Language History

Here, Cosimo proudly presents Book 2 of Ancient Egypt, in which Massey reads the prehistoric story of human civilization that can be studied in the language of ceremonial rites, ancient customs, and ritual dance, and consequently explores the resultant concept that religion evolved out of expressions of human fertility and sexuality–particularly as embodied in the primeval symbols of blood, sacrifice, and motherhood–and formed the first influences on Judeo-Christianity.

When it comes to mastering a foreign language, learning around your interests makes all the difference. But finding books designed for language learners can be hard! This book fixes that. For the first time, you’ll learn to improve your Spanish while learning about the history and theory of rock’n’roll.

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.

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.

You wouldn’t be ‘barking mad’ if, when asked the definition of certain phrases, ‘the cat got your tongue’ and you ‘clammed up’. Let’s not ‘beat around the bush’; the English language is littered with linguistic quirks that, on closer examination, seem utterly fantastical. In Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pyjamas, Judy Parkinson explores the many colourful – but rather incomprehensible – phrases that enhance our language, describing their origins and defining their true meanings.

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.

Words to Eat By explores the remarkable stories behind five of our most basic food words, words which reveal fascinating aspects of the evolution of the English language and our powerful associations with certain foods. Using sources that vary from Roman histories and early translations of the Bible to Julia Child's recipes and Frank Bruni's restaurant reviews, Ina Lipkowitz shows how saturated with French and Italian names the English culinary vocabulary is, "from a la carte to zabaglione."

You should have experienced situations when people do not understand you when you are in a foreign country. Especially when you are ordering food, you probably want to go to the kitchen and instruct on how to cook or even cook for yourself. This happens even more when you are asking for direction. People give you a random answer and try to get over it.

In Rousseau we encounter a walking ego, naked sensibility. Feeling triumphs over intellectual argument in his works, which are both deeply stirring and deeply inconsistent. Yet while his contemporaries Kant and Hume may have been superior academic philosophers, the sheer power of Rousseau's ideas was unequaled in his time. It was he who encouraged the introduction of both liberty and irrationality into the public domain.

Audiolibro de Vive el Tiempo. Escrito hace más de dos mil años, El Arte de la Guerra es un manual de enseñanzas para salir exitoso de cualquier batalla que se presente en la vida. Hoy en día este libro ha superado su original carácter militar y se ha convertido en una ineludible herramienta para quienes quieren ser triunfadores en la política, en los negocios, en los deportes, en la diplomacia y en todas las relaciones humanas.

Includes all 100 civics Questions and Answers read by a professional American voice actor with a natural American accent.

Here, Cosimo proudly presents Book 1 of Ancient Egypt, in which Massey argues that “primitive man” found no human agency in the phenomena of the natural world, which led to a woeful misinterpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphics by the Greeks and Romans as well as a misunderstanding of the essence of Egyptian mythology. As a consequence, Massey contends, a deep fount of wisdom of the ancients has been lost, and he goes on to reveal how it can be rediscovered.

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 scientific and medical revolution has crept up on us, based on study after study, from hundreds of laboratories around the world. It is no longer just a theoretical shift: every one of us will be touched by it, and many of us already have been. The meaning of disease, our understanding of the human body, and crucial decisions about what we all need to know and what choices we make about our health are at stake. Welcome to the new world of personalized medicine.

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.

So, 500 years is a lot of history to cover. Not only that, but you're super busy having a life and studying for all the other tests you have to take AND all the stuff you've got to do just to get in to college. But don't worry! We've got you covered... this audiobook is designed to walk you through everything that happened in the Old World from 1450 all the way through... well... right now!

Successful word coinage—those that stay in currency for a good long time—tend to conceal their beginnings. We take them at face value and rarely when and where they were first minted. Engaging, illuminating, and authoritative, Ralph Keyes' The Hidden History of Coined Words explores the etymological underworld of terms and expressions and uncovers plenty of hidden gems.

Splendiferous Speech explores the main sources of the American vernacular - the expanding western frontier, the bumptious world of politics, and the sensation-filled pages of popular 19th-century newspapers. It's a process that started with the earliest English colonists (first word adoption - the Algonquian raccoon) and is still going strong today. Author Rosemarie Ostler takes listeners along on the journey as Americans learn to declare linguistic independence and embrace their own brand of speech.

Who knew that the great country of Canada is named for a mistake? How about "bedswerver", the best Elizabethan insult to hurl at a cheating boyfriend? By exploring the delightful back stories of the 250 words in Wordcatcher, listeners will be lured by language and entangled in etymologies. It takes a special wordcatcher to create a treasure chest of remarkable words and their origins, and any word lover will relish the stories that Cousineau has discovered.

Struggling to reassert control over their Indochinese colonies after World War II, the French established a huge air-land base in the valley of Dien Bien Phu. But when the opposing Vietnamese People's Army (VPA) began massing its forces against the base in late 1953, French commanders seized the opportunity to draw their elusive enemy into a decisive set-piece battle. Defending a series of fortified positions which were reliant upon a single airstrip for reinforcement and resupply, the French troops quickly discovered that they had underestimated their enemy.