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The Unfolding of Language : An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention

• Title - The Unfolding of Language : An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention
  • Author - Guy Deutscher
  • Category - nonfiction
  • 
  • Queue status - completed

• Guy Deutscher

Synopsis

This is a very readable tour through the current state of knowledge about the history and evolution of languages. Deutscher describes the 'erosion' of language that caused consternation among linguists of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The erosion consists of erosion of pronounciation (for example, the nearly universal erosion of voiced consonants to unvoiced to fricatives), and the erosion of case and conjugation systems. He also describes the less apparent processes of language creation rising from linguistic hyperbole - words piled upon words, and then eroded to form new words and compounds. He also describes a theory that would account for the Semitic verb system.