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Description edit
Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world's great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Setting & Locations edit
- India
- Europe
- Egypt
- China
- France
- South-east Asia
- Britain
- Spain
- Russia
- Mexico
- Italy
- Japan
- Babylon
- England
- North Africa
- Greece
- Islam
- Anatolia
- Rome
- Assyria
- Mesopotamia
- Gaul
- Usa
- Iran
- Portugal
- North America
- Persia
- Peru
- Brazil
- Pacific
- Palestine
- Carthage
- Caribbean
- East Indies
- Afghanistan
- Korea
- Syriac
- Ireland
- Siberia
- Hinduism
- Balkans
- Canada
- London
- Atlantic
- Germany
- Middle East
First Sentence edit
From the language point of view, the present population of the world is not six billion, but something over six thousand.
Series & Lists edit
This book is in Folio Society. (edition-based publisher list)
Authors & Contributors edit
- Nicholas Ostler (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: HarperCollins
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 2005
ISBN: 0066210860
Page Count: 640
Publisher: HarperCollins
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 2005
ISBN: 0066210860
Page Count: 640
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: P107 .O88 2005
- Dewey: 409
Subjects edit
- Books › Reference › Words & Language › Linguistics
- Books › History › Historical Study › Social History
- Books › Reference › Foreign Languages
- Books › History › World
Popular Tags
Links to Supplemental Material edit
- Book Review, Folio Society: When asked in 1898 to name a defining factor in recent history, the German chancellor Bismarck replied, ‘North America speaks English.’ To linguist Nicholas Ostler, that anecdote reveals how ‘far more than princes, states or economies, it is language-communities who are the real players in world history’. In this engrossing and original narrative, Ostler gives us five millennia of world history as seen through the ‘empires of the word’.
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