by Nicholas Ostler
I bought this thinking it would be philological in nature, but it turned out to be something else entirely; a history of the spread (and decline in many cases) of the use of major languages throughout history. Traditional philology gets only fleeting mentions. If the author is to be believed, such a...
This is a wonderful book. Ostler follows the spread of empires and languages across the world and investigates why some languages proliferate and others do not. Interestingly points to the inevitable fate of all languages and in particular the current vogue world language...
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