Good overview of the history of the language
936602
Chen does an excellent job of tracking the development of Modern Chinese not only in the mainland - where language policy reform, character simplification, and drives to increase national literacy rates make for interesting reading - but also in Taiwan, Singapore and overseas Chinese-speaking communities.  The author is clear and thorough in his analysis of dialects as well as Standard Mandarin, and disparate influences (such as Japan) are discussed in detail.  While I am happy to see that the book uses proper pinyin romanization for Chinese terms, the only improvement I could suggest would be to include the hanzi (character) equivalent as well to assist second-language learners of Chinese.  A good resource for both linguists and students of the language.

Nathan Dummitt
author of&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Chinese-Through-Tone-Color/dp/0781812046/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Chinese Through Tone & Color</a>
921975
This book is as much about the history of the Spanish culture as it is their language.  As original Spanish was a combination of northern Germanic Tribal language as well as southern Moorish influences, the language grew as the influence of Spanish colonial expansion grew conquering almost half of the New World.  New Spain, as the countries we now call Mexico, Central America, and South America (excluding Brazil and its Portuguese heritage) gave rise to rapid expansion of colloquial applications of the Old World's Spanish.  This is where the book is really interesting.  New Spain countries took on their own future and adapted and applied the Spanish language in new ways as they colonized New World civilizations.  After independence there were many new words and different words among the separate Spanish-speaking countries.  Over this time the scholars of Spanish maintained attempts to develop standards that would apply to all Spanish-speaking countries to keep a common language solvent.  Like English is spoken with different accents and even different terms, Spanish spoken in Paraguay is distinct from Spanish spoken in Mexico or Spain.  Through the final adoption of universal standards all the countries can speak a common language.  Learning about the origins of many well-known Spanish words (i.e., rodeo, lasso, etc.) was probably the most interesting aspect of this book.  If you speak Spanish or like history this book will provide you with a great overview and evolution of both the Spanish language and cultures as well as its long colonial history.
2170045
Having made our reservations to travel to Spain, my wife and I set out to do some background study.  Of several currently popular sources, I found "The New Spaniards" to be the most helpful overview of both history and of culture.  Many Americans are generally familiar with the outlines of Spain's glorious past.  We were seeking to know more of its present, beginning with the Franco era and including snapshots of its current culture.  This book is well-suited to those of us who are interested in Spain's regions and the region-Madrid(national) tensions, the role of the press and modern social science poll results.  These latter statistics are conversationally presented and by no means overwhelm the reader:  rather, they give good understanding and form the basis for conversations with Spanish friends one might make along the way.
1468401
When the Tower of Babel was being constructed, so the story goes, God was so incensed at the presumption of humans that he condemned them to speak a multitude of tongues. Ever since then, we've often needed translators to speak to each other, and imperfectly at that. Many are the battles fought because of misunderstandings caused by language differences.
 Merritt Ruhlen has a different take on the language schism. In his book, called *The Origin of Language*, appropriately enough, he explains the theory that all of today's languages had a common origin, many thousands of years ago, and that linguistic drift accounts for all the differences we see today.
 The way that he arrives at this point is fascinating. He allows the reader to play along in the linguistics game, providing sample words that work nicely to group languages together in ever larger categories, until they all tie together in one world glotknot. It's all so obvious that you can't believe that anyone could think differently.
 Of course people think differently. In fact, a lot of linguists (Eric Hamp at the University of Chicago, for one) think differently. Many of them think that Ruhlen and his sometime mentor, Joseph Greenberg, are kind of nuts. For one thing, picking ten words at a time to group languages together is a risky endeavor. Even if Ruhlen believes he picked the ten words at random, you can't get around the fact that Ruhlen *knows* what conclusion he wants to reach, and that could taint the whole process. Anecdotal evidence is a notoriously bad way to come up with general theories.
 Furthermore, Ruhlen doesn't really go into the quantitative business of assessing how great an effect phonetic drift has in muddying up the genetic relationships between languages, and when he does do it, the mathematics are misleading or simply wrong. Richard Feynman made a big point of telling his students not to use an observation that suggested a theory as confirming evidence of that same theory, a lesson Ruhlen seems to have missed.
 All of which Ruhlen probably doesn't worry too much about. He and Greenberg are more concerned about getting the big picture together first, and addressing the details later. Nothing wrong with that, but in his effort to gain converts to the "lumpers" faction (as opposed to the "splitters"), he has an alarming tendency to denigrate the work of others. Like the guy who runs his coworkers down behind their backs, he tends paradoxically to lose a lot of support.
 It's too bad, because linguists often do seem polarized around this question of origin, and the field really could use a solid, balanced book that looks at what new work needs to be done without ignoring or downplaying work that's already been done. This book isn't it, though. The casual reader will learn a lot about the way that lumpers work, because it's more exciting; more inquisitive readers will hanker for something with more study and less politics.
1575973
This is one of the first books that I purchased when I decided to learn the international language Esperanto.  The book was an excellent introduction to the language and to its grammar.  It was also nicely complemented by a selection of interesting texts of different origins, each with a vocabulary list.  I do feel however that the book has to be approached sequentially (one lesson after the other) and cannot be used as easily as a desktop reference.
2104490
This book takes an amusing look at the peculiarities of several different European languages, making it quite clear by the time the tour is over that all are very peculiar -- except of course one's own.  Do not mistake this for a serious guide to the languages of Europe.  The author makes it very clear that that is not what he has in mind, and does, at the end of the book, offer a bibliography that includes several more serious works.  It is rather a potpourri for language mavens -- fun, if rather fleeting in the impression it creates.
3576845
This book provides little more than a glimpse at all the linguistic creations mentioned. But that is precisely what the title tells us is intended. So I rank it as excellent.

