IN 1786 WILLIAM JONES, a British civil servant in Calcutta, told the Asiatic Society that Sanskrit had too much in common with Greek, Latin and other European languages for it to be by chance. He had stumbled on the fact that these languages all shared a single parent. That discovery helped initiate a flowering in the 19th century of what was then called philology. Modern linguistics has moved into the study of many other elements of language, especially grammar. But where languages came from and how they got to be as they are today remains a perpetually entertaining and fascinating topic, and one which (unlike much linguistic theorising) generalist readers may grasp and enjoy.
The Power of Babel. By John McWhorter. Harper Perennial; 352 pages; $17.99. Cornerstone; £12.99
John McWhorter is a linguist and a prolific writer of accessible books on the history of language. One of his earliest, “The Power of Babel”, remains the broadest and best introduction to how languages come to be the weird things that they are. Showing over many pages how a single Latin sentence becomes a French one, for example, he explains how at every level—sound, meaning, grammar—words refuse to sit still. (For those particularly interested in the peculiarities of English, Mr McWhorter’s “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue” is the place to go.)
Empires of the Word. By Nicholas Ostler. HarperCollins; 640 pages; $17.99 and £20
Few writers have had the range and authority to write about as many languages as Nicholas Ostler. In this book he promises nothing less than a world history as told through language. From the world’s first written languages, Sumerian and Akkadian, through Chinese, Egyptian, Spanish and English, each profile of a language is at the same time a portrait of the culture that gave it birth. One examines the “solipsism” of ancient Greeks, who thought that non-Greek speakers said only “bar-bar-bar” (hence our word “barbarian”). Another traces Sanskrit’s spread through the advance of Buddhism. (Mr Ostler’s “Passwords to Paradise”, on languages and religions, is almost as good.)
How Dead Languages Work. By Coulter George. Oxford University Press; 240 pages; $26.95 and £20
Coulter George of the University of Virginia is a polyglot to abash even talented language-learners. In this book he offers detailed analysis of the peculiarities of Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Old Irish and other languages. Unlike Mr Ostler’s book, this is a work mainly of linguistics rather than of history, meaning the two can profitably be read side by side. They might also well be taken chapter by chapter, with occasional breaks to digest the information. Mr George’s erudition is not for the faint of heart, but his pen is gifted and his enthusiasm infectious.
The Etymologicon. By Mark Forsyth. Penguin; 304 pages; $18. Icon Books; £10.99
Mark Forsyth’s book doesn’t seem like it should work. It is a ramble through English vocabulary and its history, loosely organised by topic. And yet it does work, with entertaining stories of words from quisling to cappuccino. They are often surprising. Venice was the birthplace not only of ghetto and terra firma but also of regatta, lagoon and even ballot. This is the ideal book for those who are otherwise at a loss at cocktail parties. Mr Forsyth, a self-described quiet type, describes meeting a man munching a snack who asked where biscuit comes from. He explained that it means “twice-cooked” in French, and so shares its bi- with bisexual, which was coined only in the 1890s, and by the way by the same man who coined masochism, and so on until the man asked him to stop.
Holy Sh*t. By Melissa Mohr. Oxford University Press; 352 pages; $15.95 and £10.99
This unconventional history looks at the rise and fall of swear words over time in the English language. Today’s blue words may seem eternally shocking, but Melissa Mohr’s surprising book shows how some of today’s taboo terms were everyday medical or slang terms in centuries past. “Cunt” used to be a respectable term for female genitalia. In contrast, religious taboos had far greater weight in Shakespeare’s time. Words alluding to sex began to titillate and then shock in later centuries, but before the rise of today’s most sensitive words: slurs against racial and sexual groups. Ms Mohr’s tale shows how languages are not just words and grammar; they live in societies and are remade according to their users’ changing ways of expressing thoughts and emotions that do not change so much—including the wish to blow off steam with an expletive.
How Language Began. By Daniel Everett. Liveright; 352 pages; $19.95. Profile Books; £10.99
Daniel Everett is a former missionary in the Brazilian Amazon turned atheist and academic linguist at Bentley University. He is often portrayed (notably in a book by Tom Wolfe) as the public foil to Noam Chomsky, the world’s best known linguist. Mr Chomsky speculates that language began just 50,000 years ago, and possibly via a single genetic mutation. Mr Everett argues in this book that something like human language may be more like 1.9m years old, going all the way back to homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans. The debate is ongoing, but Mr Everett’s setting out of his stall in this book will introduce curious readers to the stakes, historical and philosophical as well as linguistic.■
Also try:
You can listen to The Economist Asks talk with John McWhorter on swearing, delve further into the psychology of taboo words, read more about the evolution of language and consider the argument made by Johnson, our language columnist, in defence of studying classical languages.
