Babele

Babel was supposed to be a great linguistic adventure. Around the world in 30 languages Sounds exciting, doesn’t it. And I do have a serious interest in linguistics, so it seemed right up my alley. Until it wasn’t. At least, not quite what was expected. It’s a literary equivalent of meeting someone Leggi tutto

Reads more like a collection of mostly unrelated articles each on a different language. On the plus side, I learned a lot — even about languages I knew something about already. But the book lacks overall coherence... making it feel more like a jumble. This goes all the way through. For instance, you Leggi tutto

This is a fascinating survey of the 20 most spoken languages in the world, and what makes them each unique: in some cases features of the languages themselves, in others aspects of their histories or the place they hold in culture or the overall linguistic culture of the areas where they’re spoken. Leggi tutto

Να ένα βιβλίο που με ενθουσίασε απο την πρώτη στιγμή! Όσ@ με ξέρετε, γνωρίζετε την βαθιά αγάπη που έχω για τις ξένες γλώσσες και να μαθαίνω πράγματα μέσω αυτών για τον πολιτισμό των εκάστοτε εθνών που τις μιλάνε. Αυτό το βιβλίο δεν θα μπορούσε να είναι πιο επεξηγηματικό ως προς το κομμάτι αυτό. Οι 20 Leggi tutto

Όταν ως νεαρός φοιτητής στο Πανεπιστήμιο κλήθηκα να επιλέξω κατεύθυνση, χωρίς δεύτερη κουβέντα απέρριψα τον τομέα Γλωσσολογίας και ακολούθησα εκείνον της Λογοτεχνίας. Λογικό, καθότι η προτίμησή μου, βασιζόταν στην αγάπη μου για τη λογοτεχνία με τις άπειρες μορφές της, τις ανοιχτές αναγνώσεις της και Leggi tutto

I had great fun reading this. Some reviews here complain that it approaches each of the 20 languages from a different angle, based on what the writer finds most interesting to say about them, and sometimes even venturing into talk of other languages. For example, the discussion of Javanese spends a