Download PDF The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel, by Nicholas Ostler
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The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel, by Nicholas Ostler
Download PDF The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel, by Nicholas Ostler
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From Publishers Weekly
The days of English as the all-conquering international language of science, commerce, and hip-hop are numbered, according to this dense philological treatise. Linguist Ostler (Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin) recaps the rise and fall of lingua francas past--from ancient Sanskrit and Latin to French in the 19th century--to glean insights into how such languages spread--by military conquest, trade, and missionary work-- then shrivel when the originating country loses prestige and power. He concludes from this retrospective that English will recede (though not die), and that no new lingua franca will supplant it--sorry, Esperanto speakers!--because translation software will let everyone communicate directly without learning a common language. Ostler uses English's fate mainly as a peg to hang a rather technical comparative study in which pedestrian generalities emerge from a thicket of historical minutiae. The interested layman will find the book readable, but the level of arcane detail about unfamiliar languages ("the characteristic ezafe construction of Persian noun–phrases, which appends all dependents to the head noun with a linking –i-or-e-, is copied in Chagatay Turkic") may put off the casual reader. 10 b&w illus.; 3 maps. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Review
“A bracing history of lingua francas and their dynamic variation, with a focus on the perfect wave that International English is riding―toward a wipeout…His aim is not pedantic but to pique general readers’ code-cracking interest. Ostler does not assume specialist knowledge, but he does assume that his readers share his gargantuan and voluptuary appetite for words, languages and history.†―Kirkus Reviews
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Product details
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Walker Books; First Edition edition (November 23, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0802717713
ISBN-13: 978-0802717719
Product Dimensions:
6.4 x 1.2 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.6 out of 5 stars
13 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#352,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Ostler's basic theses concerning English's doubtful future as a world language are intriguing and the breadth of his scholarship is impressive. Nonetheless, the book tends to bog down with over-detailed tangents. Getting through the middle chapters in particular proves quite a slog: we find long meandering disquisitions on Persian and Sogdian, filled with minutiae whose relevance to the main topic remains obscure. If these sections had been trimmed by about 50%, the book as a whole would have stood more solidly and provided much more pleasurable reading.
You might consider Ostler a popularizer of the field of Socio-Linguistics. His new book, published in the US on November 23rd, is an extended essay on the role of English as a Lingua Franca in the modern World. Having recently read the author's earlier book Empires of the Word, I recognized both the theme and some of the details from the earlier book, which covers much of the same territory as the Last Lingua Franca, but in a more general manner. Specifically, in The Last Lingua Franca looks to historical examples of other Lingua Francas, and how they failed, and asks questions about whether or not English, the current Lingua Franca, might suffer the same fate. I very much place this book along the same continuum where you find pop intellectuals like Malcolm Gladwell or, shudder, Jared Diamond. This group of writers familarizes itself with specific social science disciplines, distills the knowledge into modern magazine quality prose, and attempts to generate a hook that will interest readers who normally wouldn't give an eff about the field of "socio-linguistics." As such, I would be inclined to think that Ostler has the right angle, since the "decline" of English is a subject that obsesses both liberal members of the education establishment and political right wingers who sponsor "English Only" bills in the legislatures of the southern states. Most of Ostler's focus in this book is extended examples of different Lingua Francas, how they functioned, and how they collapsed. The reader is treated to chapters on the role of Latin, Persian & Sanskrit in their respective societies, followed by his take on the rise of English, and what "the future holds" for English or any other would-be Lingua Franca. Ostler's ultimate conclusion is spelled out in the title of the book itself, "The LAST Lingua Franca." Ostler takes the position that the rise of Machine Translation and non-English speaking countries like Brazil, Russia, China & India make English's survival as a the language of the world far from secure. However he also acknowledges that it is difficult to imagine ANY language replacing English. Lingua Franca is a worth while read for a reader with a passing interest in linguistics and a college education, but it's hardly intellectual heavy lifting.
A long, sprawling account of lingua francas around the world, used as case studies in an attempt to discern the future of English, the most successful such language in human history. The final argument -- that when English ends its run as global lingua franca, everyone will communicate in their own languages with technological translation aids -- seems somewhat utopian, but I can't really find a fatal flaw when you take the long view on this. Of course, regardless of what you feel about that argument, the real value of this book is the wealth of information about the linguistic history of the world, from Persian to Sogdian to German to Nahuatl and Quechua.Be warned, this is a long and dense read. It WILL most certainly take a good chunk of time to read and process, but I think it's well worth it.
Something to read over, go back over excerpts, etc... for anyone interested in Latin, linguistics, history, etc. Ostler's books are all always good. The kind of book I actually wished I had a hard copy of, and not the electronic one.
No problem
was very satisfied with the seller and the product.
As usual by this linguist the book is fascinating.
Nicholas Ostler's works are always both excellently researched & planned, as well as persuasively written. His choice of subject matter never fails to engage & educate his readers. Ostler's genius challenges the mind impressively.Dr, Samuel M.Jones, Professor EmeritusUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison
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