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Review
`Jaw-droppingly wonderful ... a marvellous and surprising book which left me breathless and giddy with delight' --Stephen Fry
`Fascinating' --Alex Bellos, author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland
`The book that I've found myself telling other people about most has been THROUGH THE LANGUAGE GLASS, Guy Deutscher's gripping pop-science book about linguistics and neuropsychology, describing how language shapes our perception of reality.' --Spectator Books of the Year
`Fabulously interesting ... remarkably rich, provocative and intelligent' --Sam Leith, Sunday Times
`So robustly researched and wonderfully told that it is hard to put down' --New Scientist
`Brilliant [and] beautifully written' --Financial Times
`Dazzling ... a fascinating argument ... a lively book.' --Independent
`Playful and provocative ... Guy Deutscher is that rare beast, an academic who talks good sense about linguistics' --Observer
`A sceptical reappraisal of the popular, and often misunderstood, notion that language influences thought' --Economist Books of the Year
`Fascinating' --Alex Bellos, author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland
`The book that I've found myself telling other people about most has been THROUGH THE LANGUAGE GLASS, Guy Deutscher's gripping pop-science book about linguistics and neuropsychology, describing how language shapes our perception of reality.' --Spectator Books of the Year
`Fabulously interesting ... remarkably rich, provocative and intelligent' --Sam Leith, Sunday Times
`So robustly researched and wonderfully told that it is hard to put down' --New Scientist
`Brilliant [and] beautifully written' --Financial Times
`Dazzling ... a fascinating argument ... a lively book.' --Independent
`Playful and provocative ... Guy Deutscher is that rare beast, an academic who talks good sense about linguistics' --Observer
`A sceptical reappraisal of the popular, and often misunderstood, notion that language influences thought' --Economist Books of the Year
Book Description
A brilliant and provocative exploration of how the cultures we live in affect the languages we speak and how we think of the world around us.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
92 of 93 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book takes a couple of old ideas about language that seem ludicrous and discredited, and shows that there is something in them. If you have read Deutscher's "Unfolding of Language", the first thing to know about this book is that it's much easier to understand - I read it all in one sitting, which I can't imagine doing with the earlier book because of the fairly hard going when discussing technicalities of grammar.
One issue seems rather dry and academic, but turns out to be anything but - names for colours and their development over time, starting with a book about Homer, by Gladstone (yes, the Victorian PM), which drew conclusions about colour perception by the Ancient Greeks from descriptions like "wine-dark sea". Similar discredited notions are ideas like speakers of languages with complex sets of tenses having a more highly-developed notion of time than those who use fewer tenses or none at all. Deutscher shows how the desire to get rid of silly nonsense has resulted in some equally silly nonsense, like the tenet that all languages are "equally complex" whether they belong to an 'advanced' Western civilisation or a 'primitive' aboriginal group. Far more acceptable of course than the notion that the 'primitive' language reflects racial inferiority, but still nonsense, because we have no way of measuring how complex a language is - we may as well say that all languages are equally green.
The other dodgy old notion is that your mother tongue affects the way you think. Deutscher shows that in a few ways, it actually does. Along the way you get entertaining coverage of things like gender conundrums, including the fact that Mark Twain's joke about female turnips applied to Old English just as much as modern German, and that like "she" for ships, this turnip gender lasted way past the death of Old English as a language - Deustscher quotes an example from a medicinal manual published in 1561.
It's all presented far more clearly than my hasty summary of the ideas can show you, and there's much incidental interest along the way, illustrating the fine line between thought-provoking but carefully stated suggestions and false statements (possibly based on a desire to 'prove' those suggestions) that lead generations of academics down the wrong path. Deutscher is good at seeing this process and as fair to the various participants as he can be. He's also good at getting you to see that aspects of foreign languages that seem absurd to English-speakers may actually indicate what's strange about English. His mother tongue is Hebrew, which has the same "irrational gender system" as most European languages, and he tells us that "If I knew more about (feminine) ornothology, I could tell by looking at each bird what biological sex she was. I would point at her and explain to the less initiated: 'You can tell she is a male because of that red spot on her chest and also because she is larger than the females.' And I would not feel there was anything remotely strange about that."
