Review: Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages

Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages by Gaston Dorren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Chances are, no matter how much or little you enjoy languages, you will learn a lot from this book.

Having said that, the choice of the most popular languages leaves a feeling of inadequacy, in that too many languages are left by the wayside. Granted, the discussions on why these languages become widespread is interesting (ie the difference between Dutch and Portuguese), although more could have been said on that as well, and how the less widespread languages differ, etc.

My favorite quote: "The German Case System is in annoyingly good health"



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Review: Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter — Then, Now, and Forever

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter — Then, Now, and Forever by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another fun John Mcwhorter book. Interesting to hear tidbits, like how “darn” actually meant the opposite of “damn” and doesn’t share the same roots (it’s from eternal—> tarnation). 

Obviously if I review this I’m going to have to at least allude to these bad words. One thing I disagreed with was “c-sucker”, which he says is obsolete, but I definitely hear from time to time. I’m under the impression the show “Sopranos” brought it back to life. 

Also odd that “the other F-word” has no relation to the Yiddish “Fegulah”, which I always assumed it came from. 

Very interesting to see how Curse words went from “The holy to the holes”, as he puts it. Saying “damn” was once worse than the F-word, because it was considered blasphemous. Nowadays most curse words have to do with orifices (secretion or insertion). But he also makes the argument there might be another change going on right now, from current curse words (which we actually hear all the time online) to slurs. 

I remember a high school teacher scolding me for having a “Skateboarders suck” t-shirt, asking me “What do they suck?”. I wonder if that would still be an issue these days. 

5 stars

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Review: The Story of Nine Asian Alphabets

The Story of Nine Asian Alphabets by Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An extremely interesting book with a lot of information I didn't know yet. Highly recommended. I do wish it discussed other languages, like Cambodian and Laotian scripts, etc. Although the various Indonesian scripts were a nice addition.  

And it could definitely use an editor. 

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Review: Dire quasi la stessa cosa: Esperienze di traduzione

Dire quasi la stessa cosa: Esperienze di traduzione by Umberto Eco
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent collection of essays. Many of these were repeats for me, since they were featured (in English) in "Mouse or Rat". Still, either one of these books should be required reading for any literary translator. 

The arguments about how people who speak different languages view words differently depending on masculine and feminine (Sun is masculine in Italian, Spanish and French, while moon is feminine, but this is the opposite in German, so when Hoffman said The sun invited the moon to dinner, the imagery is very different. Likewise, Ingmar Bergman's death might seem weird to an Italian/Spanish/French speaker, since death is feminine in those languages (and seen as the feminine "sweet death" in ancient literature). Although sometimes this talk veers a bit too much into Sapir-Whorf territory. 

Also interesting is Sol Worth's quote "Pictures can't say ain't". In other words, people can interpret a piece of art to be anything they wish it to be. When Magritte wanted to specify it wasn't a pipe he literally had to write it. 

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Review: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You pretty much need to be an archaeologist to follow along with most of this book. 

The initial part is fascinating, but the author then decides he wants to prove he left no stone unturned. 

I don’t doubt that archaeological knowledge is needed in order to get to the bottom of PIE and its origins. In fact, I fully support his thesis and linguistic historians and archaeologists should work in tandem on this. 

Having said that, it doesn’t really make for the most entertaining book. I’m sure he did his homework (the chapter on horses, their teeth, and whether they were domesticated is nuts), but this read more like a thesis than a book. 

I also thought it was curious how, after stating that PIE didn’t expand due to conquests (he said it was more like franchises), he then claims that the language of conquerors pretty much always prevails. This may we true, but we know of at least one glaring exception throughout time. The territory of what we now call China was conquered by the Mongols, and then later by the Manchus. However neither of their languages even left a dent in modern Chinese. Shouldn’t we at least acknowledge something similar may have occurred with the spread of PIE?

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Review: You Talkin' To Me?: The Unruly History of New York English

You Talkin' To Me?: The Unruly History of New York English by E.J. White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is more a history of New York's people and names, which obviously goes hand-in-hand with New York English. I do wish, however, that it had been more of a progressive journey through how New Yorkers spoke throughout the centuries. 

Still, some very interesting tidbits. Especially the differences between how men and women talk. And how New Yorkers have stubbornly been clinging to their non-rhoticity, while it has gone away in so many other places. 

