Book picks similar to
The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe by Tomasz Kamusella
politics
reference
language
slavic-literatures-and-histories
Language and Politics
Noam Chomsky - 1988
Many of the pieces have never appeared in any other collection, some have never appeared in English, and more than one has been suppressed. This expanded edition contains fifty pages of brand new interviews.The interviews add a personal dimension to the full breadth of Chomsky’s impressive written canon—equally covering his analysis in linguistics, philosophy, and politics. This updated, annotated, fully indexed new edition contains an extensive bibliography, as well as an intro-duction by editor Carlos Otero on the relationship between Chomsky’s language and politics.Praise for previous edition:"For those who know [Chomsky] only as media analyst and critic of foreign policy, this wide-ranging book offers glimpses of his studies on language, anarchist theory, and critiques of radical politics."—NACLANoam Chomsky is a renowned scholar, the founder of the modern science of linguistics, a philosopher, a poli-tical and social analyst, a media critic, and author of more than one hundred books. Recipient of numerous prizes and awards, Chomsky ranks with Marx, Shakespeare and the Bible as one of the ten most quoted sources in the -humanities. His previous works include the best selling 9-11, and the critically acclaimed AK Audio Collection.Carlos Otero, who also edited Radical Priorities by Noam Chomsky, teaches linguistics at the University of California at Los Angeles.
The English Language: A Historical Introduction
Charles Laurence Barber - 1993
The main theoretical and technical concepts of historical linguistics are also explained. Charles Barber uses familiar texts, including the English of King Alfred, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Addison, to illustrate the state of the English language through time. This is a fascinating book for anyone with an interest in language.
Grammar Girl's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know
Mignon Fogarty - 2011
Now she's turning her attention to improving our vocabulary—one word at a time—with Grammar Girl's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know.Not sure whether your post-high school vocabulary is up to snuff? This handy reference guide is a great starting point for ensuring you know the words that will help you impress your college professors, hold your own among your peers, write killer papers, and simply sound articulate—a skill that will benefit you for years to come.Full of clear, straightforward definitions and fun quotations from luminaries such as J.D. Salinger and Susan B. Anthony, to characters such as Marge and Homer Simpson, this highly-useable guidebook gives you the confidence to succeed and sets you up for a lifetime of success.
The Story of Us
Tim Urban - 2019
I’m Tim. I’m a single cell in society’s body. U.S. society, to be specific.So let me explain why we’re here.As a writer and a generally thinky person, I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about the society I live in, and societies in general. I’ve always imagined society as a kind of giant human—a living organism like each of us, only much bigger.When you’re a single cell in the body of a giant, it’s hard to understand what the giant’s doing, or why it is the way it is, because you can’t really zoom out and look at the whole thing all at once. But we do our best.The thing is, when I’ve recently tried to imagine what society might look like, I haven’t really been picturing this:Giant stick figure: "I am grown up."Based on what I see around me, in person and online, it seems like my society is actually more like this:Giant stick figure throwing a giant tantrum because their chocolate ice cream fell on the ground.Individual humans grow older as they age—but it kind of seems like the giant human I live in has been getting more childish each year that goes by.So I decided to write a blog post about this. But then something else happened.When I told people I was planning to write a post about society, and the way people are acting, and the way the media is acting, and the way the government is acting, and the way everyone else is acting, people kept saying the same thing to me.Don’t do it. Don’t touch it. Write about something else. Anything else. It’s just not worth it.They were right. With so many non-controversial topics to write about, why take on something so loaded and risk alienating a ton of readers? I listened to people’s warnings, and I thought about moving on to something else, but then I was like, “Wait what? I live inside a giant and the giant is having a six-year-old meltdown in the grocery store candy section and that’s a not-okay thing for me to talk about?”It hit me that what I really needed to write about was that—about why it’s perilous to write about society."
Going Nucular: Language, Politics and Culture in Confrontational Times
Geoffrey Nunberg - 2004
The words that echo through Geoffrey Nunberg's brilliant new journey across the landscape of American language evoke exactly the tenor of our times. Nunberg has a wonderful ear for the new, the comic and the absurd. He pronounces that: 'Blog' is a syllable whose time has come, and that You don't get to be a verb unless you're doing something right, with which he launches into the effect of Google on our collective consciousness. Nunberg hears the shifting use of Gallic as we suddenly find ourselves in bitter opposition to the French; perhaps only Nunberg could compare America the Beautiful with a Syrian national anthem that contains the line A land resplendent with brilliant sunsalmost like a sky centipede.At the heart of the entertainment and linguistic slapstick that Nunberg delights in are the core concerns that have occupied American minds. President's expense. Nunberg's analysis is as succinct a summary of the questions that hover over the administration's strategy as any political insider's. It exemplifies the message of the book: that in the smallest ticks and cues of language the most important issue and thoughts of our times can be heard and understood. If you know how to listen for them. Nunberg has dazzling receptors, perfect acoustics and a deftly elegant style to relay his wit and wisdom.
Dying Words: Endangered Languages and What They Have to Tell Us
Nicholas D. Evans - 2009
Written by one of the leading figures in language documentation, this fascinating book explores what humanity stands to lose as a result.This book explores the unique philosophy, knowledge, and cultural assumptions of languages, and their impact on our collective intellectual heritage questions why such linguistic diversity exists in the first place, and how can we can best respond to the challenge of recording and documenting these fragile oral traditions while they are still with us.It is written by one of the leading figures in language documentation, and draws on a wealth of vivid examples from his own field experience Brings conceptual issues vividly to life by weaving in portraits of individual 'last speakers' and anecdotes about linguists and their discoveries.
