In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language


Arika Okrent - 2009
    And every Star Trek fan knows about Klingon, which was nothing more than a television show's attempt to create a tough-sounding language befitting a warrior race with ridged foreheads. But few people have heard of Babm, Blissymbolics, and the nearly nine hundred other invented languages that represent the hard work, high hopes, and full-blown delusions of so many misguided souls over the centuries. In In The Land of Invented Languages, author Arika Okrent tells the fascinating and highly entertaining history of man's enduring quest to build a better language. Peopled with charming eccentrics and exasperating megalomaniacs, the land of invented languages is a place where you can recite the Lord's Prayer in John Wilkins's Philosophical Language, say your wedding vows in Loglan, and read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Lojban. A truly original new addition to the booming category of language books, In The Land of Invented Languages will be a must-have on the shelves of all word freaks, grammar geeks, and plain old language lovers.

Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word


Walter J. Ong - 1982
    Ong offers fascinating insights into oral genres across the globe and through time, and examines the rise of abstract philosophical and scientific thinking. He considers the impact of orality-literacy studies not only on literary criticism and theory but on our very understanding of what it is to be a human being, conscious of self and other.This is a book no reader, writer or speaker should be without.

Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World


Benny Lewis - 2014
    Lewis is a full-time "language hacker," someone who devotes all of his time to finding better, faster, and more efficient ways to learn languages. Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World is a new blueprint for fast language learning. Lewis argues that you don't need a great memory or "the language gene" to learn a language quickly, and debunks a number of long-held beliefs, such as adults not being as good of language learners as children.

Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts


Andrew Robinson - 2002
    Many, it seems likely, will never be deciphered ..."--Sir Arthur C. Clarke, C.B.E.A landmark study of the world's most important undeciphered writing systems and the current race to crack themMaybe it's the tantalizing possibility of giving new voice to long-hushed peoples and civilizations. Perhaps it's the puzzle solver's delight in the mental challenges posed by breaking their codes. Whatever the reasons, the public has long been fascinated with undeciphered ancient scripts and the ongoing efforts to crack them. In "Lost Languages, Andrew Robinson reports from the front lines of the global efforts now under way to crack the Meroitic hieroglyphs of ancient Nubia, the Etruscan alphabet, the Indus Valley Sealstones, the Zapotec script--the earliest in the Americas--and five other major "lost languages." An enthralling story of genius, passion, and competition, "Lost Languages provides a revealing look at how decipherment is done. In what is truly an archaeological mystery book, the author examines each script in detail and reviews what is known about the people who created it, while weaving in the intriguing cast of characters currently competing for the glory of cracking these ancient codes.

Rokda: How Baniyas Do Business


Nikhil Inamdar - 2014
    Over the decades, these capitalists spread their footprint across vast sectors of the economy from steel and mining to telecom and retail. And now even e-tail. Nikhil Inamdar’s Rokda features the stories of a few pioneering men from this mercantile community—Radheshyam Agarwal and Radheshyam Goenka, founders of the cosmetic major Emami; Rohit Bansal, co-founder of Snapdeal; Neeraj Gupta, founder of Meru Cabs; and V.K. Bansal, a humble mathematics tutor whose genius spawned a massive coaching industry in Kota—amongst others. Through the triumphs and tribulations of these men in the epoch marking India’s entire post independence struggle with entrepreneurship—from the License Raj to the opening up of the floodgates in 1991, and the dawn of the digital era—Rokda seeks to uncover the indomitable spirit of the Baniya.

Here Speeching American: A Very Strange Guide to English as it is Garbled Around the World


Ross Petras - 2004
    And if that’s too much to ask, remember the sage advice from the staff of a Taipei hotel: “If there is anything we can do to assist and help you, please do not contact us.”

Every Word Is a Bird We Teach to Sing: Encounters with the Mysteries and Meanings of Language


Daniel Tammet - 2017
    He chats with chatbots; contrives an "e"-less essay on lipograms; studies the grammar of the telephone; contemplates the significance of disappearing dialects; and corresponds with native Esperanto speakers - in their mother tongue.Every Word Is a Bird We Teach to Sing explores the way communication shapes reality.

Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar


Joseph Henry Allen - 1975
    The key system widely used to reference grammar in numerous Latin texts has been retained. Available also in hardcover.

Spanish For Beginners: A practical guide to learn the basics of Spanish in 10 days! (FREE GIFT inside) (Learn Spanish, Spanish, Learn, Language, Communication Skills)


Manuel De Cortes - 2014
    If You Don't Have Kindle You Can Still Read This Book On Your Web Browser using Amazon Free Cloud Reader This book contains proven steps and strategies on how to communicate using the basics of the Spanish language. Divided into 10 chapters (one chapter per day), this book is designed to provide a step by step learning guide on Spanish grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Plus, it features a series of useful common everyday expressions. This book is written in a conversational style that’s easy to follow and understand. After reading this book, you’ll never have to say “No hablo Español” ever again! Here Is A Preview Of What You'll Learn After Downloading Spanish For Beginners The Spanish Alphabet (El Alfabeto Español) Saludos y Expresiones (Greetings & Expressions) Basic Vocabulary Spanish Plurals Gender Capitalization Artículos (Articles) Pronombres (Pronouns) El Verbos (Verbs) Adjetivos españoles (Spanish Adjectives) Much, much more! Take Action Right Away and START your journey with Spanish! Download your copy today for just $2.99!

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen


Mary Norris - 2015
    Now she brings her vast experience, good cheer, and finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice.Between You & Me features Norris's laugh-out-loud descriptions of some of the most common and vexing problems in spelling, punctuation, and usage—comma faults, danglers, "who" vs. "whom," "that" vs. "which," compound words, gender-neutral language—and her clear explanations of how to handle them. Down-to-earth and always open-minded, she draws on examples from Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and the Lord's Prayer, as well as from The Honeymooners, The Simpsons, David Foster Wallace, and Gillian Flynn. She takes us to see a copy of Noah Webster's groundbreaking Blue-Back Speller, on a quest to find out who put the hyphen in Moby-Dick, on a pilgrimage to the world's only pencil-sharpener museum, and inside the hallowed halls of The New Yorker and her work with such celebrated writers as Pauline Kael, Philip Roth, and George Saunders.Readers—and writers—will find in Norris neither a scold nor a softie but a wise and witty new friend in love with language and alive to the glories of its use in America, even in the age of autocorrect and spell-check. As Norris writes, "The dictionary is a wonderful thing, but you can't let it push you around."

Armored Thunderbolt: The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II


Steven J. Zaloga - 2008
    George Patton, believed that the Sherman helped win World War II. So which was it: death trap or war winner? Armor expert Steven Zaloga answers that question by recounting the Sherman's combat history. Focusing on Northwest Europe (but also including a chapter on the Pacific), Zaloga follows the Sherman into action on D-Day, among the Normandy hedgerows, during Patton's race across France, in the great tank battle at Arracourt in September 1944, at the Battle of the Bulge, across the Rhine, and in the Ruhr pocket in 1945.

The Anarchist's Workbench


Christopher Schwarz - 2020
    

Confabulations


John Berger - 2016
    and this creature's home is the inarticulate as well as the articulate.’ John Berger's work has revolutionized the way we understand visual language. In this new book he writes about language itself, and how it relates to thought, art, song, storytelling and political discourse today. Also containing Berger's own drawings, notes, memories and reflections on everything from Albert Camus to global capitalism, Confabulations takes us to what is ‘true, essential and urgent’.

An Introduction to Functional Grammar


M.A.K. Halliday - 1985
    They give greater emphasis to the systemic perspective, in which grammaticalization is understoodin the context of an overall model of language. Their description of grammar is grounded in a comprehensive theory, but it is a theory which evolves in the process of being applied.

Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature


Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o - 1981
    The Language of African Literature2. The Language of African Theatre3. The Language of African Fiction4. The Quest for RelevanceIndex