Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas OstlerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
A fascinating book about how some languages thrived, continue to thrive, or don't thrive at all. It's not just conquering or imperialism (Turkic, Mongol and Manchu people conquered great empires but their language never spread), nor was it business and trade (the Dutch and Portuguese had bigger enterprises than the British did, but besides Brazil their languages didn't stick). Germanic tribes took over all of Europe after the Roman empire, and yet their language didn't stick, while the earlier Romance languages did.
Some of my notes:
What would have been different if Alexander the Great had gone West rather than East?
Coptic is a modern version of "Aiguptos", Greek for Egypt
Ramayana has a story like the Trojan war
The "Lugano alphabet"
Printed books meant the death of Latin
Christopher Columbus first thought he was in China, then in India, but after one month he stopped calling the locals "indios", yet the name stuck.
"Lingua Franca" stood for French language being used in the Levant during Crusades
Most English speakers speak it as a 2nd language: main reason it is widespread, but also big reason why it could die out.
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