A collection of lectures by the "founder of modern linguistics" discusses fifty years of scientific development in the study of language as he expounds and criticizes a variety of theories. --Publisher's description. "In clear, precise, and non-technical language, Chomsky elaborates on fifty years of scientific development in the study of language, sketching how his own work has implications for the origins of language, the close relations that language...

The search for the origin of human language has finally come of age. For centuries, progress in Ur-language research was slow and spasmodic; many scientists came to believe that there was no definitive way to answer its central questions. Then, in the past 20 years, everything changed. Linguist Kenneally shows how linguists, cognitive scientists, animal researchers, biologists, and geneticists have all contributed valuable new insights into language...

Explore the languages of the world in this colorful atlas, which presents basic words and phrases from more than 100 different languages. Indentifies salutation phrases from over one hundred languages spoken around the world, including Danish, Icelandic, Gaelic, Greek, Vietnamese, Russian, Urdu, Cherokee, Hawaiian, and Swahili.

When Max cuts out words from magazines and newspapers, collecting them the way his brothers collect stamps and coins, they all learn about words, sentences, and storytelling.

"A surreal and shockingly original debut novel set in a dystopian world shaped by language -- literally. Vanja, a government worker, leaves her home city of Essre for the austere, wintry colony of Amatka on a research assignment. It takes some adjusting: people act differently in Amatka, and citizens are monitored for signs of subversion. Intending to stay just a short while, Vanja finds herself falling in love with her housemate, Nina, and decides...

Is vocabulary destiny? Why do clocks 'talk' to the Nahua people of Mexico? Will A.I. researchers ever produce true human-machine dialogue? In this mesmerizing collection of essays, Daniel Tammet answers these and many other questions about the intricacy and profound power of language. Tammet goes back in time to explore the numeric language of his autistic childhood; he looks at the music and patterns that words make, and how languages evolve and...

"Beginning with the stories of three great decipherments Egyptian hieroglyphs, Minoan Linear B and Mayan glyphs Lost Languages moves on to dissect the most well-known and enigmatic undeciphered scripts from around the world. They include the Etruscan alphabet of Italy, the Indus Valley seal script, Rongorongo from remote Easter Island, the Zapotec script of Mexico (probably the first writing system in the Americas), and the unique Phaistos disc of...

Presents lectures (each 30 minutes in length) by John McWhorter, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, based on his courses in Linguistics.