The biggest recommendations: the fact that I read the whole book again within a week, and Deutscher taking over from Steven Pinker as my favourite author of language-related books.
One issue seems rather dry and academic, but turns out to be anything but - names for colours and their development over time, starting with a book about Homer, by Gladstone (yes, the Victorian PM), which drew conclusions about colour perception by the Ancient Greeks from descriptions like "wine-dark sea". Similar discredited notions are ideas like speakers of languages with complex sets of tenses having a more highly-developed notion of time than those who use fewer tenses or none at all. Deutscher shows how the desire to get rid of silly nonsense has resulted in some equally silly nonsense, like the tenet that all languages are "equally complex" whether they belong to an 'advanced' Western civilisation or a 'primitive' aboriginal group. Far more acceptable of course than the notion that the 'primitive' language reflects racial inferiority, but still nonsense, because we have no way of measuring how complex a language is - we may as well say that all languages are equally green.
The other dodgy old notion is that your mother tongue affects the way you think. Deutscher shows that in a few ways, it actually does. Along the way you get entertaining coverage of things like gender conundrums, including the fact that Mark Twain's joke about female turnips applied to Old English just as much as modern German, and that like "she" for ships, this turnip gender lasted way past the death of Old English as a language - Deustscher quotes an example from a medicinal manual published in 1561.
It's all presented far more clearly than my hasty summary of the ideas can show you, and there's much incidental interest along the way, illustrating the fine line between thought-provoking but carefully stated suggestions and false statements (possibly based on a desire to 'prove' those suggestions) that lead generations of academics down the wrong path. Deutscher is good at seeing this process and as fair to the various participants as he can be. He's also good at getting you to see that aspects of foreign languages that seem absurd to English-speakers may actually indicate what's strange about English. His mother tongue is Hebrew, which has the same "irrational gender system" as most European languages, and he tells us that "If I knew more about (feminine) ornothology, I could tell by looking at each bird what biological sex she was. I would point at her and explain to the less initiated: 'You can tell she is a male because of that red spot on her chest and also because she is larger than the females.' And I would not feel there was anything remotely strange about that."
The biggest recommendations: the fact that I read the whole book again within a week, and Deutscher taking over from Steven Pinker as my favourite author of language-related books.
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In some cultures, there is a single word that denotes both blue and green. The people in these cultures can see the difference between the colors as well as anyone else, but they don't consider blue and green different colors, just different shades of the same color. In Russian, there is a word for dark blue and another word for sky blue. We who did not grow up speaking Russian do not confuse dark blue and light blue any more than Russians do, even if we call them both "blue."
How a language deals with colors is just one of the ways that linguist Guy Deutscher examines the interplay between language and thought. For many years, it was THE controversy in linguistic circles. But even if the phrases "Sapir-Whorf" and "Chomskian grammar" do not make you see red or any other color, you will find Deutscher's investigations into how language affects thought and vice versa, fascinating and enlightening.
He discusses why, in the Iliad, Homer described both the sea and oxen as being "wine-colored." He describes a society in which the people use points of the compass to describe locations rather than "left" and "right," and how that affects their sense of place.
Through the Language Glass had me seriously questioning what I thought I knew about language. Deutscher challenges conventional linguistic theories and seems to have a great time doing it. Through the Language Glass is the kind of book that you want to share with everyone and find out what they think about it, too. Is Deutscher crazy? Is he brilliant? Both, probably.
Also recommended -- When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge by K. David Harrison, and Harrison's documentary, The Linguists.
How a language deals with colors is just one of the ways that linguist Guy Deutscher examines the interplay between language and thought. For many years, it was THE controversy in linguistic circles. But even if the phrases "Sapir-Whorf" and "Chomskian grammar" do not make you see red or any other color, you will find Deutscher's investigations into how language affects thought and vice versa, fascinating and enlightening.
