Darkmistress's Full Review: John McWhorter - The Power of Babel: A Natural His...
I knew something was up the day rox731 asked me what the name of that book I was going on about was again. She said she’d told her husband about it and he thought he might like to read it. Now, nothing against Rox’ husband, but the day he becomes interested in linguistics is the day I start thinking BASE jumping sounds like fun, and so sane too! So I awaited my birthday with more than mild curiosity because I had been reading this book in snatches at work on my way to and from the bathroom for about a month. It’s really hard to keep one’s place that way you know. Lo and behold, on my birthday, Rox turned up with a pound of M&Ms, a bottle of spiffy shampoo that I was too cheap to buy and … The Power of Babel!
Just so everybody is on the same page, linguistics is comparative philology, or, in English, the science of words. Linguists don’t care so much what words mean as how they match up to words in other languages. It’s a fairly new science and not widely studied, but very cool (at least to me.) The Power of Babel seeks to make linguistics not only understandable, but "cool" to a larger portion of the population than bookstore clerks pausing on the way to the bathroom.
The subtitle is "A Natural History of Language." This here is a dead giveaway to the organization of the book. McWhorter attempts to describe language (not English, but all language) in the way we might look at the development of a wetland. And he’s very successful.
Ever wonder why we spell "night" with a "gh" but say it "nite?" Ever wonder why we say "shuddup" but write "shut up?" Ever wonder why a double negative is wrong in English, but you learn French and you "n’est pas" all the time? This book actually goes into all that and more. McWhorter looks at how grammar develops and why language simplifies or becomes more arcane over time. And he looks at the impact of media (all media beginning with Caxton) on language.
I took this book with me to the Augusta Festival. I also took along a mystery novel because I didn’t know if I’d be able to focus on a scholarly work in that environment. I never opened the mystery novel. I would read until my eyes closed on their own and then the next day I would start about a page before I quit the last night. The fact that I was studying Cajun and Zydeco dance (which are essentially just variations on the same dance) while reading about linguistic shift and creole and pidgin languages only added to the book. It’s that easy to take what you're reading and start applying it to the world around you.
It does have a flaw. The Power of Babel was very obviously written in the year 2000. There are a number of references that are already outdated (Clinton, the election, television shows, stuff like that.)
The only group I could not recommend this book for is high school students. In high school you’re still fine tuning your grammar skills and in those hands this book could be taken as permission to ignore grammar and correct pronunciation. (And most high school students will seize on anything that looks like it means less work.) And if its not seen as an excuse to slack it will cause confusion because McWhorter refers to grammars from a number of different languages and time periods. This is probably not the thing to give your Republican egghead buddy either. McWhorter is a dyed in the wool Democrat and he was already making cracks about Bush Jr lacks of language skill. Personally, I found it completely hysterical and nearly clairvoyant.
It’s a great introductory book on the subject. Clear and easy to read. Well organized on a very messy topic. Engaging. Controversial if you’re a language traditionalist. Ok, a little dated, but that’s to be expected I guess. McWhorter is writing about what the language is right now, or rather right then. By the time it was printed, it was out of date, just like every dictionary on the market.
There are approximately 6,000 languages on Earth today, each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years ago. While lay...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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