The Unfolding of Language - Hardcover

Guy, Deutscher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 043401155X ISBN 13: 9780434011551

Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd, 2005

Synopsis

Blending the spirit of Bill Bryson' s Mother Tongue with the science of Steven Pinker' s The Language Instinct, The Unfolding of Language is a remarkably original inquiry into the development of that most essential - and mysterious - of human creations: language. ' Language is mankind' s greatest invention - except of course, that it was never invented.' So begins linguist Guy Deutscher' s enthralling investigation into the evolution of language. No one believes that the Roman Senate sat down one day to design the complex system that is Latin grammar, and few believe, these days, in the literal truth of the story of the Tower of Babel . But then how did there come to be so many languages, and of such elaborate design? If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of ' man throw spear' , how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced shades of meaning? Drawing on recent, groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human communication, giving us fresh insight into how language is formed, evolves, and decays. He traces the emergence of linguistic complexity from an early evolutionary ' Me Tarzan' stage to the astonishing power of languages today, with their capacity to express even the subtlest thoughts and ideas. Arguing that destruction and creation in language are intimately entwined, Deutscher shows how these processes are continuously in operation, generating new words, new structures, and new meanings. From the written records of lost civilizations to the spoken idiom of today' s streets, we move nimbly from ancient Babylonian through medieval French to the English of the present. We marvel at the staggering triumph of design that is the Semitic verb, puzzle over single words that can express highly elaborate sentiments, such as the Turkish sehirlilestiremediklerimizdensiniz (' you are one of those whom we couldn' t turn into a town-dweller' ), and learn how great changes of pronunciation may result from simple laziness. Through the dramatic story of The Unfolding of Language, we discover the genius behind a uniquely human faculty.

About this title

About the Author

Born in Israel in 1971, Guy Deutscher read Maths at Cambridge before doing a PhD in linguistics. He teaches at the University of Leiden in Holland.

From the Inside Flap

How do languages evolve? Why does language always change and does it decline or does it progress? What accounts for its extraordinary complexity? In The Unfolding of Language, Guy Deutscher responds to the big questions with big answers, along the way solving such mysteries as

* Why German maidens are neuter while German turnips are female
* How Islam, Muslim, and Solomon are all variations on the same Semitic root, s-l-m ("be at peace")
* How the design of Sumerian (the language spoken 5,000 years ago by the people who kick-started history) is so sophisticated that even a gap in the middle of a word can convey specific information
* Why we have feet and not foots
* Why the Turks seem to be talking back to front
* How the French came to say "on the day of on the day of this day" when they mean "today"
* Why most of the world s languages don t have a verb for "have" and how one goes about expressing the notion of possession without it
* How words manage to accomplish a complete U-turn in their meaning over a relatively short time like the word "resent," which, in the seventeenth century, meant "appreciate" or "feel grateful for"
* Why human intuition as evidenced by all human languages discovered the connection between space and time thousands of years before Einstein

Edition details

• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 043401155X
• ISBN 13: 9780434011551
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368