Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages
by:
Guy Deutscher (author)
A New York Times Editor’s ChoiceAn Economist Best Book of 2010A Financial Times Best Book of 2010A Library Journal Best Book of 2010The debate is ages old: Where does language come from? Is it an artifact of our culture or written in our very DNA? In recent years, the leading linguists have...
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A New York Times Editor’s ChoiceAn Economist Best Book of 2010A Financial Times Best Book of 2010A Library Journal Best Book of 2010The debate is ages old: Where does language come from? Is it an artifact of our culture or written in our very DNA? In recent years, the leading linguists have seemingly settled the issue: all languages are fundamentally the same and the particular language we speak does not shape our thinking in any significant way. Guy Deutscher says they’re wrong. From Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, and through a strange and dazzling history of the color blue, Deutscher argues that our mother tongues do indeed shape our experiences of the world. Audacious, delightful, and provocative, Through the Language Glass is destined to become a classic of intellectual discovery.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780312610494 (0312610491)
Publish date: August 30th 2011
Publisher: Picador
Pages no: 320
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
History,
Humanities,
Language,
Science,
Popular Science,
Culture,
Philosophy,
Sociology,
Anthropology,
Psychology
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.
I really enjoyed this book, even though, or maybe because, it was not at all what I expected. I was expecting a kind of language survey detailing the ways in which various languages differ from each other that might possibly be related to culture. For example, the rather overplayed number of diffe...
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...
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