History of Languages
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€36.50
A01=Tore Janson
Author_Tore Janson
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=CFF
Category=NL-CF
COP=United Kingdom
eq_bestseller
eq_dictionaries-language-reference
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Format=BC
HMM=245
IMPN=Oxford University Press
ISBN13=9780199604296
Language_English
PA=Available
PD=20111020
POP=Oxford
Price=€20 to €50
PS=Active
PUB=Oxford University Press
SMM=40
Subject=Linguistics
WG=523
WMM=174
Product details
- ISBN 9780199604296
- Weight: 523g
- Dimensions: 174 x 245 x 40mm
- Publication Date: 20 Oct 2011
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication City/Country: Oxford, GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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This is an introduction to the history of languages, from the distant past to a glimpse at what languages may be like in the distant future. It looks at how languages arise, change, and ultimately vanish, and what lies behind their different destinies. What happens to languages, he argues, has to do with what happens to the people who use them, and what happens to people, individually and collectively, is affected by the languages they speak.
The book opens by examining what languages the hunter-gatherers might have spoken and the changes to language that took place when agriculture made settled communities possible. It then looks at the effects of the invention of writing, the formation of empires, the spread of religions, and the recent dominance of world powers, and shows how these relate to great changes in the use of languages. Tore Janson discusses the appearance of new languages, the reasons why some languages spread and others die, considers whether similar cyclical processes are found at different times and places, and examines the causes of internal changes in languages and dialects.
The book ranges widely among the world's languages and mixes thematic chapters on general processes of change with accounts of specific languages, including Chinese, Arabic, Latin, Greek, and English.
Tore Janson was Professor of Oriental and African Languages at the University of Göteborg until his retirement in 2000. He was previously Professor of Latin at the same university and is a world expert on its history. He is the author of the international bestsellers Speak: A Short History of Languages (OUP 2002; paperback 2003) and The Natural History of Latin (OUP 2004, paperback 2005).
