Babel : around the world in twenty languages
(Book)

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Published
New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018.
Format
Book
Edition
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition.
ISBN
0802128793, 9780802128799
Physical Desc
360 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits, charts ; 23 cm
Status

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Copies

LocationCall NumberStatusDue Date
Cotuit Library - Adult417 DOROn Shelf
Nantucket Atheneum Library - Adult410 DOROn Shelf
Wellfleet Public Library - Adult409 DorrenChecked OutDecember 17, 2024
Yarmouth Port Library - Adult417 DOROn Shelf

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More Details

Published
New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018.
Edition
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition.
Language
English
ISBN
0802128793, 9780802128799

Notes

General Note
Maps on end-papers.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description
A tour of the world's twenty most-spoken languages explores the history, geography, linguistics, and cultures that have been shaped by languages and their customs.
Description
English is the world language, except that most of the world doesn't speak it--only one in five people does. Dorren calculates that to speak fluently with half of the world's 7.4 billion people in their mother tongues, you would need to know no fewer than twenty languages. He sets out to explore these top twenty world languages, which range from the familiar (French, Spanish) to the surprising (Malay, Javanese, Bengali). Babel whisks the reader on a delightful journey to every continent of the world, tracing how these world languages rose to greatness while others fell away and showing how speakers today handle the foibles of their mother tongues. Whether showcasing tongue-tying phonetics or elegant but complicated writing scripts, and mind-bending quirks of grammar, Babel vividly illustrates that mother tongues are like nations: each has its own customs and beliefs that seem as self-evident to those born into it as they are surprising to the outside world. Among many other things, Babel will teach you why modern Turks can't read books that are a mere 75 years old, what it means in practice for Russian and English to be relatives, and how Japanese developed separate "dialects" for men and women. Dorren lets you in on his personal trials and triumphs while studying Vietnamese in Hanoi, debunks ten widespread myths about Chinese characters, and discovers that Swahili became the lingua franca in a part of the world where people routinely speak three or more languages. Witty, fascinating and utterly compelling, Babel will change the way you look at and listen to the world and how it speaks.

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Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Dorren, G. (2018). Babel: around the world in twenty languages (First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition.). Atlantic Monthly Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Dorren, Gaston. 2018. Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages. Atlantic Monthly Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Dorren, Gaston. Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Dorren, Gaston. Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition., Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

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