Bastard Tongues PDF Download

Author: Derek Bickerton
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429930306
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Why Do Isolated Creole Languages Tend to Have Similar Grammatical Structures? Bastard Tongues is an exciting, firsthand story of scientific discovery in an area of research close to the heart of what it means to be human—what language is, how it works, and how it passes from generation to generation, even where historical accidents have made normal transmission almost impossible. The story focuses on languages so low in the pecking order that many people don't regard them as languages at all—Creole languages spoken by descendants of slaves and indentured laborers in plantation colonies all over the world. The story is told by Derek Bickerton, who has spent more than thirty years researching these languages on four continents and developing a controversial theory that explains why they are so similar to one another. A published novelist, Bickerton (once described as "part scholar, part swashbuckling man of action") does not present his findings in the usual dry academic manner. Instead, you become a companion on his journey of discovery. You learn things as he learned them, share his disappointments and triumphs, explore the exotic locales where he worked, and meet the colorful characters he encountered along the way. The result is a unique blend of memoir, travelogue, history, and linguistics primer, appealing to anyone who has ever wondered how languages grow or what it's like to search the world for new knowledge.

Author: John McWhorter
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592404944
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar Why do we say “I am reading a catalog” instead of “I read a catalog”? Why do we say “do” at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Language distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history. Covering such turning points as the little-known Celtic and Welsh influences on English, the impact of the Viking raids and the Norman Conquest, and the Germanic invasions that started it all during the fifth century ad, John McWhorter narrates this colorful evolution with vigor. Drawing on revolutionary genetic and linguistic research as well as a cache of remarkable trivia about the origins of English words and syntax patterns, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue ultimately demonstrates the arbitrary, maddening nature of English— and its ironic simplicity due to its role as a streamlined lingua franca during the early formation of Britain. This is the book that language aficionados worldwide have been waiting for (and no, it’s not a sin to end a sentence with a preposition).

Author: Derek Bickerton
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809022818
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
One of the world's leading researchers into the evolution of language argues that the acquisition of words changed the structure of early human's brains, which set into motion the limitless creativity that allowed people to make the world that exists today.

Author: John McWhorter
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101644451
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
New York Times bestselling author and renowned linguist, John McWhorter, explores the complicated and fascinating world of languages. From Standard English to Black English; obscure tongues only spoken by a few thousand people in the world to the big ones like Mandarin - What Language Is celebrates the history and curiosities of languages around the world and smashes our assumptions about "correct" grammar. An eye-opening tour for all language lovers, What Language Is offers a fascinating new perspective on the way humans communicate. From vanishing languages spoken by a few hundred people to major tongues like Chinese, with copious revelations about the hodgepodge nature of English, John McWhorter shows readers how to see and hear languages as a linguist does. Packed with Big Ideas about language alongside wonderful trivia, What Language Is explains how languages across the globe (the Queen's English and Surinam creoles alike) originate, evolve, multiply, and divide. Raising provocative questions about what qualifies as a language (so-called slang does have structured grammar), McWhorter also takes readers on a marvelous journey through time and place-from Persian to the languages of Sri Lanka- to deliver a feast of facts about the wonders of human linguistic expression.

Author: Nicholas Ostler
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062047353
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world's great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating failures of once "universal" languages. A splendid, authoritative, and remarkable work, it demonstrates how the language history of the world eloquently reveals the real character of our planet's diverse peoples and prepares us for a linguistic future full of surprises.

Author: Scott Lynch
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 055358894X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 754

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Book Description
“Remarkable . . . Scott Lynch’s first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, exports the suspense and wit of a cleverly constructed crime caper into an exotic realm of fantasy, and the result is engagingly entertaining.”—The Times (London) An orphan’s life is harsh—and often short—in the mysterious island city of Camorr. But young Locke Lamora dodges death and slavery, becoming a thief under the tutelage of a gifted con artist. As leader of the band of light-fingered brothers known as the Gentleman Bastards, Locke is soon infamous, fooling even the underworld’s most feared ruler. But in the shadows lurks someone still more ambitious and deadly. Faced with a bloody coup that threatens to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the enemy at his own brutal game—or die trying. Praise for The Lies of Locke Lamora “Fresh, original, and engrossing . . . gorgeously realized.”—George R. R. Martin “Right now, in the full flush of a second reading, I think The Lies of Locke Lamora is probably in my top ten favorite books ever. Maybe my top five. If you haven’t read it, you should. If you have read it, you should probably read it again.”—Patrick Rothfuss, New York Times bestselling author of The Name of the Wind “A unique fantasy milieu peopled by absorbing, colorful characters . . . Locke’s wit and audacity endear him to victims and bystanders alike.”—The Seattle Times “A true genre bender, at home on almost any kind of fiction shelf . . . Lynch immediately establishes himself as a gifted and fearless storyteller, unafraid of comparisons to Silverberg and Jordan, not to mention David Liss and even Dickens.”—Booklist (starred review) “High-octane fantasy . . . a great swashbuckling yarn of a novel.”—Richard Morgan