I almost gave it but four stars, however, since it did not delve deeply into lexicon issues of interest to me. But that would be unfair I decided.

It remains the most exhaustive set of examples of various invented languages in print.
3712404
I found Edward Sapir's introduction to the study of speech fascinating. It discusses a variety of issues involved in the study of spoken language, including differences in grammatical structure, history, and phonetic drift (the way sounds change) as well as many other topics. It reads sort of like a collection of class lectures, but that is okay for those interested in the study of speech. The author understood the origin of language as an evolutionist and that colored his perspective on its nature and the nature of humankind. However he seemed to recognize that modern human sciences really do not understand how language could have actually developed from natural processes. The author shows an apt understanding of almost all the world's major language groups, especially native American languages, some of which he documented first-hand before the time of their extinction or near extinction.
4431226
Lots of information and history. Mostly still applicable. Text needs some proofreading (ocr anomalies)
4803325
If you are interested in the development of language, you will enjoy this book!
3533217
A good reason exists why The Loom of Language, first published in 1944, is still in print. It remains one of the best overviews of Indo-European and Near East languages to date. While a basic grasp of linguistic tools will help, the reader essentially only needs an understanding of English grammatical rules to get through the book. The explicit goal of The Loom of Languages is to introduce readers to a broad range of languages, language timelines, language roots and the tools necessary to understand a wide variety of linguistic patterns so as to learn new languages. The greatest asset of The Loom of Language is that it never strays off track. The authors carefully, consistently marry one chapter to the next. This is no dry linguistic workbook either; the authors take the time to explore the history and culture behind various languages, peppering the work with colorful anthropological anecdotes.

If one fault could be listed with The Loom of Languages it would be that a muddy xenophobia trickles into some of the chapter as witnessed by this comment concerning the lack of Greek and Latin language influence in the Eastern Europe of antiquity: "The comparatively late appearance of loan words in the Slavonic lexicon faithfully reflects this retardation of culture contact with more progressive communities (page 419)."

