Loom of Language

Bodmer, Frederick

ISBN 10: 085036275X ISBN 13: 9780850362756

Publisher: Prometheus Books, 1981

Synopsis

Here is an informative introduction to language: its origins in the past, its growth through history, and its present use for communication between peoples.

It is at the same time a history of language, a guide to foreign tongues, and a method for learning them. It shows, through basic vocabularies, family resemblances of languagesā€”Teutonic, Romance, Greekā€”helpful tricks of translation, key combinations of roots and phonetic patterns. It presents by common-sense methods the most helpful approach to the mastery of many languages; it condenses vocabulary to a minimum of essential words; it simplifies grammar in an entirely new way; and it teaches a languages as it is actually used in everyday life.

But this book is more than a guide to foreign languages; it goes deep into the roots of all knowledge as it explores the history of speech. It lights up the dim pathways of prehistory and unfolds the story of the slow growth of human expression from the most primitive signs and sounds to the elaborate variations of the highest cultures. Without language no knowledge would be possible; here we see how language is at once the source and the reservoir of all we know.

About this title

About the Author:

Frederick Bodmer is a distinguished Swiss philologist.

Review:

“Rewarding and delightful . . . for everyone who has the slightest curiosity or ambition in self expression, this is a book that contains months or years of pleasurable profit.”
- Christopher Morley

“Makes language study more hopeful and exciting than anything I have read before.”
- Lewis Gannett

About this edition

• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 085036275X
• ISBN 13: 9780850362756
• Binding: Textbook Binding
• Number of pages: 670