Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages

Deutscher, Guy

ISBN 10: 080508195X / ISBN 13: 9780805081954

Published by Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2010

About this Item

iv + 304 pp, Prologue, II Parts / 9 chapters with b&w illustrations and color plates, epilogue, Appendix, Notes, Biblography, Illustration credits, index. Binding tight and square, pages clean and unmarked, paper slightly browned with age approaching the edges, DJ unclipped in acetate protector. Size: Octavo.

Seller Inventory # 008323

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, New York
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080508195X
• ISBN 13: 9780805081954
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • LINGUISTICS
  • LANGUAGES

About this title

Synopsis

A masterpiece of linguistics scholarship, at once erudite and entertaining, confronts the thorny question of how―and whether―culture shapes language and language, culture

Linguistics has long shied away from claiming any link between a language and the culture of its speakers: too much simplistic (even bigoted) chatter about the romance of Italian and the goose-stepping orderliness of German has made serious thinkers wary of the entire subject. But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language―and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"?

Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is―yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water―a "she"―becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial. Audacious, delightful, and field-changing, Through the Language Glass is a classic of intellectual discovery.

About the Author

Guy Deutscher is the author of The Unfolding of Language. Formerly a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and of the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Languages at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, he is an honorary research fellow at the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures at the University of Manchester. He lives in Oxford, England.