Pilgrim in the Palace of Words

by Dixon, Glenn

• ISBN13: 9781554884339
• ISBN10: 1554884330
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-12-31
• Publisher: Dundurn Pr Ltd

Summary

Glenn Dixon has been attacked by wild dogs in the mountains of Spain. He's heard jaguars roar in the jungles of Guatemala. And once, in the calm blue waters above a coral reef off Belize, a shark veered dangerously toward him.Humans, of course, are even more dangerous. We tend to section off our lands with borders and guns and barbed wire. But these are only surface markers. In reality we claim our territory with a much more powerful and ancient tool. We mark our place in the world, and even ourselves, with language.As one philosopher said, languages are the Houses of Being. After doing graduate work in linguistics, Dixon wanted to visit these houses or 'palaces' himself. He wanted to strut up their sidewalks. He wanted to knock on their doors and peek in their windows. He wanted to see what they were hiding in their basements . even if it meant a little bit of trouble. A whole lot of trouble.

Author Biography

Glenn Dixon has published travel articles in major publications such as National Geographic, the New York Post, The Walrus, the Globe and Mail, and Psychology Today. An expert on language with an M.A in socio-linguistics, he is currently a language consultant with the Calgary Board of Education. He lives in Calgary.

Table of Contents

At the Gates of the Western World	p. 9
Climbing the Tower of Babel	p. 11
At the Gates of the Western World	p. 30
And Empires, Too, Shall Splash Across These Pages	p. 53
Into the East	p. 77
Genghis Khan Rides Again	p. 79
On the Roof of the World	p. 97
The Heart of Darkness	p. 123
One Thousand Words for Rice	p. 145
Under the Southern Cross	p. 167
Islands of the Many-Coloured Waters	p. 169
See You at Machu Picchu	p. 193
The Headwaters of the Amazon	p. 215
To the North	p. 241
The Lost World of the Maya	p. 243
Haida: The Surface People	p. 269
May You Walk the Trail of Beauty	p. 295
Epilogue: The Unimaginable Future	p. 325
Bibliography	p. 337
Acknowledgements	p. 342
Index	p. 343
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