English Language History

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter...

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter...

Get ready for a one-of-a-kind audio experience: discover Paris through intimate, guided audio walking tours of the city's most historic and enchanting quarters. There are four tours for you to listen to as you walk through the City of Light, plus essential French words and phrases that every traveler wants to know.

Everyone likes to think they know a bit about language: There are some words that you simply can't translate into English. The origin of a word tells you how it should be used. A dialect is inferior to a language. The problem is, none of these statements are true. In Don't Believe a Word, linguist David Shariatmadari explodes nine common myths about language and introduces us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics.

This sweeping history of the Civil War and the Confederacy is told through the lens of its most crucial army: the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by Robert E. Lee. General Lee's Army takes listeners across the Rebel landscape, from campfires to battlefields to their homes, as it portrays a world of life, death, healing, and hardship.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST From the acclaimed author of My Cat Yugoslavia: a stunning, incandescent new novel that speaks to identity, war, exile, love, betrayal, and heartbreak The death of head of state Enver Hoxha and the loss of his father leave Bujar growing up in the ruins of Communist...

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter...

With three straight #1 bestsellers and more than 4 million copies of his books in print, the most powerful traditional force in the American media now takes off his gloves in the ongoing struggle for America’s heart and soul. Bill O’Reilly is the very embodiment of the idea of a Culture...

What happens to Queen Bees and Wannabes when they grow up? Even the most well-adjusted moms and dads can experience peer pressure and conflicts with other adults that make them act like they’re back in seventh grade. In Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads, Rosalind Wiseman gives us the tools to...

The Language of the Game is a passionate and engaging introduction to soccer's history, tactics, and human drama. Filled with perceptive insights and stories both legendary and little known, The Language of the Game is a rewarding listen for anyone seeking to understand soccer better.

A poetic treasury of spiritual insight, The Language of the Soul uncovers the original meanings of words to help us remember what it means to be fully alive For poet and spiritual teacher Mark Nepo, words have always been more than tools for communication—they are vessels of meaning, portals...

An irresistible and enchanting journey through human history—from mankind’s earliest fires to the latest smart phones—that tells the surprising and untold story of storytelling. Joan Didion told us, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” And yet, the story of stories has never...

Under the Skin investigates the role of cross-cultural body modification in seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century North America, revealing that the practices of tattooing and scalping were crucial to interactions between Natives and newcomers. These permanent and painful marks could act as signs of alliance or signs of conflict, producing a complex bodily archive of cross-cultural entanglement. Indigenous body modification practices were adopted and transformed by colonial powers, making tattooing and scalping key forms of cultural and political contestation in early America.

We all learn at least one language as children. But what does it take to learn six languages...or seventy? In Babel No More, Michael Erard, "a monolingual with benefits," sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages; Emil Krebs, a pugnacious German diplomat, who spoke sixty-eight languages; and Lomb Kat, a Hungarian who taught herself Russian by reading Russian romance novels.

With the invention of printing, reading books moved from being an act performed only by priests and aristocrats into an individual, even private activity. This change helped spark the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution - in which punctuation played a crucial role. As long as texts were read out loud by only an educated elite there was no need for punctuation to mark pauses, full stops or questions.

An urgent, globe-spanning exploration of languages at risk, from Kichwa to Ukrainian, that asks: What do we lose—culturally, politically, and personally—when a language is silenced? Languages can be killed in many ways: war, the climate crisis, nationalism, and even quiet choices made at the...

Half the world's population speaks a language that has evolved from a single prehistoric mother tongue. First spoken in Stone Age times on the steppes of central Eurasia 6,500 years ago, this mother tongue spread from the shores of the Black Sea across almost all of Europe and much of Asia. It is the genetic basis of everything we speak and write today - the DNA of language.

Conceived as a practical, accessible "how to" guide, The Bilingual Revolution is the story of a movement to bring dual language education to public schools told through the eyes of founding parents and educators. These pioneering mothers, fathers, teachers, and principals share the belief that bilingual education can positively transform a child, a school, a community, and even a country. Being bilingual can become the new norm, and it starts with our youth and our education systems.

Ruben Soto gives us an insightful and informative history of the leading Spanish-language television network in the United States. This book will show you how Univision changed American television from an all English-format to one that includes Spanish. You will also hear how Univision convinced advertisers that Hispanics had huge purchasing power.

If you’ve ever wanted to add a little savoir faire to your badinage, or chutzpah to your spiel, then fear not, help is at hand. A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi is an entertaining jaunt through the legions of words, from aficionado to zeitgeist, that we English-speakers have pilfered from across the globe. It includes fascinating derivations and witty examples, as well as all the stories of just how and why we absorbed such exotic imports.