aphrohead_b...
Price: £6.45
In stock
the_book_de...
Price: £6.45
In stock
24 used & new from £3.34
See All Buying Options
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book

The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue (Paperback)

by Merritt Ruhlen (Author) "Inasmuch as written language, so far as anyone knows, is only about 5,000 years old-and spoken language by itself leaves no historical trace at all-one..." (more)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


13 new from £6.45 11 used from £3.34
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover 8 used & new from £2.49

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Genes, Peoples and Languages (Penguin Press Science)

Genes, Peoples and Languages (Penguin Press Science)

by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
3.0 out of 5 stars (7)  £5.74
Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World

Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World

by Stephen Oppenheimer
4.3 out of 5 stars (6)  £6.47
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World

Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World

by Nicholas Ostler
4.1 out of 5 stars (12)  £9.73
The Unfolding of Language: The Evolution of Mankind`s greatest Invention

The Unfolding of Language: The Evolution of Mankind`s greatest Invention

by Guy Deutscher
4.7 out of 5 stars (6)  £6.47
The Talking Ape: How Language Evolved (Studies in the Evolution of Language)

The Talking Ape: How Language Evolved (Studies in the Evolution of Language)

by Robbins Burling
3.5 out of 5 stars (2)  £11.99
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 239 pages
  • Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc (13 Oct 1996)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0471159638
  • ISBN-13: 978-0471159636
  • Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.4 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 567,913 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #90 in  Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Psychology & Psychiatry > Comparative Psychology

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description

The author of this book argues that there is proof to argue that all languages now spoken on earth are descendents of a single ancestral language.


From the Back Cover

The Origin of Language

A critically acclaimed journey back through time in search of the Mother Tongue and the roots of the human family

"Invites the reader to learn and apply the common process used by linguists." --Science News

"This book represents exactly the kind of thinking that is needed to pull historical linguistics out of its twentieth-century doldrums. . . . [W]ithout a doubt, a very readable book, well adapted to its popularizing aim." --LOS Forum

"Believing that doing is learning, Ruhlen encourages his readers to try their hand (and eye) at classifying languages. This exercise helps us appreciate the challenges inherent in this fascinating and controversial science of comparative linguistics." --Booklist

"Ruhlen is a leader in the new attempt to write the unified theory of language development and diffusion." --Library Journal

"A powerful statement [and] also a wonderfully clear exposition of linguistic thinking about prehistory. . . . [Q]uite solid and very well presented." --Anthropological Science

See all Product Description
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
Inasmuch as written language, so far as anyone knows, is only about 5,000 years old-and spoken language by itself leaves no historical trace at all-one might imagine that language would have little to tell us about human prehistory. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
linguistics
language
history
anthropology
historical linguistics

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue
56% buy the item featured on this page:
The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue 3.6 out of 5 stars (5)
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World
15% buy
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World 4.1 out of 5 stars (12)
£9.73
The Unfolding of Language: The Evolution of Mankind`s greatest Invention
15% buy
The Unfolding of Language: The Evolution of Mankind`s greatest Invention 4.7 out of 5 stars (6)
£6.47
The Horse, The Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
12% buy
The Horse, The Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World 5.0 out of 5 stars (4)
£17.51
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing read, 6 Jul 2001
By A Customer
Having been interested in linguistics for some time I thought that I would pick up this book and I found it very interesting. The interactive part of the book giving the reader the opportunity to classify languages without prior knowledge of which language or language family they were dealing with was a great idea as it didn't prejudice one's views with regards to how languages are related to each other.

Towards the end of the book it was hard getting to grips with the attacks on the linguistic academic community and how everyone wants to protect their own specialist areas. That aside I couldn't fault the book in any other area.

This is a definite read and will leave the reader wanting to read more on the history of languages and linguistics.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant popular science, 8 Dec 1998
By A Customer
Being a bilingual and a sometime translator, I have always had a certain fascination for linguistics itself. Some years ago there was an article in, I think, Scientific American about this line of research, with a fascinating connection with glottochronological theory dating the Mother Tongue at the same very approximate time, 200 000 years ago, that mitochondrial genetic research has placed the individual mother from which all present human females are descended! Ruhlen's work wet my appetite enormously. Developments that might long be buried in academic journals are bought to light, and the presentation actually makes the reader acquire something resembling a living skill in the subject. You can work out the connections yourself between languages you never heard of.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't live up to its potential., 21 Mar 1998
By A Customer
This book would have been much more enjoyable if it included a 1 or 2 page appendix describing the phonetic system used. I tried to read it on a plane, but without a self-contained way to sound out his examples, it was not as much fun as it could have been. In addition, much space seems to be devoted to the adolescent sniping that seems to be extremely prevalent in the academic linguistics community. It serves as a vivid reminder why I never got along all that well in the academic world. Nonetheless, there is some interesting material presented.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Concise, informative, readable
Having a love of languages I found this book very interesting. From my own knowledge I was able to identify the families of the languages in the first table before it was... Read more
Published 21 months ago by A. Shuttleworth

1.0 out of 5 stars Confusing and factional
This book invites the lay reader to classify languages by presenting the reader with a table of words from those languages. Read more
Published on 6 Nov 2001

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject























i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.