About book Empires Of The Word: A Language History Of The World (2006)
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World , written by Nicholas Ostler, is an immensely learned book with an ambitious project: to recount world history from the births and demises of languages. From the cuneiforms engraved on the baked clay in 3000 BC to the gloablisation of English in the twenty-first century, Ostler narrated this 5000 years of history from the perspective of languages – an approach, in his terminology, called ‘language dynamics’.The narrative follows roughly the chronological line. We first saw the appearance of the earliest written records in Ur, and then how Akkadian, a very ancient Semitic language, rose as the first lingua franca of the ancient world. With the fall of the Babylonian Empire, Akkadian’s seemingly ever-lasting prominence finally gave way to Aramaic – another Semitic language that is spoken by Jesus and his disciples. The Middle East was then shaken by a new superstar: Arabic which unabashedly spread the language with deadly sword and fervent faith.Interestingly, Ostler compared the Ancient Egyptian with Chinese. Superficially, this is odds as the former almost falls into total oblivion and is used only for strictly liturgical purposes in the Coptic branch of Christianity while the latter is spoken by more than one billion people. Yet a close comparative historical and linguistic study revealed how political unity, environmental factors and cultural self-confidence contrived to allow their obstinate survivals throughout the ages.Ostler analyzed the linguistic features of Sanskrit, described by William Jone as ‘more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either’. India, as it is known today, had never spread the language by military forces but by reason of Sanskrit’s charming cultural force, she has succeeded to spread as far as to Japan (whose alphabet order, by the way, has been influenced by Sanskrit).Greek‘s self-confidence and strong public spirit ensured her survival even after the Romans destroyed their political existences. Although Romans destroyed the Greek land, Greek had conquered the Roman hearts and minds. Nevertheless, her self-confidence turned into arrogance and hence after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, Greek drastically retreated to where she was originally spoken: Greece.The fall of the Roman Empire also disintegrated Latin, as a spoken language, into different Romance languages: Italian, French and Spanish. Unlike the previous spread of languages of land routes, the emergence of the modern age witnessed the spread of languages by sea navigations. Ostler, therefore, recounted the avoidable dominance of Spanish in South America, the failures of the strongly pragmatic Portuguese and Dutch in spreading their languages, the sporadic successes of French and the ineffective and brutal strategy of Russian.Among the European languages, English is the winner of all, at least for now. English has the good fortune of being first spread by the global British Empire and then being able to maintain her dominance through the most powerful nation in the world, the United States of America. As Ostler observed, in the history of languages, there is never a permanent lingua franca. In the future, English is destined to fall.In a nutshell, this is an outline of Ostler’s huge narrative, spanning more than 600 pages. In his explanations, there is no single factor. The successes and failures of every languages depend on the totality of the circumstances. Most interestingly, economic dominance and military forces are merely relevant and not determinative factors. The Goths dismembered the Roman Empire, but they still spoke the vernacular forms of Latin. Portuguese and Dutch were successful merchants, but they were more than happy to speak the local lingua franca. Population, environment, culture, state policy, chance, and even linguistic structures must be all taken into account.Under this multi-factors explanation, the level of details is astounding. A reader not well-acquainted with world history will struggle to handle the complex matrix of facts. Without a general understanding of world history and geography, it will be difficult to appreciate the significance of the survival or disappearance of a language when the political entities behind them still exists or had been long dissolved.I can see that Ostler tried hard to avoid the Euro-centric bias as he compared between Egyptian and Chinese, explored Sanskrit and even inserted an interesting chapter on the Aztec and Incan languages. However the fact remains that half of the narrative focused on European languages, with English occupying the bulk of the last portion. It is a little disappointing to see that African languages virtually receive no attention. Furthermore if Ostler predicted that Chinese and Arabic would become more influential in the future, shouldn’t they also receive a little more coverage?Nevertheless these criticisms should not tarnish Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World as a grand narrative of world history from the perspective of languages. What Ostler has painted is not only a history of rises and declines of empires of words but a history of an ever-lasting empire of the different words and languages that will exist as long as humans still strive.From: http://1989nineteeneightynine.wordpre...More reviews and articles from: http://1989nineteeneightynine.wordpre...