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Review: Words on the Move: Why English Won't—and Can't—Sit Still

Words on the Move: Why English Won't—and Can't—Sit Still by John McWhorter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another great entertaining book by John Mcwhorter, narrated by the author. 

As always, I enjoy listening to his books/lectures, especially when they have to do with the English language (sometimes I find his conclusions re: other languages a bit of a stretch). 

In essence, unless you speak in a way others don't understand you, there is no "incorrect" way of speaking. 

e.g.:

In defense of "Irregardless":

It might seem like it's a redundancy to say "Ir-regardless", but "overwhelm" is a redundancy too. 

Does the word "whelm" exist? Well, it did (you can find it in Moby Dick). And it meant overwhelm.  "Overwhelm" was the irregardless of its day. 

Rise up, sink down, enter into. These are also redundant, but people don't have a problem with them. 

Of course, how you speak says something about you. So one should know how to speak in a manner society perceives as "proper". Just as you tuck in your shirt for a job interview, you should 'tuck in'  your double negatives and 'irregardless's as well. 

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Review: Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It

Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It by Gabriel Wyner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent book, and the best I've encountered thus far for learning a new language. 

His main three points:

1. Work on your pronunciation first.

2. Don’t translate.

3. Use spaced repetition.

Some of my (quick) notes:

- Find a good grammar book. Don't go through it in order, but keep it for practice.

- Spaced repetition  - use Anki, with images and (possibly) recordings

- Minimal pairs (this was superb. I know in Chinese there are plenty of sounds I just couldn't notice the difference between, while native speakers found them obvious. Using minimal pairs at the outset would have been extremely useful to me). 

- Forvo.com and Rhinospike are great websites. Check them out.

- Apparently children will ALWAYS learn "Mommy working" before "Mommy works". Interesting.

I can't say I agreed with his emphasis on the IPA. This is pretty darn difficult to learn, especially if you're just starting out, and seems like it would just add to the complications. 

Also, while there is a lot of emphasis on how to deal with languages that have masculine/feminine/neutral etc. (and some great methods for doing so), it was lacking quite a bit for languages like Chinese and Japanese, using characters. And some of his advice ("use pinyin in this scenario") seems a tad simplistic. Actually, I'd love for him to tackle Chinese, and then see what methods he develops for dealing with it (the tones, the characters, measure words, etc.)

And finally, toward the end his Spaced Repetition card recommendations got way too complicated for me. Probably because I'm not dealing with any elementary-level languages right now. But regardless, it seems like a lot of extra work. Still, if it's fun, all the better...

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Review: Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. This turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. An insider's look into what lexicographers working on making dictionaries go through. 

Some of my notes: 

People are actively advised not to be social at work. For phone calls you can only use 2 payphones that hardly ever get used. 

Cheatsheet they use for Transitive verbs: "I'mma _____ his ass". If you can insert the verb in the blank, it is transitive. 

Apparently lexicographers *hate* dealing with so-called grammar nazis. To them that isn't what grammar is. In fact, most of the well-established rules these grammar-nazis want everyone to follow are extremely faulty. 

An example: Its (possessive) vs. It's (contraction). This seems simple enough, since we know "it's" is short for "it is" or "it has". 

Except we also know " -'s" is short for possessives (as in "the dog's bowl") so why isn't it natural for "it's" to be possessive? 

In fact, we have no problem accepting that "the dog's barking" and "the dog's bowl" are both correct, both using "--'s". Why are we so bothered when it comes to "it's"? 

Btw, this is a recent phenomenon (like many grammar rules we have now). Chaucer and Shakespeare just used "it". The addition of the 's' came later, but not as we use it. In fact, at first people complained about its incorrect usage, but the other way around. They said "it's" being short for "it is" didn't make sense because we already had "T'is" 

"On fleek" first appeared in June 2014, in a 6 second video by Peaches Monroe (where she called her eyebrows on fleek). In November, 5 months later, nearly 10% of all Google searches were for "On fleek". When asked, she said she just invented it. 

