Power of Babel

<p><strong>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.-- <em>Harper's</em></strong></p><p><strong>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.</strong></p><p>There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150000 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 <em> The Power of Babel </em>draws its illustrative examples from languages around the world including pidgins Creoles and nonstandard dialects.</p>