Speak A Short History of Languages

by Janson, Tore

• ISBN13: 9780199263417
• ISBN10: 0199263418
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book is a history of human speech from prehistory to the present. It charts the rise of some languages and the fall of others, explaining why some survive and others die. It shows how languages change their sounds and meanings, and how the history of languages is closely linked to thehistory of peoples. Writing in a lively, readable style, distinguished Swedish scholar Tore Janson makes no assumptions about previous knowledge. He takes the reader on a voyage of exploration through the changing patterns of the world's languages, from ancient China to ancient Egypt, imperial Rome to imperial Britain,Sappho's Lesbos to contemporary Africa. He discovers the links between the histories of societies and their languages; he shows how language evolved from primitive calls; he considers the question of whether one language can be more advanced than another. The author describes the history of writingand looks at the impact of changing technology. He ends by assessing the prospects for English world domination and predicting the languages of the distant future. Five historical maps illustrate this fascinating history of our defining characteristic and most valuable asset.

Author Biography

Tore Janson was born in 1936 in Stockholm, Sweden. He studied Classics at Stockholm University and received his Ph.D. in Latin in 1964. He has held various teaching and research positions at the University of California, Los Angeles; Stockholm University; the Swedish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences; and at Goteborg University, where he has been first Professor of Latin, and then Professor of African Languages. He has published several books and a large number of articles in the fields of Latin, general linguistics, phonetics, and African languages.

Table of Contents

Languages before History

The Large Language Groups

Writing and the Egyptians

Greek and the Greeks

Latin and the Romans

Did Dante Write in Italian?

From Germanic to Modern English

The Era of National Languages

Languages of Europe and of the World

How Languages are Born--or Made

How Languages Disappear

The Heyday of English

And Then?

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