Many English words come from French, but some, like "Lingerie", have a pronunciation in English that has almost nothing to do with the French pronunciation of the same spelling. (we think French words should end in "ay", like Café, so we end "Lingerie" with the same sound, and pronounce the first syllable like the "En" from a french-isized "Envelope". 

https://amzn.to/3KymqDO

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Review: Lingo: A Language Spotter's Guide to Europe

Lingo: A Language Spotter's Guide to Europe by Gaston Dorren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fun book! A bit sporadic, but it was to be expected, covering a smattering of languages and cultures. It will be full of little tidbits you probably didn't know (Avalanche is the only English word we got from the Romansh language; gönnen is the German word for finding joy in another's success. We had a word for this in Old English, but have apparently stopped doing so; etc.)

Don't expect a treatise or any in-depth study. But if you want some interesting Trivia for European-related languages, this is a great book. 

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Review: Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache

Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache by Keith H. Basso
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Having started this book, I almost left it unfinished after the first part. I still don't know why I had it in my wishlist. Regardless, it is definitely a unique book. This is part linguistics, part anthropology, part philosophy, all dealing with the Western Apache. The idea of "place-making" is, as far as I can tell, unique, and yet there are echoes of it in other cultures I'm sure. 

No matter who you are, this is almost definitely what Tyler Cowen refers to as a "view quake" book. 

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Review: Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage

Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another excellent book by John McWhorter. This one concentration on the English language, past, present and future. 

Here are some of my notes:

So apparently the Angles, Saxons and Jutes weren't the first Germanic people to cross over to England. At that time there were settlements of Frisians already living in the Southeast. I had no idea. Although now that I think about it it makes sense since English is in fact closer to Frisian than any of the other low German dialects. 

He mentions an Italian dialect called "Monese" which I cannot for the life of me find any trace of. If anyone knows where this could be from please let me know. The closest I could get would be Cremonese (maybe Creo-Monese and drop the Creo?) or possibly a dialect from Monno, although that would be the dialetto Camuno (a type of Lombard) I guess. 

You shouldn't say "Ain't I" if you're educated. But you shouldn't say "Amn't I", so what do you say? "Aren't I?". Except that is non-sensical (Are not I?)

I want to read more about Robert Lowthe and William Cobbett, and their prescriptive recommendations for English usage. 

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Review: Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book for the Translation Book Club: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TranslationBooks

This wasn't as entertaining as I hoped it would be, but should probably be required reading for anyone who wishes to take translation seriously. It contains a lot of the history of translation and reasons behind the things we do, and it goes through many of the intricacies of translation and interpreting for organizations like the European Union, etc. 

If you think you might be interested in translation, start with "Through the Language Glass" by Guy Deutscher. If you are already committed to translation, read this book. 

Some of my notes:

"The translator's job is to express the force of the utterance in those particular circumstances in forms appropriate to the target language and culture. Whether or not the chosen form of words corresponds to the sentence-meaning of the sentence that Jim uttered is beside the point".  

(p. 70)

'It's complicated' would be "C'est compliqué" in French. But the 2009 movie "It's complicated" (Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep) was translated as "Pas si simple". Why? Because it worked much better in terms of the movie. In fact, in Spanish it was "No es tan facil". In Italian, it was "E' complicato", but I wonder if it would have been better as "Non è così facile" or something. 

(Taken from p. 79)

"To know a language is to know how to say the same thing in different words (p.102)

The whole section on 'class presumption' (p. 189) was fascinating. I've seen it in other instances, but this example is one of the clearest. 

"Translation is the opposite of empire" (p. 212)

The spread of a language as a 'pivot' is not due to its native speakers. Ex: China's Confucius Institute translates the Chinese classics into French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi and Malay, but all 'on the basis of the English translation' (p. 223)

"Children and women with babes in arms" Do the children have babes in arms as well? (p. 246)

Shibata Motoyuki (p. 303)

Otto Von Bismarck's "Adjutant" vs. "Adjudant" incident (P. 315)

Translation is a thankless task. When a book is translated well, the author is praised. When translated badly, the translator is blamed. (p. 330)

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Review: Language A to Z

Language A to Z by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my third book/course by John McWhorter and yet again it is excellent. I was afraid that a lot of the material would be repeated but, while there definitely was some overlap, there was so much that was refreshing and new that I find myself wishing to listen to it again just so I can take more notes. Here are some of the ones I took this time around:

Record, Recall, Rebel are all pronounced differently if a verb or noun. 