Congress-Mukt Bharat
Amit Bagaria - 2021
For the first 92 years, the 135-year-old party was headed by a Nehru-Gandhi family member for only 11 years, even though Nehru and Indira were collectively the PM of India for 28 years. Then things changed. Indira was the party president for seven consecutive years, and succeeded by her son Rajiv Gandhi for six years. After Rajiv’s assassination in 1991, PV Narasimha Rao was party president for five years. Sitaram Kesri was the next Congress president for 18 months. Enter Sonia Gandhi. Barring a 20-month period when her son Rahul held the post, she has been Congress president for 23 years. During her ‘reign’, the party has seen an average 31.6% decline in vote share and a 50.2% reduction in seats in the Lok Sabha. Due to her not allowing a proper election for the post of party president — as was the norm for the first 92 years — the Congress is collapsing. Ever since the Modi-led NDA routed the party in 2014, several Congressmen have been complaining about “lack of effective leadership.” Narendra Modi. Whether you admire him or belittle him, adore him or chastise him, praise him or ridicule him, love him or hate him, no Indian can pretend to ignore the man. Since September 2013, he has been the biggest newsmaker in India . On 15th August 2020, Modi became the longest-serving non-Congress PM of India. The first three chapters of this easy-to-read book are about Congress party’s corruption. The next three analyse the 2019 elections in great detail. Then, there is a chapter about the Left Front and one on the Congress’ performance in each state since Sonia became the chief. The next eight chapters are about Modi, his successes, his failures, and the work he has done in 80 months. The longest chapter, divided into 14 sections, details the successes and failures of India’s 14 prime ministers. “Is Congress Becoming Anti-India” and “Congress-Mukt Bharat” are the final two chapters. The Appendix lays out ‘Agenda 2024’ for India.
The Story of Writing
Andrew Robinson - 1995
They may wonder how, when and where did writing evolve? Do alphabets function better than hieroglyphs? And are we today, in the computer age, moving towards a universal language of signs and symbols?
The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War
Yagyu Munenori
The work of Yagyῡ Munenori from 1632 concerns martial arts and military science. It is translated by Thomas Cleary and can be found tucked behind Miyamoto Musashi‘s “the Book of five rings” from 1643. Both these texts analyse conflict between two men armed with swords and scale this up bigger battles. These important treaties on swordsmanship, and have been taken as giving lessons on life in general.
Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here
Aakar Patel - 2020
What led to this swing? Is it possible to trace the path to this point? Is there a way back to the just, secular, inclusive vision of our Constitution-makers?This country has long been an outlier in its South Asian neighbourhood, with its inclusive Constitution and functioning democracy. The growth of Hindutva, in some sense, brings India in line with the other polities here. In Our Hindu Rashtra, writer and activist Aakar Patel peels back layer after layer of cause and effect through independent India’s history to understand how Hindutva came to gain such a hold on the country. He examines what it means for India that its laws and judiciary have been permeated by prejudice and bigotry, what the breach of fundamental rights portends in these circumstances, and what the all-round institutional collapse signifies for the future of Indians.Most importantly, Patel asks and answers that most important of questions: what possibilities exist for a return? Thought-provoking and pulling no punches, this book is an essential read for anyone who wishes to understand the nature of politics in India and, indeed, South Asia.
Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language
Esther Schor - 2015
The result was Esperanto, a utopian scheme full of the brilliance, craziness, and grandiosity that characterize all such messianic visions.In this first full history of a constructed language, poet and scholar Esther Schor traces the life of Esperanto. She follows the path from its invention by Zamenhof, through its turn-of-the-century golden age as the great hope of embattled cosmopolites, to its suppression by nationalist regimes and its resurgence as a bridge across the Cold War. She plunges into the mechanics of creating a language from scratch, one based on rational systems that would be easy to learn, politically neutral, and allow all to speak to all. Rooted in the dark soil of Europe, Esperanto failed to stem the continent's bloodletting, of course, but as Schor shows, the ideal continues draw a following of modern universalists dedicated to its visionary goal.Rich and subtle, Bridge of Words is at once a biography of an idea, an original history of Europe, and a spirited exploration of the only language charged with saving the world from itself.
Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases - Super 2011 Edition (With Active Table of Contents)
Peter Mark Roget - 2011
By a hierarchy of classes and sections containing individual "meaning clusters" or semantically linked words.2. By alphabetized A-Z index.Most Thesaurus Kindle Edition ebooks DO NOT have this active table of contents built in. Roget's Thesaurus is perfect for anyone. Whether you use it for school, work, or home, you will find this handy Thesaurus a treasure to have.Get your Roget's Thesaurus Today!
Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics
Jenny Thomas - 1995
The book includes a detailed examination of the development of Pragmatics as a discipline, drawing attention to problems encountered in earlier work, and brings the reader up to date with recent discussion in the field. The book is written principally for students with no previous knowledge of pragmatics, and the basic concepts are covered in considerable detail. Theoretical and more complicated information is highlighted with examples that have been drawn from the media, fiction and real-life interaction, and makes the study more accessible to newcomers. It is an ideal introductory textbook for students of linguistics and for all who are interested in analysing problems in communication.
Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang
Max Décharné - 2000
It's great for decoding your favorite pulp fiction or noir classic.
Don't Lie to Me: And Stop Trying to Steal Our Freedom
Jeanine Pirro - 2020
She is now forced to ask: How could anyone vote against President Trump this November? What more could you possibly want?In Don't Lie to Me, Judge Jeanine brings her signature writing style and acute legal mind to topics such as the impeachment inquiry, the military, and the road to the 2020 presidential election. She will highlight President Trump's triumphs and his strength during the coronavirus crisis.