The world contains around 6,000 living languages, but you only need 20 to reach roughly half of the world in their native language. Gaston Dorren writes about those 20 in his latest book, Babel. Chapters are written in a variety of styles - The one on Persian is a Q&A; Vietnamese is a first-person essay. The chapter on Arabic offers eight pages of dictionary entries that correspond closely with English words, in an effort to bridge the foreignness of the language. Each chapter style pulls out the intricacies of the different tongues, creating vivid snapshots of what makes each language unique - sometimes culturally, sometimes linguistically, often historically. Even devoted linguists are bound to pick up tidbits they were previously unfamiliar with, and the book is an easy read, written to be digestible for the layperson.
展开▼