Author: Gaston Dorren
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802190944
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Six thousand years. Sixty languages. One “brisk and breezy” whirlwind armchair tour of Europe “bulg[ing] with linguistic trivia” (The Wall Street Journal). Take a trip of the tongue across the continent in this fascinating, hilarious and highly edifying exploration of the many ways and whys of Euro-speaks—its idiosyncrasies, its histories, commonalities, and differences. Most European languages are descended from a single ancestor, a language not unlike Sanskrit known as Proto-Indo-European (or PIE for short), but the continent’s ever-changing borders and cultures have given rise to a linguistic and cultural diversity that is too often forgotten in discussions of Europe as a political entity. Lingo takes us into today’s remote mountain villages of Switzerland, where Romansh is still the lingua franca, to formerly Soviet Belarus, a country whose language was Russified by the Bolsheviks, to Sweden, where up until the 1960s polite speaking conventions required that one never use the word “you.” “In this bubbly linguistic endeavor, journalist and polyglot Dorren thoughtfully walks readers through the weird evolution of languages” (Publishers Weekly), and not just the usual suspects—French, German, Yiddish, irish, and Spanish, Here, too are the esoteric—Manx, Ossetian, Esperanto, Gagauz, and Sami, and that global headache called English. In its sixty bite-sized chapters, Dorret offers quirky and hilarious tidbits of illuminating facts, and also dispels long-held lingual misconceptions (no, Eskimos do not have 100 words for snow). Guaranteed to change the way you think about language, Lingo is a “lively and insightful . . . unique, page-turning book” (Minneapolis Star Tribune).

Author: Ernesto Mestre
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 1466890061
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
A modern tale rooted in recent historical events but filtered through a patiently unfolding storytelling style that pays homage to The Arabian Nights, The Lazarus Rumba is a stunning literary debut, a virtuoso performance like no other Latino writer has ever produced. This extraordinary ambitious novel sets out to portray the spiritual landscape of the Cuban people in the wake of Castro's revolutionary upheaval. Like Cervantes' Don Quixote, The Lazarus Rumba describes a country best by social dislocation and personal confusion, a country whose soul is best captured by a lush magic realism woven from innumerable tales, tales told contrapuntally in voices both melancholy and lively, lyrical and coarse, delicate and grotesque. As intensely political as Manuel Puig's Kiss Of The Spider Woman or Milan Kundera's The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting, The Lazarus Rumba centers around three generations of women in the Lucientes family and follows the story of Alicia Lucientes as she almost inadvertantly becomes the most famous dissident on the Island.

Author: Christopher Buehlman
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 1250621186
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Set in a world of goblin wars, stag-sized battle ravens, and assassins who kill with deadly tattoos, Christopher Buehlman's The Blacktongue Thief begins a 'dazzling' (Robin Hobb) fantasy adventure unlike any other. Kinch Na Shannack owes the Takers Guild a small fortune for his education as a thief, which includes (but is not limited to) lock-picking, knife-fighting, wall-scaling, fall-breaking, lie-weaving, trap-making, plus a few small magics. His debt has driven him to lie in wait by the old forest road, planning to rob the next traveler that crosses his path. But today, Kinch Na Shannack has picked the wrong mark. Galva is a knight, a survivor of the brutal goblin wars, and handmaiden of the goddess of death. She is searching for her queen, missing since a distant northern city fell to giants. Unsuccessful in his robbery and lucky to escape with his life, Kinch now finds his fate entangled with Galva's. Common enemies and uncommon dangers force thief and knight on an epic journey where goblins hunger for human flesh, krakens hunt in dark waters, and honor is a luxury few can afford. “The Blacktongue Thief is fast and fun and filled with crazy magic. I can't wait to see what Christopher Buehlman does next." - Brent Weeks, New York Times bestselling author of the Lightbringer series At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Author: Seth Lerer
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231541244
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 527

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Book Description
A history of English from the age of Beowulf to the rap of Eminem, “written with real authority, enthusiasm and love for our unruly and exquisite language” (The Washington Post). Many have written about the evolution of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but only Seth Lerer situates these developments within the larger history of English, America, and literature. This edition of his “remarkable linguistic investigation” (Booklist) features a new chapter on the influence of biblical translation and an epilogue on the relationship of English speech to writing. A unique blend of historical and personal narrative, both “erudite and accessible” (The Globe and Mail), Inventing English is the surprising tale of a language that is as dynamic as the people to whom it belongs. “Lerer is not just a scholar; he's also a fan of English—his passion is evident on every page of this examination of how our language came to sound—and look—as it does and how words came to have their current meanings…the book percolates with creative energy and will please anyone intrigued by how our richly variegated language came to be.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)