Modern day readers unaccustomed to the cultural proclivities of earlier linguists and anthropologists may find the repetitive use of words like "Aryan" or "high culture" unsettling. That said, the nitty-gritty of the data (with a few exceptions) in The Loom of Languages remains unadulterated and essentially informative. Recent discoveries by linguists and anthropologists now contradict some of TLOL findings, but not enough to undermine the goals of the book. A highly recommended book for budding linguists or those with a curiosity about the link between language and history.
4371842
Covers the topics that I was interested in reading about linguistic. This book appears to be a introdutory work to the topics , there are
others books  of the same author , that develop the topics more deeply.
1343067
You really don't have to work with words or be a linguist to love this book. David Crystal is not trying to give you the definitive guide to the history of English so unlike the PBS series "Story of English," don't be fooled by the title. Crystal has taken 100 random yet they do have some sense of purpose words in the English language and basically spelled out their history. He has common words in there as well as words that have long since fell out of favor.

Another great thing is he often adds as a final aside the numbers of times the word pops up if you Google it on the Web vs. some related term. Of course, that will date with time but it's still a cool way to add extra oomph to his history weaving of words.
4313344
This is a comprehensive and well-written overview, although the author could beef-up the discussions of Wari culture (a lot more is now known).  If what you're looking for is a better understanding of the myriad "other than the Inca" cultures that existed in the central Andes then this is the book for you.
464512
This book deals with broad issues about the language. It is reasonable to understand because most of the ideas are supported by detailed examples and studies. This book is suitable for college students interested in languages and the field of linguistics.
1865295
"The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way" is an entertaining tour of the merits and idiosyncrasies of humanity's most global language: English. Author Bill Bryson introduces the reader to the history, evolution, and variety of English with good humor and lots of examples. Spoken fluently by probably about 400 million people worldwide, not including speakers of English-based creoles, English is not the most-spoken language, but it is the most studied, emulated, and widely distributed, being an official language in 44 countries. As it has become "the lingua franca of business, science, education, politics, and pop culture", it's worth taking a look at how confusing and wonderful English really is.

Bryson writes mostly of British and American English, with occasional references to Australian and Canadian, but this book is written for an American audience. Although it does touch upon some different dialects, it does not address pidgins or creoles. It does explain what makes English simple -few inflected verbs and adjectives, few consonant clusters and tonal variations, no gender- and what makes it difficult -huge vocabulary and ridiculous spelling. No less fascinating than the discussions of English are Bryson's examples of the behavior of other languages for comparison, which give the characteristics of English some context and inspire interest in language in general.

After a history of English's 1000+ years and an explanation of how words enter into language, the book launches into English's endearing (ahem) eccentricities: the evolution of pronunciation, development of regional dialects, how (and why?) we manage (or not) to spell 40 sounds in 200 different ways, word meanings and dictionaries, and a lightweight chapter on the lack of authority on English grammar. Bryson concludes with some fun chapters on names, swear words, and word games. He's dismissive of attempts to restore/introduce phonetic spelling, but there are good arguments for doing so, and workable alphabets have been devised for this purpose.

"The Mother Tongue" does not go into a great deal of depth on its subjects but rather introduces the reader to the strengths and peculiarities of English. Though I think Bryson gets his main points across well, there are an unfortunate number of factual errors, particularly relating to other languages. Bryson seems to have taken a lot of information from popular books instead of consulting direct sources, such as linguists or foreign language scholars. Still, he is a good writer, and the casual reader cannot help but develop a new fascination and admiration for the English language. "The Mother Tongue" is a charming inducement to investigate its subjects in more depth. 3 1/2 stars.
3537602
I have been studying the German language for some time through a variety of means.  I ordered this book on a bit of a whim as I already possess a variety of study aids ranging from elementary to comprehensive.  When the book arrived and I looked at the cover I thought that I had made a mistake and that the volume would be too elementary.  After spending some time with the book I find it a wonderful addition to my library.  If your only interest is grammar rules this might not be a book for you. It does however present a wealth of interesting history, culture and language aids for anyone interested in the German language.  It can be used as an introduction to the language for visitors or, as in my case, it is a great supplement to provide information not included in grammars or language courses and helpful for understanding  the language.