by Guy Deutscher
I bought this book on February 1st at a bookstore in Aachen, Germany, during what they called 'Bye Bye-Brexit rabat' (Bye Bye Brexit Sale) which was 20% discount on all English books. Obviously, I couldn't resist. I went on to convince the book club I recently joined to read it as our next read, but...
Nonfiction book about languages and the effect on culture, or culture and the effect on languages. Depends on how you read it and what you think about it, really. Deutscher discusses at length various linguistic theories and how they have evolved over time as the scientific side of intellectual curi...
Oh, yes! Fellow linguist's ideas on how languages matter.
Am I the only one to feel that the style of this book is a bit too pretentious? A little over-finessed, a little disposed to show off the author's unquestionably very good English? Yeah, I know, I'm not a native speaker myself...
I only did 2 semesters of (German) linguistics at uni and sometimes I do wish I'd kept it as a minor instead of literature. This is a really interesting look at language and its relationship with thoughts/the way we see the world, using three examples: colours, gender and direction. My ebook was mis...
An interesting look at how the words and how in different ways they shape some of our experience of the world. He mostly talks about colour and how the words for colour have developed over the years and without some of those words you had to work around it to describe things. This made a lot of sen...
A fascinating and readable examination of the way the language we speak influences the way we see the world around us.
Excellent book, except for the bashing of Whorf (if Deutscher had actually read Whorf he would have seen that his arguments are actually remarkably similar to what he proposes in the book). Otherwise, an accessible and witty overview of some recent scholarship on linguistic relativity. A sure must f...
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