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Zusatztext A very useful university handbook[The author] does not shy away from complex or controversial issues. Instead, these issues are put forward with interest, presenting to the reader the most recent scientific contributions to difficult topics with caution and moderation. Informationen zum Autor Tore Janson was Professor of Oriental and African Languages at the University of Göteborg until his retirement in 2000. He was previously Professor of Latin at the same university and is a world expert on its history. He is the author of the international bestsellers Speak: A Short History of Languages (OUP 2002; paperback 2003) and The Natural History of Latin (OUP 2004, paperback 2005). Klappentext This is an introduction to the history of languages, from the distant past to a glimpse at what languages may be like in the distant future. It looks at how languages arise, change, and ultimately vanish, and what lies behind their different destinies. What happens to languages, he argues, has to do with what happens to the people who use them, and what happens to people, individually and collectively, is affected by the languages they speak. The book opens by examining what languages the hunter-gatherers might have spoken and the changes to language that took place when agriculture made settled communities possible. It then looks at the effects of the invention of writing, the formation of empires, the spread of religions, and the recent dominance of world powers, and shows how these relate to great changes in the use of languages. Tore Janson discusses the appearance of new languages, the reasons why some languages spread and others die, considers whether similar cyclical processes are found at different times and places, and examines the causes of internal changes in languages and dialects. The book ranges widely among the world's languages and mixes thematic chapters on general processes of change with accounts of specific languages, including Chinese, Arabic, Latin, Greek, and English. Zusammenfassung An introduction to the history of languages, from distant past to distant future, looking at how languages arise, change, and die, and showing how the histories of peoples and languages are closely connected. It mixes chapters on general processes with accounts of specific languages, including Chinese, Arabic, Greek, Latin, and English. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Maps List of Figures List of Tables Preface Part I: Before History 1: Unwritten Languages 2: The Large Language Groups Part II: The Basis of History 3: History and Writing 4: Hieroglyphs and Egyptian 5: Chinese - The Oldest Survivor Part III: Language Expansions 6: Greek - Conquest and Culture 7: Latin - Conquest and Order 8: Arabic - Conquest and Religion Part IV: Languages and Nations 9: Did Dante Write in Italian? 10: From Germanic to Modern English 11: The Era of National Languages Part V: Europe and the World 12: Languages of Europe and of the World 13: How Languages are Born - or Made 14: How Languages Disappear Part VI: Recent Past, Present, Future 15: The Heyday of English 16: Chinese and English in China 17: And Then? Chronology References Guidelines for Answers to Questions Index ...
