Book picks similar to
The mother tongue by Lancelot Hogben
history
linguistics
english
languages
Dirty Chinese: Everyday Slang from "What's Up?" to "F*%# Off!"
Brenden O'Kane - 2008
Qù tama, zánmen chuqù feng ba. •Who farted? Shéi fàng de pì?•Wanna try doggy-style? Yàobù zánliar shìshì gou cào shì?•Son of a bitch!Gouniángyang de!•I’m getting smashed. Wo ganjué heduo le.•I can’t eat this shit! Wo chi bù xià qù!
Egyptian Language: Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics
E.A. Wallis Budge - 1899
Budge gives the history of hieroglyphic writing, its evolution into hieratic and demotic scripts, and the fascinating tale of its decipherment by Young, Champollion, Åkerblad, and others.
A History of Modern Psychology
C. James Goodwin - 1998
They will also develop a deeper understanding of the many interconnections that exist among the different areas of psychology. Goodwin's book not only provides accounts of the lives and contributions of psychology's pioneers set into historical context; it also contains original writings by these psychologists, interwoven with informative comments from the author. The text is written in a conversational and engaging style with discrete attention to recent scholarship in the history of psychology, especially that of the past 150 years.
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World
Nicholas Ostler - 2005
From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating failures of once "universal" languages. A splendid, authoritative, and remarkable work, it demonstrates how the language history of the world eloquently reveals the real character of our planet's diverse peoples and prepares us for a linguistic future full of surprises.
Language and the Internet
David Crystal - 2001
E-mail, instant messaging and chat are rapidly replacing conventional forms of correspondence, and the Web has become the first port of call for both information enquiry and leisure activity. How is this affecting language? There is a widespread view that as 'technospeak' comes to rule, standards will be lost. In this book, David Crystal argues the reverse: that the Internet has encouraged a dramatic expansion in the variety and creativity of language. Covering a range of Internet genres, including e-mail, chat, and the Web, this is a revealing account of how the Internet is radically changing the way we use language. This second edition has been thoroughly updated to account for more recent phenomena, with a brand new chapter on blogging and instant messaging. Engaging and accessible, it will continue to fascinate anyone who has ever used the Internet.
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics
Zhivko - 2018
Enough Said: What's Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics?
Mark John Thompson - 2016
Public anger is rising and faith in conventional political leaders and parties is falling. Anti-politics, and the anti-politicians, have arrived. In Enough Said, President and CEO of The New York Times Company Mark Thompson argues that one of most of significant causes of the crisis is the way our public language has changed.Enough Said tells the story of how we got from the language of FDR and Churchill to that of Donald Trump. It forensically examines the public language we’ve been left with: compressed, immediate, sometimes brilliantly impactful, but robbed of most of its explanatory power. It studies the rhetoric of western leaders from Reagan and Thatcher to Burlesconi, Blair and today’s political elites on both sides of the Atlantic. And it charts how a changing public language has interacted with real world events – Iraq, the financial crash, immigration – and a mutual breakdown of trust between politicians and journalists, to leave ordinary citizens suspicious, bitter and increasingly unwilling to believe anybody. Drawing from classical as well as contemporary examples, and ranging across politics, business, science, technology and the arts, Enough Said is a smart and shrewd look at the erosion of language, by an author uniquely placed to measure its consequences.
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!
Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction
Andrew Robinson - 2009
But when did this essential part of our lives begin? Why do we all write differently and how did writing evolve into what we use today? All of these questions are answered in this Very Short Introduction. Andrew Robinson tells the fascinating story of the history of writing, shedding light on its development and examining the enormous variety of writing and scripts we use today. Starting with the origins of writing five thousand years ago, with cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, Robinson explains how these early forms developed into hundreds of scripts, including the Roman alphabet and Chinese characters. He reveals how the modern writing symbols and abbreviations we take for granted today--including airport signage and text messaging--resemble ancient ones much more closely than we might think. The book also includes a chronology of events from 3300 BC to AD 2000, a list of titles for further reading, and an index.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue
Merritt Ruhlen - 1994
The author of this book argues that there is proof to argue that all languages now spoken on earth are descendents of a single ancestral language.
Biggest Secrets
William Poundstone - 1993
Fields Cookies... What backward messages on records are really trying to tell you... Frank Sinatra's real age... Why you can't counterfeit a lottery ticket... Barbra Streisand's blue movie... The other Boy Scout rituals... Ingmar Bergman's soap commercials... The formula for Play-Doh... and more.
A Time To Advance: Understanding the Significance of the Hebrew
Chuck D. Pierce - 2011
As you identify your tribe and divinely align in time with God's calendar, you will discover how to find your position in God's Kingdom, how to war effectively for your inheritance, and then walk in His blessings.A Time to Advance: Understanding the Significance of the Hebrew Tribes and Months will help you understand how God is developing His whole conquering army for today. You will also understand how each part moves together, and the redemptive quality of God's covenant plan for Israel. This will help ground you on how we are grafted into a movement in days ahead.As you learn how to think like God thinks and study the Hebrew tribes and months, you will receive prophetic understanding of how the Lord orders your steps throughout the year. You will also see your place in God's next Triumphant Reserve that is rising in the Earth today!
Trip of the Tongue: Cross-Country Travels in Search of America's Languages
Elizabeth Little - 2012
While much ado has been made about the role that Spanish may play in our national future, it would be a gross misrepresentation to label America a bilingual country. On the contrary, our languages are as varied as our origins. There is Basque in Nevada, Arabic in Detroit, Gullah in South Carolina. We speak European, Asian, and American Indian languages; we speak creoles, jargons, and pidgins. As a resident of Queens-among the most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse places on the planet-Elizabeth Little first began to wonder how this host of tongues had shaped the American experience. It was only a matter of time before she decided to take her questions on the road.
In Trip of the Tongue, Little explores our nation's many cultures and languages in search of what they say about who we are individually, socially, and politically. This book is both a celebration of American multiculturalism and a reflection on what we value, what we fight for, and what we allow ourselves to forget. Elizabeth Little is a witty and endearing tour guide for this memorable and original trip.
Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth About Language
David Shariatmadari - 2019
Linguists can now explain how and why language changes, describe its structures, and map its activity in the brain. But despite these advances, much of what people believe about language is based on folklore, instinct, or hearsay. We imagine a word’s origin is it’s “true” meaning, that foreign languages are full of “untranslatable” words, or that grammatical mistakes undermine English. In Don’t Believe A Word, linguist David Shariatmadari takes us on a mind-boggling journey through the science of language, urging us to abandon our prejudices in a bid to uncover the (far more interesting) truth about what we do with words.Exploding nine widely held myths about language while introducing us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics, Shariatmadari is an energetic guide to the beauty and quirkiness of humanity’s greatest achievement.
English Grammar: 100 Tragically Common Mistakes (and How to Correct Them)
Sean Williams - 2019