The Loom of Language. A Guide to Foreign Languages for the Home Student

Frederick Bodmer

ISBN 10: 085036275X / ISBN 13: 9780850362756

Published by The Merlin Press Ltd, 1981

About this Item

Excellent condition rare 1981 edition of the original 1944, edited and arranged by Lancelot Hogben. Internally clean on the text with only a name and price on the front end page. Pages are bright and white and dark red covers and gilt lettering are still bright. Dust jacket is lightly shelf worn and dust marked but in overall excellent condition. NOT clipped. Wrapped in protective plastic removable cover.

Seller Inventory # J2/976

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Loom of Language. A Guide to Foreign Languages for the Home Student
• Publisher: The Merlin Press Ltd
• Publication Date: 1981
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 085036275X
• ISBN 13: 9780850362756
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

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 the Author

Frederick Bodmer is a distinguished Swiss philologist.