The History of Languages: An Introduction (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics) - Softcover

Janson, Tore

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199604290 ISBN 13: 9780199604296

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, 2011

Synopsis

This is an introduction to the history of languages, from the distant past to a glimpse at what languages may be like in the distant future. It looks at how languages arise, change, and ultimately vanish, and what lies behind their different destinies. What happens to languages, he argues, has to do with what happens to the people who use them, and what happens to people, individually and collectively, is affected by the languages they speak.

The book opens by examining what the languages are the hunter-gatherers might have spoken and the changes to language that took place when agriculture made settled communities possible. It then looks at the effects of the invention of writing, the formation of empires, the spread of religions, and the recent dominance of world powers, and shows how these relate to great changes in the use of languages. Tore Janson discusses the appearance of new languages, the reasons why some languages spread and others die, considers whether similar cyclical processes are found at different times and places, and examines the causes of internal changes in languages and dialects.

The book ranges widely among the world's languages and mixes thematic chapters on general processes of change with accounts of specific languages, including Chinese, Arabic, Latin, Greek, and English.

About this title

About the Author

Tore Janson was Professor of Oriental and African Languages at the University of Göteborg until his retirement in 2000. He was previously Professor of Latin at the same university and is a world expert on its history. He is the author of the international bestsellers Speak: A Short History of Languages (OUP 2002; paperback 2003) and The Natural History of Latin (OUP 2004, paperback 2005).

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199604290
• ISBN 13: 9780199604296
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280