Babel

October 15, 2018

A more apt title for this offering might be Babble, as this smorgasbord of 20 widely spoken languages is largely a stew of Dorren's (Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages) impressions and opinions that occasionally serves up delicious bloopers--e.g., nouns are not "conjugated"; verbs are conjugated, nouns are declined. Of the languages selected are those well known (in the West) such as French and Spanish, as well as the lesser-known Punjabi, Swahili, and Tamil. Each chapter offers a chart listing various characteristics of the tongue; it would have been helpful for comparison purposes if the same characteristics were used for each language. For instance, the author claims the subjunctive is a "bugbear" to master in Spanish yet doesn't mention it's equally complex in French. Oh, and English hasn't "borrowed" words from Greek; English has descended from Greek through Latin and French. VERDICT There's little consistency of presentation in this work from one section to the next, and grammatical terms are often not defined. Readers with a nonacademic interest in global languages might enjoy this buffet. Bon appétit!--Edward B. Cone, New York

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2018
Multilingual Dutch journalist and linguist Dorren (Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages, 2015, etc.) proves to be a genial, fascinating guide to the modes, manners, and curiosities of the most-spoken languages in the world.Among an estimated 6,000 languages in existence, 20 are spoken by half the world's population. From Vietnamese (85 million speakers) to English (1.5 billion speakers), the author investigates cultural, historical, and political influences that shaped the language, beginning with a succinct overview of the language's significant traits: writing system, family (Austronesian, Indo-European, etc.), grammar, and sounds. He also offers a sampling of words borrowed from other languages and those exported to English: lilac, from Turkish; safari, from Swahili; and eight pages of the plethora of English words derived from Arabic. Among the 20 selections are several that reveal deep-seated social divides. Japanese (130 million speakers), which has no grammatical gender, requires women to speak in a distinctive "genderlect": using slightly longer versions of words to make them sound polite and using different pronouns from men. Those differences, dating as far back as 794, have been abating over the past 25 years, Dorren writes, with women in films, theater, and on TV using speech that has "a much more masculine character than before." Javanese (95 million speakers) has "an exceptionally extensive formality system" in which every word has a synonym that reflects and reinforces Java's social hierarchy. That language is becoming endangered, with Malay (275 million speakers) having become the official language after Indonesia's independence in the late 1940s, uniting a population spread across nearly 1,000 islands, speaking over 700 different languages. Punjabi (125 million speakers), like Vietnamese, Hmong, Swedish, and Mandarin, is a tonal language, in which the meaning of the same word changes depending on the tone in which it is spoken. In conveying unfamiliar sounds, Dorren uses English spelling conventions but helpfully directs readers to his website, languagewriter.com, where sound files are available.A deft, spirited exploration of the connection of language to a nation's identity and culture.

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October 15, 2018
Linguists may recognize 6,000 living languages, but, in just 20 of these, Dorren finds the means whereby three-quarters of the planet's population communicate, either as native speakers or capable adopters. In surveying this score of tongues, Dorren teaches readers a great deal about how languages survive, evolve, and spread. Readers learn, for example, why the small country of Portugal has so successfully exported its language and why Malay triumphed over 700 other languages as Indonesia's dominant language. Readers learn a good deal, too, about comparative syntax and pronunciation: Dorren explains, for instance, how Spanish reflexive pronouns differ from their English counterparts and how the tonal structure of Punjabi contrasts with that of Mandarin. But as he shifts focus from language chapter to language chapter, Dorren delves into social and political dynamics affecting speech and writing. Readers see, for instance, how language differences triggered civil war between Sri Lanka's Tamil and Sinhalese speakers and how segregated lexicons created what Dorren provocatively labels gender apartheid in Japan. A fascinating foray into global linguistics.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)