John Leonard, Harper's Magazine)

“Revolutionary... Executed with a giddying depth of scholarship, yet the detail is never too thick to swamp the general reader.” (Boston magazine)

“True scholarship. A marvelous book, learned and instructive.” (National Review)

“[A] monumental new book... Ostler furnishes many fresh insights, useful historical anecdotes and charming linguistic oddities.” (Chicago Tribune)

“A work of immense erudition.” (Christian Science Monitor)

“A story of dramatic reversals and puzzling paradoxes. A rich... text with many piercing observations and startling comparisons.” (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

L'autore:

A scholar with a working knowledge of twenty-six languages, Nicholas Ostler has degrees from Oxford University in Greek, Latin, philosophy, and economics, and a Ph.D. in linguistics from MIT, where he studied under Noam Chomsky. He lives in Bath, England.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: HarperCollins
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0066210860
• ISBN 13: 9780066210865
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 615