- English
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- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
The next century will see more than half of the world's 6,000 languages become extinct, and most of these will disappear without being adequately recorded. Written by one of the leading figures in language documentation, this fascinating book explores what humanity stands to lose as a result.
- Explores the unique philosophy, knowledge, and cultural assumptions of languages, and their impact on our collective intellectual heritage
- Questions why such linguistic diversity exists in the first place, and how can we can best respond to the challenge of recording and documenting these fragile oral traditions while they are still with us
- Written by one of the leading figures in language documentation, and draws on a wealth of vivid examples from his own field experience
- Brings conceptual issues vividly to life by weaving in portraits of individual 'last speakers' and anecdotes about linguists and their discoveries
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Dying Words by Nicholas Evans in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Linguistics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Series
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- A Note on the Presentation of Linguistic Material
- Part I: The Library of Babel
- Part II: A Great Feast of Languages
- Part III: Faint Tracks in an Ancient Wordscape: Languages and Deep World History
- Part IV: Ratchetting Each Other Up: The Coevolution of Language, Culture, and Thought
- Part V: Listening While We Can
- Epilogue: Sitting in the Dust, Standing in the Sky
- Notes
- References
- Both
- Index of Languages and Language Families
- Index