The etymology of eenie, meenie, minie moe and hickory dickory dock were excellent (both from Welsh numbers)

H for Hobbit and T for Tones were probably my favorite sections, especially his examples ('boat' and 'poat') of how tones can come into being.

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Review: Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was worried this would be a rehash of McWhorter's other book, or of other books on the English language (I'm thinking mainly Melvin Bragg's "The Story of English"), but actually it had some very refreshing material.

I like his discussions on the useless "do" in English. ('Did you see that?' 'I don't like that' Etc.) and how it probably derives from the celtic.

I'm not sure i'm convinced of one of his examples of English uniqueness, stating how "I read" isn't really present tense because, when asked what they're doing, no one would reply "I read". I mean, that's true, but it doesn't seem unique to English, as he says it is. In Italian you would answer with the gerund (like with English) "sto leggendo", and in Chinese you would probably say something like ”我正在看書“ (so basically the gerund as well). Unless I understood it incorrectly.

Fascinating how "Going to" became a future tense. I also enjoyed his takedown of prescriptive grammarians and Sapir-Whorf adherents (although I imagine no linguists take that hypothesis seriously anymore, so it was probably directed to all the lay readers).

I'm also not sure I'm convinced about the semitic influence on Proto-Germanic, although it reminded me of one of the Sherlock Holmes stories (I can't remember which one) where he was trying to figure out whether Cornish had Chaldean roots.

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Review: Language Families of the World

Language Families of the World by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think I found my new go-to to recommend for people who are interested in learning about linguistics, or languages in general (although I still love Empires of the Word). I found this book fascinating, and McWhorter extremely entertaining.

Some of my notes:
The more adults have had to learn a language throughout its history, the more simple it tends to be. The longer a language is left to itself, the more complicated it will get.

"I went to the store" said Edward
This is an awkward sentence structure that is never spoken, only written. It never was a natural manner of speaking in English, but it's a holdover from English's germanic roots. Namely, how German likes to have the verb in the second place, as in:
"Ich gehe ins kino", and
"Morgen gehe ich ins kino"
We don't have that anymore, but we have some awkward ways of using sentences because of it.


If we didn't have written Latin, many language families would be much more of a problem. For example, "cheese" in Italian is Formaggio, in French is Fromage, in Spanish is Queso, and in Portuguese is queijo, while in Romanian it is branza. So what was the root word? Btw, in Romantsch it is Cascio, while in Sicilian it is caccio. We know that in Latin it was caseus formaticum thanks to writing, but without those writings it would be almost impossible to figure out. This is the case for most language families.

Apparently Estonian has triple consonants.

Also, I've been looking for a place to learn Cherokee online now, thanks to this book (although without much luck)

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Review: Breve storia della lingua italiana

Breve storia della lingua italiana by Bruno Migliorini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Libro molto ben studiato e ben documentato. Il fatto che sia stato scritto nel '62 mi fa pensare che ci vorrebbe una seconda edizione, con i cambiamenti recenti nella lingua, specialmente per quanto riguarda i dialetti e il gergo.

Il libro entra molto in dettaglio, e prosegue in ordine cronologico seguendo lo sviluppo e la trasformazione dal latino all'italiano. Devo ammettere ci sono certi punti che mi suonano un po' strano. Ad es: il libro afferma che il nome del color "bianco" è longobardo, ma in francese e spagnolo si usa blanc e blanco (e non "candidus" come in latino), e i longobardi in quei paesi non ci sono mai arrivati.



Qui sotto alcuni dei passaggi evidenziati:

