Book description
'Language is mankind's greatest invention - except of course, that it
was never invented.' So begins Guy Deutscher's fascinating
investigation into the evolution of language. No one believes that the
Roman Senate sat down one day to design the complex system that is
Latin grammar, and few believe, these days, in the literal truth of
the story of the Tower of Babel. But then how did there come to be so
many languages, and of such elaborate design? If we started off with
rudimentary utterances on the level of 'man throw spear', how
did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and
intricately nuanced shades of meaning?
Drawing on recent, groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics,
Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human
communication. Along the way, we learn why German maidens are neuter
while German turnips are female, why we have feet not foots, and how
great changes in pronunciation may result from simple laziness...
Born in 1969, Guy Deutscher read Maths at Cambridge before doing his
PhD in Linguistics. Formerly a Research Fellow in Historical Linguistics
at St John's College, Cambridge, he is now at the Department of Ancient
Near Eastern Languages in the University of Leiden. He lives in
Amsterdam.
