"An essay in origins ... as theoretical as Hawking and Gorst in trying
to see into the deep past. McWhorter is a clear and witty writer."--
Harper's
In the first book written for the layperson about the natural history
of language, linguistic professor John McWhorter ranges across
linguistic theory, geography, history, and pop culture to tell the
fascinating story of how thousands of very different languages have
evolved from a single, original source in a natural process similar to
biological evolution.
There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today, each a
descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years
ago. While laying out how languages mix and mutate over time,
linguistics professor John McWhorter reminds us of the variety within
the species that speaks them, and argues that, contrary to popular
perception, language is not immutable and hidebound, but a living,
dynamic entity that adapts itself to an ever-changing human environment.
Full of humor and imaginative insight, The Power of Babel draws its
illustrative examples from languages around the world, including
pidgins, Creoles, and nonstandard dialects.