Triplice esito da Fabula (in latino): fola, fiaba e favola
CE, CI, GE, GI in età repubblicana suonavano ke, ki, ghe, ghi
Parole etrusche entrate nel latino: populus, persona, catena, taberna
la sparizione del vocabolo "DOMUS" e il prevalere di CASA, che in età classica significava "capanna, casetta rustica" è indizio di ruralizzazione
il passaggio di significato dal latino CAPTIVUS all'italiano cattivo (malvagio) è dovuto al latino cristiano, in locuzioni come: "captivus diaboli" e simili (prigioniero del diavolo, ossesso).
La scomparsa della categoria del neutro nella lingua parlata è da collocarsi in età imperiale
nel Settentrione le tracce di plurali in -s persistono a lungo
I Toscani possedevano un sistema di sette vocali (non dice quali)
Per i pronomi, si divulgavano "lui" e "lei" come soggetti nel 1434
Il Savonarola, quando venne a Firenze, "diceva mi e ti, di che gli altri frati ridevano"
Il verbo "tradurre" viene da una traduzione errata di Leonardo Bruni (di un passo di Gellio), e sostituisce "traslatare" e "tralatare"
Macchiavelli: "Ciò che più conta in una lingua, è la capacità di poter assorbire bene le parole forestiere"
Per secoli con "fiorentino" e "toscano" s'intendeva la lingua dei grandi trecentisti, e non il fiorentino o il toscano parlato
Manzoni: "Per nostra sventura, lo stato dell'Italia divisa in frammenti, la pigrizia e l'ignoranza quasi generale hanno posto tanta distanza tra la lingua scritta e la parlata, che questa può dirsi quasi come lingua morta"
Dal Veneto viene il saluto "ciao"



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Review: Translating Culture - Late-Victorian Literature into Chinese

Translating Culture - Late-Victorian Literature into Chinese by Isaac Yue
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Once again, this was probably beyond my pay grade. The subject seemed a tad esoteric, and I guess it is, but it's pretty fascinating regardless. It reminded me of Tim Parks' "Translating Style", although that was for IT-EN, which is my language combination. This one dealt with late Victorian literature and the translations of some select works into Chinese. As with Tim Parks' book, I think that even someone with little or no knowledge of Chinese will get quite a bit out of this, since it is a very thorough analysis of what was going on in Late Victorian literature, and how it affected the authors. I especially enjoyed "New Women Novels and their Translations" and "Dandyism and Witticism: The importance of being Oscar Wilde in the Context of Translation".



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Review: Discovering Language

Discovering Language by Thomas Nash
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So this is a textbook, complete with exercises at the end of each chapter. It is a Linguistics primer, and the target audience is English speaking students in Taiwan. Taking all this into account, it is a rather interesting book, especially if English and Chinese are two of your languages. 3 stars, but rounded up to 4 because I should have know it would be a normal textbook ahead of time.

Some interesting notes:
- Words with /sl/ are said to convey unpleasant associations (slime, slither, slug, sloppy, etc.)
- Most words ending in -ump suggest heaviness and bluntness (rump, dump, hump, mump, lump, chump, thump, bump)
- The section on the different ways of being polite for Americans vs. Chinese (P. 55)
- The p's in the words "pit" and "spit" are pronounced differently, though English speakers do not normally realize this.
- Relatively new in-fix in English: "ma" (as in edu-ma-cation)
- Peoples' names have become common words: lumberjack, jack of all trades, Tomboy, tomcat, jimmy open
- 蒙古大夫 for a quack
- Languages with inclusive and exclusive "we": Taiwanese, Quechua, Tok Pisin, Hawaiian
- "gamel" became gamble. Same process added "d" to thunder and tender, and "p" to empty
- "Dog" used to mean a certain breed, and "hound" meant all breeds of dogs. Now the opposite.
- Silly used to mean Happy, then naive, now Foolish.
- Want used to mean "lack"


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Hangeul in the World by Hong, Jongseon and co-authors

Hangeul in the World by Hong, Jongseon and co-authors
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A collection of essays that discuss Hangeul (or hangul) and its place in the world. Some of the essays were a bit annoying with their praise of, admittedly, a unique and very useful alphabet. But saying things like "Hangeul is such a perfect alphabet that even present day linguists cannot come up with anything more perfect" (p.34), among other similar comments, carries no real meaning, and in fact it lessens the validity of everything else that is mentioned, since it sounds less like an objective essay and more like a promotional campaign.

Having said that, it is certainly a unique writing system, and almost certainly the most mathematical (or logical) of all alphabets, and there are definitely some very interesting tidbits in here, including a whole essay on the various types of Hangeul fonts! Its usage in Japan, China and Europe was all eye-opening to me, as well as its history.

Recommended for any non-Korean speaker who has any interest in this language, and can't get their hands on Gari Ledyard's book, or wants to supplement it.


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