Product Description

There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today, each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years ago.While laying out how languages mix and mutate over time, linguistics professor John McWhorter reminds us of the variety within the species that speaks them, and argues that, contrary to popular perception, language is not immutable and hidebound, but a living, dynamic entity that adapts itself to an ever-changing human environment.

Full of humor and imaginative insight, The Power of Babel draws its illustrative examples from languages around the world, including pidgins, Creoles, and nonstandard dialects.

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Product Details

Publisher	Harper Perennial
ISBN	006052085X
Features	ISBN13: 9780060520854 Condition: New Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Format	Paperback
Author	John Mcwhorter
EAN	9780060520854
Label	Harper Perennial
Dewey Decimal Number	417.7
Studio	Harper Perennial
Number Of Pages	352
Title	The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language
Release Date	2003-01-07
Publication Date	2003-01
Manufacturer	Harper Perennial

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Customer Reviews

Great book about linguistics

Review by Eli Bendersky, 2010-05-21

John McWhorter is a professor of linguistics at Berkeley, and in this book he tries to shed some light on his fascinating occupation, presenting some aspects of linguistics in a popular and very readable style. The main focus of the book is the evolution of language, which the author tries to parallel to biological evolution. Much of the book discusses how languages change by combining, splitting, simplification and so on, with many examples taken from a multitude of languages - some well known, and some most people have never heard of.

A fascinating topic in linguistics is pidgin and creole languages. Since there are relatively many examples of the formation of such languages in recent history (mainly after the beginning of the European expansion in the 15th century), the topic has been studied well, and the author dedicates many pages to it.

Another thing I found really interesting is the discussion of the relative complexities of languages. Modern languages (especially the European ones) are much simpler than many primitive languages. As the author says (and his examples powerfully demonstrate), some of the world' languages are so complicated that one has to wonder how anyone is able to speak them. One example is a native-American language spoken in the north-western part of the U.S.A. that's so convoluted that children learn to fully speak correctly it with all the nuances only at the age of 10. There are actually reasons for this being so, and they are presented in the book.

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A very good read

Review by manuelfisica, 2010-03-05

Good book.

Some reviewers say it is lengthy and that it wonders a little.

Maybe, but the enthusiasm of the author more than makes up for it.

I have read many popularization books about linguistics, this is
probably one of the best written---if you are willing to forgive
the author for an occasional joke or two.

The only thing I would suggest the author is to make more clear
at the beginning what the book is exactly about. If you are not
fascinated by the nuts-and-bolts of the dynamics of language change, then this book
is probably not for you...

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There's Babel in the Power of Babel

Review by Richard E. Doucet, 2009-12-13

Thought this would be an interesting read but barely got past the introduction before consigning it to the recycle bin.

First of all, the author's comments on evolution and mutations have been overtaken by important new discoveries. There's much more involved than just mutations. Second, the author states several times as fact that there once existed a single language possessed by the humans who migrated out of Africa to populate the world. I don't question the migration but the idea that there once existed a single spoken language used by all living humans is absurd. This idea implies, and the author directly implies this idea since he states it several times, that a single mutation brought the human power of speech into existence. Although I'm not going to attempt to provide any proofs here, the development of human language must have been a progressive process taking unknown hundreds of thousands of years to reach its full powers as we know of it today.

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I love it already.

Review by Devo, 2009-12-10

I only started reading this book and I love it already. Prof. Mc Whorter takes complicated lingustic material and makes it easy to understand. I want to read all his books.

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Unsuitable for interested amateurs

Review by Fíal, 2009-11-17

I've been reading books about language and linguistics for many years and have rarely been as disappointed by a book.

If you extract all McWhorter's own self-referential little comments about his childhood, stories about television shows and comic books, and "cute" footnotes (example: 6. "Hats off to the 'Simpsons' house composer...." 7. "I like that one too." 9. "Dino fans: Yes, I know....", to take just one chapter), there is scarcely any new or interesting information in his book.

Who is the book aimed at? On one hand, the overly colloquial style ("Make no mistake: I love written language deeply and enjoy few things more than composing prose on the page" !!) argues that it is aimed at a reader who knows nothing whatever about the subject and needs to be pulled in by things like analysis of a McDonald's ad in German.

On the other hand, the long, long, long sections about creoles and pidgins seem to be aimed at a reader who is already fascinated by that subject. Well, at any rate this book was NOT aimed at me-- an interested and educated amateur.

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