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The Power of Babel

The Power of Babel

by JohnMcWhorter (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2002

    $3.40
Synopsis

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.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 336
 Edition: First Edition
 Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
Published: 07 Mar 2002
ISBN 10: 0434007897
ISBN 13: 9780434007899
Book Overview: John McWhorter is Associate Professor of Linguistics at UC Berkeley. He has also written a book on black English called The Word on the Streets .

Media Reviews
There are some 6,000 human languages. But 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.
Author Bio
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.