He discusses why, in the Iliad, Homer described both the sea and oxen as being "wine-colored." He describes a society in which the people use points of the compass to describe locations rather than "left" and "right," and how that affects their sense of place.
Through the Language Glass had me seriously questioning what I thought I knew about language. Deutscher challenges conventional linguistic theories and seems to have a great time doing it. Through the Language Glass is the kind of book that you want to share with everyone and find out what they think about it, too. Is Deutscher crazy? Is he brilliant? Both, probably.
Also recommended -- When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge by K. David Harrison, and Harrison's documentary, The Linguists.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Well, what a extremely pleasant surprise this book turned out to be! I work as a teacher in advertising so language is quite logically one of my interests, and in a way very much the basis of everything I discuss with my students. Brilliant advertising strategies and original creative concepts will still get you nowhere if the language doesn't appeal to the target group. But alas, many books on language (regardless whether they focus on advertising or not) are, how shall I put this?, not very engaging. Not so with 'Through the language glass'!
In fact, this book had me enthralled from the very start and is as gripping reading as some of the very best detective novels. It's insightful, Deutscher argues his case (that the language you grow up with can and does indeed colour - in more than a literal sense of the word - the way your mind works) very convincingly and eloquently, and on top of that it's absolute fun to read. If only all books on communication and language were this good!
Absolutely must-read, and not just for language teachers! After all, whatever field you're active in, language is what we all use to reason with and express ideas in so if - as Deutscher convinced me is effectively the case - language can colour the way your mind works this surely is of interest to all of us.
In fact, this book had me enthralled from the very start and is as gripping reading as some of the very best detective novels. It's insightful, Deutscher argues his case (that the language you grow up with can and does indeed colour - in more than a literal sense of the word - the way your mind works) very convincingly and eloquently, and on top of that it's absolute fun to read. If only all books on communication and language were this good!
Absolutely must-read, and not just for language teachers! After all, whatever field you're active in, language is what we all use to reason with and express ideas in so if - as Deutscher convinced me is effectively the case - language can colour the way your mind works this surely is of interest to all of us.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Why the world is the SAME in all languages
I had already read Guy's previous book on the origins of language which I quite enjoyed, so I was looking forward to reading this book. Read more
Published 9 days ago by Captain Sensible
I could read Guy Deutscher forever
It is not as revolutionary a read for me as Unfolding of Language, but Through the Language Glass is, in a way, more wide-ranging, and sometimes drifts away from... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Feanor
Enough to read interviews
Very disappointed. Too much on what various English-speaking men (and some jews) believed or 200 years ago, very few examples he himself has experienced, so it was the same... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Toove
Never went anywhere
This was a huge disappointment. I have a layperson's interest in the subject and have read quite a lot on it. This was dull and inconclusive. Read more
Published 2 months ago by KA Bodsworth
funnier than a linguistics book should be
Apart from some obvious exceptions - catching a ball, falling in love - we think in language. Indeed, we need language in order to think. Read more
Published 4 months ago by James-philip Harries
Populist language (literature) analysis
This certainly is a decent read - as it should be, written by a languge expert. The author romps through some interesting theories - fast enough for you not to examine too closely... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Book Addict
Easy but thorough
The extent to which language shapes our thoughts has been the subject of much hyperbole and confusion. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mr. Richard J. Salisbury
Interesting but................
Certainly an interesting & accessible little book. However, as other reviewers have noted, I felt that several interesting topics (Colour nomenclature especially) were padded out... Read more
Published 6 months ago by P. A. Tonkin
Interesting stories on the whole, but wrapped in too much prose and...
This book clearly contains interesting stories (the origin of colour names take up a good part of the book, but I've also liked the ones about cardinal points and orientation), but... Read more
Published 6 months ago by J. Baley
Another rave review
I have to agree with all the previous reviewers of this book whose quotations adorn its covers: not a book that can be easily put down, I finished it on the Sunday evening after it... Read more
Published 7 months ago by David Cornwell
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