What Language Is
And What It Isn't and What It Could Be
Ranked #69 in Linguistics
A provocative look at how languages originate, divide, multiply, and work.
Most of our assumptions about language are wrong. Language is not pure. Language is not only words. Language is not divided into real languages and "dialects". Language is not what we write on a page. So what, then, is a language? In this bold and bright book, John McWhorter asks us to do a simple thing: to look at language the way a linguist does. And once we make that leap, we see a whole new world of human communication, celebrating everything from ancient Persian to the Navajo language to "baby... more
Most of our assumptions about language are wrong. Language is not pure. Language is not only words. Language is not divided into real languages and "dialects". Language is not what we write on a page. So what, then, is a language? In this bold and bright book, John McWhorter asks us to do a simple thing: to look at language the way a linguist does. And once we make that leap, we see a whole new world of human communication, celebrating everything from ancient Persian to the Navajo language to "baby... more
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