The Story Of Language

The Story of Language (1952) – Mario Pei
George Allen & Unwin | First Edition | ISBN: None
Condition: Good – Repaired Dust Jacket | Sold by Crappy Old Books

Language. Humanity’s greatest invention, apart from the wheel, central heating and possibly the sandwich. Without it, civilisation would consist largely of people pointing at things, making impatient noises and attempting to explain complicated financial arrangements through interpretive dance. With it, we have produced Shakespeare, the King James Bible, international diplomacy, advertising slogans and the extraordinary British ability to say "quite interesting" when we actually mean "utterly dreadful".

In The Story of Language, celebrated linguist Mario Pei undertakes the magnificent task of explaining how human beings came to communicate through thousands of different languages, why those languages evolved as they did, and how the simple business of making oneself understood developed into one of the most complicated and fascinating achievements of civilisation.

And complicated it certainly is.

Why does English possess a spelling system apparently devised by several committees who refused to communicate with one another? Why do some languages require speakers to negotiate elaborate grammatical genders, while others manage perfectly well without them? Why do words change their meanings, disappear entirely or return centuries later wearing a completely different linguistic disguise?

Pei guides readers through the extraordinary history and diversity of human speech, examining the origins, development, classification and relationships of languages across the world. From ancient tongues preserved in inscriptions and manuscripts to the living languages spoken by millions, he explores the remarkable ways in which societies develop systems of communication suited to their histories, cultures and circumstances.

The story encompasses language families, linguistic change, pronunciation, vocabulary, writing systems and the curious processes through which languages borrow from one another. English, naturally, provides particularly fertile territory, having spent centuries enthusiastically acquiring words from practically everybody it encountered, often without bothering to return them.

There is something wonderfully ironic about the fact that humanity developed language to make communication easier, only to produce thousands of mutually unintelligible versions of it. A traveller crossing Europe can discover that the simple act of ordering breakfast requires an entirely new vocabulary every few hundred miles.

Pei’s great achievement is to make the enormous subject of linguistics accessible to ordinary readers, combining scholarship with an infectious curiosity about the remarkable variety of human expression.

Published in 1952, this volume also offers a fascinating glimpse into mid-twentieth-century linguistic scholarship. Some theories and terminology have since developed considerably, but its broad exploration of language remains an absorbing introduction to the subject.

This 1952 first edition, published by George Allen & Unwin, is offered in Good condition by Crappy Old Books. The dust jacket previously had a tear which has been repaired, an important detail for collectors, although a little restoration seems entirely appropriate for a book about something that has itself been repeatedly altered, adapted and reconstructed over thousands of years.

An appealing acquisition for linguists, etymologists, historians, language enthusiasts and anyone who has ever wondered why humanity requires so many different ways of saying essentially the same thing.

A fascinating journey through the history of our most remarkable means of communication.

Because without language, human beings would have considerably fewer misunderstandings.

Although, admittedly, considerably fewer opportunities to explain them.

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