There can be few subjects of such widespread interest and fascination to anyone who reads as the strange ways of languages.
In this wonderfully entertaining and fascinating book, John McWhorter shares his expertise as a linguist (in both senses: he both teaches linguistics at UC Berkeley and speaks half-a-dozen languages fluently) to introduce us to "the natural history of language": to Russonorsk, a creole of Russian and Norwegian once spoken by trading fur trappers, the ways in which Yiddish - a dialect of German - has been influenced by the grammar of Polish and an Australian Aboriginal language which only has three verbs.
Along the way we learn how English absorbed French at two stages of its history, giving us the Norman French "warranty" and the standard French "guarantee", that Japanese has been infused with Chinese vocabulary at four distinct periods, and why Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are best regarded as three dialects of Scandinavian.
Witty, brilliant and authoritative, this book is a must for anyone who is interested in language, as sheerly enjoyable as non-fiction gets.
