Language History

He is not beautiful. His mother does not want him, children run away from him. People laugh at him, and call him "The Elephant Man". Then someone speaks to him – and listens to him! At the age of 27, Joseph Merrick finds a friend for the first time in his life. This is a true and tragic story. It is also a famous film.

Surprising, entertaining, and illuminating, this is a must-listen for armchair travelers and word nerds. Our dictionaries are full of hidden histories, tales, and adventures from all over the world - if you know where to look.

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.

En este nuevo libro Daniel Balmaceda aumenta su colección sobre el origen de las palabras. Con términos novedosos y que hacen al contexto en el que vivimos (como deadline, free-lance o target), hasta el origen de la palabra "cuarentena" que tanto utilizamos en este año. Sin embargo, no deja de lado ciertas frases que utilizamos en la Argentina, como "Quedar en Pampa y la vía", o los maravillosos epónimos, un género en sí mismos.

Welcome to the world of Ann Coulter. With her monumental bestsellers Treason, Slander, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Coulter has become the most recognized and talked-about conservative intellectual in years—and certainly the most controversial. Now, in How to Talk to a Liberal (If You...

From a media expert and network commentator, an engaging guide through the welter of misinformation-generated by politicians and the media alike-that surrounds political campaigns Here, at last, is the book for anyone who ever wondered how the media extravaganzas we call political campaigns...

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...

By explaining how the human brain works and outing its most irrational processes, this book provides the thinking tools that will help you make better decisions, ask the right questions (at the right time), know what to look for when evaluating information, and understand how your own brain subconsciously clouds your judgment. Think you're too smart to be easily misled? Harrison summarizes scientific research showing how easily even intelligent and well-educated people can be fooled.

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...

Welcome to the world of Ann Coulter. With her monumental bestsellers Treason, Slander, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Coulter has become the most recognized and talked-about conservative intellectual in years—and certainly the most controversial. Now, in How to Talk to a Liberal (If You...

Frances Mayes, whose enchanting #1 New York Times bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun made the world fall in love with Tuscany, invites readers back for a delightful new season of friendship, festivity, and food, there and throughout Italy. Having spent her summers in Tuscany for the past...

Perhaps not surprisingly given how advanced they were in comparison to contemporaries, the Egyptians invented one of the first writing systems ever, and for centuries, people thought these ancient texts held some sort of secret, be it aliens, advanced technology lost to the world, or mystical cures for all of the world’s ills. Even the ancient Egyptians saw their writing systems as full of mystery and hidden knowledge - according to Egyptian mythology, writing was invented by the ibis-headed god Thoth, the most intellectual of the gods.

In this ambitious book, Jieun Kiaer explores the lives of English words in the twenty-first century, when the creation and use of language has become an increasingly dynamic, interactive, and diverse process in which ordinary people have taken leading roles—offering such coinages as "flexitarian," "MeToo," "glow up," and "shitizen" to "No sabo kids" and beyond. As English language grows ever more diverse, Kiaer believes, we need a paradigm shift.

When conflicts become entrenched over generations, the language of war infiltrates everyday life, concealing destruction and hardening positions. Nowhere is this truer than in the Middle East. Award-winning author Raja Shehadeh explores the politics of language and the language of politics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, reflecting on the walls that they create - legal and cultural - that confine today's Palestinians just like the borders, checkpoints and so-called "Separation Barrier".

Along with Egypt, the cultural and geographic region known as Mesopotamia was home to some of the world’s earliest civilizations and also the first known form of writing, cuneiform. Many different ethnic groups vied for power in ancient Mesopotamia over the course of antiquity--spanning about 3,000 years--and many of them spoke different languages. Despite these differences, the people in Mesopotamia shared many cultural attributes including similar religious practices, a common art and architecture style, and a shared use of the cuneiform script.

La de De Rokha es una historia llena de piezas extraviadas que Álvaro Bisama reconstruye de forma admirable. Cómo fue armándose su clan y familia, la fulminante historia de amor con Winétt, la guerrilla literaria en la que disparó sin piedad, su soledad como escritor, sus viajes por el Chile rural, sus inolvidables celebraciones, su compleja adhesión al Partido Comunista, el relato de sí mismo que construyó en su obra, las muertes trágicas que enlutaron sus días, entre otras circunstancias, dibujan aquí no solo la vida del poeta, también un momento histórico.

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.

This audiobook covers the Egyptian hieroglyph metaphysical language of images/pictures - the language of the mind/intellect/divine; the scientific/metaphysical realities of pictorial images (hieroglyphs) as the ultimate medium for the human consciousness that interpret, process, and maintain the meanings of such images.

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.

Would you receive a ‘char and a wad’ with a grateful smile? If asked to take a ‘dekko’, would you be offended? And if spotted reading the ‘yellow press’, would you be embarrassed?The meaning of these and many other intriguing phrases are defined, and their loss lamented, in this wonderfully nostalgic look at how language has changed over the past few decades.