If you've read, and enjoyed, Guns, Germs, and Steel, this book is a wonderful companion. Empires of the Word looks at the history of the world's civilizations from the perspective of languages and their speakers.
An interesting "popular linguistics" take on language evolution.
If you've read, and enjoyed, Guns, Germs, and Steel, this book is a wonderful companion. Empires of the Word looks at the history of the world's civilizations from the perspective of languages and their speakers.
This is one of the best nonfiction books I've read. It discusses the factors leading to the rise(and fall) of about two dozen different world languages. It takes on the cliche that empires spread languages and finds that while that is sometimes true it isn't always and that other factors like trade or religion figure prominently into the spread and maintenance of languages over time. I found the chapter on the spread of Arabic interesting in its description of how the help it got from spreading over a substrate of related languages was considerable in allowing it to not only spread, but maintain its gains for centuries. It even gives you a bit of a feel for the "personalities" of the languages. It is a must-have for word-nerds, especially those interested in history.