This is a learned book. In books of such scope, one is always wary that the author cheats a little here, a little there, making small mistakes where his competence might fail (and in a work covering the complete history of language spread of the whole human race, such instances are inevitable, even if the author possesses a working knowledge of 26 languages, as the back cover rather preposterously claims). Phew.This said, I could not catch Dr. Ostler by the hand in those instances where I generally could (his review of the Russian language's imperial thrust, for instance). Not in anything major enough, anyway. Which makes me pretty sure he's got the rest right, too.Here's an outline of the book's structure.Part I: The Nature of Language History.1. Themistocles' Carpet: the chapter begins with a story from Herodotus about Themistocles' refusal to talk to the Persian king through an interpreter and taking his time (a year) to learn the language. One of the few instances of a Greek's attention to barbarian matters!2. What It Takes To Be a World Language; or, You Never Can Tell.Part II: Languages by Land3. The Desert Blooms: Language Innovation in the Middle East.Sumerian as the first classical language (i.e. the language used in prestige contexts when it's no longer used in everyday life). Akkadian and its model of literacy. Aramaic: Interlingua of western Asia. Here, I was fascinated to read a passage from the Old Testament about an enemy force speaking Hebrew to the Jewish commanders, and the Jews asking them to switch to Aramaic so that rank and file wouldn't understand.Turkic and Persian, outriders of Islam.4. Triumphs of Fertility: Egyptian and Chinese. A long and a bit over-laborious comparison between the 'careers' of Egyptian and Chinese: dissemination by land, hieroglyphic script, long-term continuity.5. Charming Like a Creeper: The Cultured Career of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as one of the few 'world' languages mostly spread through scholarship and education rather than by sword.6. Three Thousand Years of Solipsism: The Adventures of Greek. Greeks' indifference towards other languages. Three waves of Greek spreading: colonization, war (Hellenistic), culture (Roman). Decline and reversal.7. Contesting Europe: Celt, Roman, German and Slav. The curious tenacity of Latin in the West and its relative failure in the East.8. The First Death of Latin: the transition from Latin to vernaculars.Part III: Languages by Sea. This is about post-Columbian exploration of the new worlds in Asia and America.9. The Second Death of Latin.10. Usurpers of Greatness: Spanish in the New World. Here, it was a surprise for me to read to what extent the indigenous languages of (especially South) America were used, even by the Spanish, as linguas francas of the New World; the complete reliance on Spanish came only relatively late; Ostler traces the spread of Nahuatl, Quechua, Chibcha, Guarani, Mapudungun (lenguas generales).11. In the Train of Empire: Europe's Languages Abroad.Portuguese pioneers, Dutch interlopers, La francophonie, The Third Rome and the Russias.Portuguese was widely used but soon abandoned; Dutch had even less success and today is virtually unknown outside Netherlands and Belgium; the French also lost a lot of ground, and the Russians were usually disliked by the people they were subduing; this makes Ostler wary about Russian's perspectives. Russian managed to stamp out the indigenous languages of Asian Russia (behind the Urals, Siberia, etc.); and I'd correct his claim by pointing out that a lot of technical writing, correspondence and business in Central Asia is still conducted in Russian (and there's a special situation in Ukraine and especially in Belorus)."Curiously ineffective" in spreading their language were the Germans.12. Microcosm or Distorting Mirror? The Career of English.Seeing off Norman French; Stabilising the language; Westward Ho! Changing perspective: English in India (an experiment rooted very much in elitism and education; a successful one, if the picture painted by "Slumdog Millionaire" is anywhere near the truth). The world taken by storm. Ostler claims that today's mega-status of English (to the extent when knowing the language is in itself a commodity) is less due to America's dominant position in the world than is usually thought, and most of the groundwork had been done by the British (indeed, apart from the US, the largest English-language countries - India, Australia, NZ, South Africa - are still mostly within the British linguistic sphere).Part IV: Languages Today and Tomorrow. Here, Ostler reviews13. The Current Top Twentyand gives some predictions about their future distribution. His outlook for Russian and other European languages is rather grim (he even foresees a future bilingualism in UK, English plus one of the Asian languages); he advises English speakers not to become dizzy with success, which can be easily overturned; and even the Chinese with its billion speakers may face a decline).The fascinating story of the world's languages and their imperial history is somewhat submerged under all the details, but the author certainly avoids the Euro-centrism typical of this kind of discussion. It is probably a little longer and more loaded with details than necessary (and it's almost impossible to gloss over the non-essentials: the book's structure does not lend itself to such treatment). But a stunning achievement nonetheless.
Do You like book Empires Of The Word: A Language History Of The World (2006)?
