Babel

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English is the world language, except that most of the world doesn t speak it only one in five people does Dorren calculates that to speak fluently with half of the world s 7.4 billion people in their mother tongues, you would need to know no fewer than twenty languages He sets out to explore these top twenty world languages, which range from the familiar French, Spanish to the surprising Malay, Javanese, Bengali Babel whisks the reader on a delightful journey to every continent of the world, tracing how these world languages rose to greatness while others fell away and showing how speakers today handle the foibles of their mother tongues Whether showcasing tongue tying phonetics or elegant but complicated writing scripts, and mind bending quirks of grammar, Babel vividly illustrates that mother tongues are like nations each has its own customs and beliefs that seem as self evident to those born into it as they are surprising to the outside world Among many other things, Babel will teach you why modern Turks can t read books that are a mere 75 years old, what it means in practice for Russian and English to be relatives, and how Japanese developed separate dialects for men and women Dorren lets you in on his personal trials and triumphs while studying Vietnamese in Hanoi, debunks ten widespread myths about Chinese characters, and discovers that Swahili became the lingua franca in a part of the world where people routinely speak three or languages Witty, fascinating and utterly compelling, Babel will change the way you look at and listen to the world and how it speaks. Free Read Babel author Gaston Dorren For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr Babel is an ambitious undertaking by linguist Gaston Dorren to explore the top twenty languages spoken in the world from the 20 to 1 spoken language in which this review is written As a native English speaker who has difficulty becomingthan monolingual, I enjoyed learning new things about the history and grammar of these different languages However, I felt that at some time the book became too technical about linguistics and at other times would go off on tangents It felt like the a Babel is an ambitious undertaking by linguist Gaston Dorren to explore the top twenty languages spoken in the world from the 20 to 1 spoken language in which this review is written As a native English speaker who has difficulty becomingthan monolingual, I enjoyed learning new things about the history and grammar of these different languages ...Babel was supposed to be a great linguistic adventure Around the world in 30 languages Sounds exciting, doesn t it And I do have a serious interest in linguistics, so it seemed right up my alley Until it wasn t At least, not quite what was expected It s a literary equivalent of meeting someone at a party and they tell you they are really int...Ahoy there me mateys I received this non fiction eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review So here be me honest musings .Even though English is the world language, the fact of the matter is that most of the world doesn t speak it This book explores the idea that to speak fluently with half of the people in the world, ye would need to speak 20 languages This book set out to explore those 20.The concept of this book be fascinating The execution was sadly not to me taste Ahoy there me mateys I received this non fiction eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review So here be me honest musings .Even though English is the world language, the fact ...This book was fun 3.5 stars Great introduction for those curious abt linguistics but don t want to commit to a weightier text Nice short chapters abt 20 most spoken languages, and each chapter follows a different theme, some hokier than othersFinished reading November 25th 2018 A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Atlantic Monthly Press in exchange for an honest review Thank you view spoiler Some of you might already know I m actually a philologist and linguistics has always been one of my favorite areas of study Therefore I thought Babel would be per...I was excited to be reading this book It introduced many linguistic concepts with which I was not familiar from differences in writing systems, scripts, tonality and so on it prompted sporadic research that admittedly didn t go further a Wikipedia page oninteresting topics and above all reminded how diverse and infinitely rich our common human heritage of language is.I liked i...Books about English language, such as those by John McWhorter and David Crystal are some of my favorites, and I also like the deep dive into other languages, such as the books about French and Spanish by Julie Barlow and Jean Benoit Nadeau Then there s the books that dip a toe into many languages, such as this one by Gaston Dorren Babel looks at the twenty languages that are spoken by the most people in the world Dorren starts with some statistics to get you grounded, how many native speake Books about English language, such as those by John McWhorter and David Crystal are some of my favorites, and I also like the deep di...If you love words, you ll love this, and if you love languages, then you ll love it evenDorren takes the 20 languages with the most speakers out of the estimated 6000 languages that exist in the world today and explores their origins and peculiarities The expected ones are of course English, Arabic and Mandarin, but Tamil and Javanese are included in that 20 too who d have thought Each chapter is devoted to a different language although Japanese merits two and the approach diffe If you love words,...I look at the quality of this book with two lenses First, from a writer s perspective I found this book a little odd It lacked a set structure from chapter to chapter For example, one chapter may talk solely about the history of the language and its cultural implications, while the next chapter will only relate to the linguistic structure of the language I felt slightly disappointed by that I would have hoped that each chapter would have covered both.The second lense is from an educational I look at the quality of this book with two lenses First, from a writer s perspective I found this book a little odd It lacked a set structure from chapter to chapter For example, one chapter may talk solely about the history of the language and its cultural implications, while the next chapter will only relate to the linguistic structure of the language I felt slightly disappointed by that I would have hoped that each chapter would have cove...I was a huge fan of Dorren s first book, Lingo, and this one does not disappoint Each chapter explores a concept related to one of the Babel languages, twenty languages one would have to know to speak to half the world Each chapter is different from the last, covering a wide variety of subjects from the history and politics of the language to the intricacies of verb tense and script Because each chapter was so different, I inevitably ended up finding someenjoyable than others But Dor I was a huge fan of Dorren s first book, Lingo, and this one does not disappoint Each chapter explores a concept related to one of the Babel languages, twenty languages one would have to know to speak to half the world Each chapter is different from the last, covering a wide variety of subjects from the h...

Babel
  • 08 March 2017
  • Hardcover
  • 361 pages
  • 0802128793
  • Gaston Dorren
  • Babel