يعتبر هذا الكتاب من أهم كتب اللغويات الإجتماعية والتاريخية، حيث حافظ على مبدأ الشموليةوعرض لنا بكل تفصيل الأحداث و الطرق التي تم فيها نشر اللغات البشرية القديمة و الحديثةكتاب يستفاد منه في هذا النطاق الذي يغطي تاريخ الإنتشار والمفاهيم للعائلات اللغوية كما أنهزاخر بالمعلومات ليست المتعلقة باللغة ولكن أيضاً باللهجات وكيفية إنتشارها والطرق المستخدمة قديماً من إستعمار و حروب و إحتلال الأراضي الجديدة و إكتشافها والسيطرة عليها إلى نشراللغة بالطريقة التبشيرية كما اعتمدتها المسيحية و اليهودية و الإسلام، و أخيراً تأتي الإنكليزيةالمستمرة و المنتشرة على نطاق واسع بسبب أسلوبها الإقتصادي و الصناعي وأيضاً إنتاجهاالأدبي و الثروة بجميع المجلات وتقديسها للحرية وعدم مشاركتها بالتمسك الديني حيث سماهاالمؤلف باللغة الدنيوية. وفي طور هذا الكتاب وبداياته يعرض لنا المؤلف اللغات القديمة المنتشرةفي بلاد الرافدين و هي اللغات السامية الأثرية هي : السومرية، الأكادية،الآشورية،الآراميةواللغات المنتشرة في أوروبا الحديثة الذي يعود أصلها إلى اللاتينية : الإيطالية ، الفرنسية ..حيث ما تزال اللاتينية محصوره على الشعائر الدينية فقط في الكنيسة مثل العربية التي لم تلقى إنتشار واسع لها إلا في قرنيها الأولى حيث أنها الأن لا تدخل حتى ضمن العشرون لغةالأوسع إنتشاراً في العالم! و بقيت متداولة كلغة أم في بلدانها و مرتبطة بالمساجد في ماليزياو باكستان! وقد أذهلتني هذه المغالطة التي سردها المؤلف حيث قد أوضح المترجم أن الناطقون باللغة العربية يقدر عددهم بـ 400 مليون وهذا هدف عجيب إلى استبعادها من اللغات العشرون الأولى ولو كان الشرق الأوسط يتكلم باللغة العربية (بلهجة واحدة) لكانت اختلفت الأمور ربما.أما عن اليونانية التي كانت أوسع انتشاراً من اللاتينية في الشرق فلا يوجد لها حالياً أثر ولقد استمتعت بالمقارنة في فصل اللغة الصينية و المصرية القديمة (الهيروغليفية) وبحثه بشكلمكثف حول تشابهها و المفارقات في ما بينها من ناحية رموز كتابتها و اندثارها. إن ما يبعث على الطموح في قراءة تاريخ يخص البشرية و اللغة المتداولة في النطق والكتابة لهو من أروعما قد يواجهك في العلم و القدرة على استيعاب المضمون الكامن في نكهة التواصل المستمدةمن أعرق الشعوب و قد يمثل لنا ذلك فخامة و أهمية الأبجدية و الإصرار على التمسك بلغة ماإن هذا أكبر قيمة من أي شيء آخر. الالتزام بلغة في عدد كبير من المجتمعات للفوز بعظمة كنزها
—sahar salman
This is a fascinating and thoroughly well-researched book. It does sometimes make generalisations, or sweeping statements that experts might not agree with, but nowhere near as much as such broad narrative histories often do. It is a bit uneven at times, but even then there's a wealth of information in the footnotes and quirky asides that Ostler loves to segue into. Overall, well worth a read if you have any interest in the language history of the world, and you'll get something out of it whether you're a linguist or a layperson.
—Shanthanu
This book has achieved the somewhat dubious accomplishment of being both very interesting and rather dry. Language and word books, by nature, I think, are difficult to write in a really engaging manner, particularly ones with a scope as vast as this one. One of the ways of making history books interesting is usually to make them personal, by telling of specific people and their specific experiences, and that's just not possible with a book like this, the same way it is with a book with a narrower focus. So while it was quite fascinating, it was not a good book to read when I was even a little sleepy. Definitely best for the more alert reading times.Some specific comments:On page 64, he says: "Writing systems, after all, exist to record what people say, not vice versa. There is no other case in history of a change in writing technology inducing a change in popular speech." He wrote this in 2004. I wonder, if we look at popular speech in a few years, or possibly even now, will we not see certain changes that are a direct result of email, instant messaging, and especially text messaging? I myself have been known to say "OMG" out loud, and that's just one example that I really don't think would have occurred without those writing technologies. So even if we haven't seen any cases in history of writing technology inducing a change in popular speech before now, I think that may change, and soon.This book gave me an interesting perspective on Hitler, of all things (maybe it's because Mel Brooks had me thinking about him earlier this week). From our modern perspective, Hitler's attempt to build himself an empire is horrible, incredibly egotistical, and entirely unacceptable. But when you're nearing the end of a book encompassing several millennia of history involving countless nations roaming the world and building themselves global empires, suddenly, this one guy's similar ambitions don't seem quite so unusual. True, Hitler's genocide was somewhat more efficient, and thus more horrific, than many others, but in terms of empire building, really, he was just a century or so too late for such things to be countenanced at all. But please don't take this paragraph as evidence that I'm some kind of Nazi sympathizer.I think one area he missed out on a bit (and this shouldn't be taken as a criticism so much, because there's only so much one can fit into a book, even one with as small print as this one has) is around the Germanic and Slavic languages. He did discuss how they came from the north, and never really took hold, but he didn't really discuss how they started in the north in the first place. Maybe it's simply a lack of written material extant from that period, meaning that no real analysis is possible, but he specifically stated that about other languages, such as many of the pre-European American and Australian languages, but said nothing like that (that I recall) about the Germanic and Slavic languages. They just kind of showed up in the Roman Empire along with the Goths & co., and then disappeared again. Much as I wouldn't want to suggest he make this book any longer, a little more on that subject (or a mention of why there couldn't be more on that subject) would have been nice.Ultimately, the book was fascinating, massive in scope, highly informative and well-researched, and a hell of a slog. There are very few people I would recommend this book to, because I just don't think that most people I know are that interested in the subject matter. Hell, I'm not sure I'm that interested in the subject matter, and I happily read a whole book about the alphabet.
—kingshearte
