Showing titles in Linguistics

This book is a collection of stories revolving around language by a seasoned conference interpreter and former chief interpreter in the United Nations system. Ewandro Magalhaes shares actionable career insights and offers an insider’s look into practical and historical aspects of one of the most exciting and stressful professions known to man.

Tom Wolfe, whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to arouse widespread debate. The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech - not evolution - is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements.

Marco Balzano ispirandosi nel titolo al film di Nanni Moretti Palombella Rossa, si interroga sul perché l'etimologia sia una scienza che non riceve la considerazione che merita nonostante eserciti, in chi ci si avvicina, un forte fascino. Attraverso quelli che a tutti gli effetti potremmo definire dieci scavi etimologici, ci dice che ogni parola ha un corpo da rispettare che non può essere stravolto a nostro piacimento. Perché ogni parola ha una sua identità e una sua vita autonoma.

Successful word coinage—those that stay in currency for a good long time—tend to conceal their beginnings. We take them at face value and rarely when and where they were first minted. Engaging, illuminating, and authoritative, Ralph Keyes' The Hidden History of Coined Words explores the etymological underworld of terms and expressions and uncovers plenty of hidden gems.

American author, scholar, and satirist H.L. Mencken wrote The American Language in 1919, intending to defend American speech from prescriptivist critics. "America itself is unutterably vulgar. But vulgarity, after all, means no more than a yielding to natural impulses in the face of conventional inhibitions, and that yielding to natural impulses is at the heart of all healthy language-making."

This compact but powerful book argues for the primacy of language - of the words we speak - as a force for creating the lives we want to lead. There are ways of speaking that will produce action and change, and there are ways of speaking that don’t. This book explores that distinction. For anyone who is wanting to lead a more intentional, focused, and powerful life, Change Your World One Word at a Time is both inspirational and practical.

Ils ont beau être quelque 300 millions de locuteurs français dans le monde, il arrive qu'à cause des nombreuses dissemblances dont la langue française est truffée, Français (de France), Québécois, Belges, Suisses, Haïtiens, Maliens, Zaïrzois, et beaucoup d'autres qui ont le français en partage, ne se comprennent pas toujours. Cette diversité de langues, dans la langue crée nécessairement des quiproquos, des confusions et des malentendus qui peuvent parfois être fâcheux.

This 1880 book is about the Pepper family of five children and their widowed mother, Mamsie, a seamstress in a small New England town. Mamsie faces poverty with a brave heart, a smiling face, and the help of her children Ben, the eldest at the age of 11; Polly, always eager to cook for the family; the two little ones, Joel and Davie, and the baby Phronsie. The book has been a favorite of children, parents, and teachers for generations, and has inspired countless imaginations with its tender tales of the ways in which courage and good cheer overcome adversity.

Varna Shiksha describes the qualities, colors, genders, and devatas of the 50 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet and the unique and profound benefits of speaking the different letters of Sanskrit. This ancient text shows that every letter of the Sanskrit alphabet is a particle of infinity - a treasure of knowledge and organizing power.

Vera; or, The Nihilists is Oscar Wilde’s first play. It features Russian revolutionaries who seek to assassinate a reform-minded Emperor, and is loosely based on the life of Vera Zasulich who shot the Governor of St. Petersburg in 1878. Contemporary events in Russia, as published in the British press of the time, clearly influenced the plot and characters. The first public performance of Vera; or, The Nihilists was in New York City in 1883. The play was a failure and folded after one week. It remains fascinating as part of a study into the development of Wilde's work.

On Heroes, Hero Worship, and The Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle, is a collection of six lectures given in May 1840 about prominent historical figures. It sets out Carlyle's belief in the importance of heroic leadership, his view of how the world would be if powerful and inspired men were to have the power he thought they deserved. The collection includes figures ranging from religion to literature and politics, and the figures chosen were presented by Carlyle as archetypal examples of individuals who had dramatically impacted history for good or ill.

Fresh off his victory at The Battle of Lodi, Napoleon is planning to enjoy his lunch when a lieutenant arrives with the bad news that the dispatches he had been carrying were stolen. Infuriated, Napoleon threatens him with being court-martialed unless he can recover them. A woman appears who claims to know about the theft. Unconvinced of her story, Napoleon and the woman enter into a battle of wits in true Shaw style. Will the conqueror of worlds end up conquered by a woman?

In the 1970s, the behavioral psychologist Herbert S. Terrace led a remarkable experiment to see if a chimpanzee could be taught to use language. A young ape, named “Nim Chimpsky” in a nod to the linguist whose theories Terrace challenged, was raised by a family in New York and instructed in American Sign Language. Initially, Terrace thought that Nim could create sentences but later discovered that Nim’s teachers inadvertently cued his signing. Terrace concluded that Project Nim failed - not because Nim couldn’t create sentences but because he couldn’t even learn words.

"The Song of the Cardinal" by Gene Stratton-Porter is the story of a big male Cardinal bird in the Wabash Valley, Indiana. Living in a tree near the home of a farmer and his wife, the bird sings with passion and joie de vivre to attract a mate, which he finds, and a charming romance develops. Unfolding at a leisurely pace, the story portrays the varied natural settings of the region in a most engaging way. The theme of nature and mankind’s responsibility to care for it, is present throughout the narrative.

The tale begins with an experiment to enable a woman named Mary to experience the supernatural realm, which turns her into an idiot. Then follows an account of a series of mysterious occurrences and deaths surrounding a sinister woman named Helen Vaughan. The protagonists eventually confront Helen and forces her to kill herself. Before dying, she undergoes a series of spooky transformations that reveals her to be the daughter of the ill-fated Mary and the god Pan.

This book will show how the Egyptians had various modes of writings for various purposes, and how the Egyptian modes were falsely designated as "separate languages" belonging to others, and how this one original language came to be called Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and other "languages" throughout the world - through deterioration of sound values via "sound shifts", as well as foreign degradation of the original Egyptian writing forms.

Years before his marriage to Olga Knipper and his self-imposed medical exile to Yalta, years before he even began writing the seminal works of dramatic literature for which he is renowned, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, to support his financially and physically struggling family, wrote stories...many, many stories. Starting in his early 20s, living in Moscow, he made a name for himself by capturing the peculiarities of Russian life through satire, humor, pathos, and passion. Myriad influences inspired his eventual words for the stage.

When Mike Jackson's father suffers a serious financial setback, all Mike's hopes of "Varsity Blue" and a career playing his beloved cricket are dashed. Instead, he must go out and earn his living - in the alien world of the New Asiatic Bank, under the management of his nemesis Mr. John Bickersdyke. At first, all seems black; but then Mike finds that he has an ally, in the immaculate form of the irrepressible Psmith, who is likewise sentenced to a career in commerce. And Psmith has plans for the reform of Mr Bickersdyke....

Frost portrays leaving childhood in this poem read by award-winning audiobook narrator Mike Vendetti. "In a Vale" appears in Frost's first book of poetry, A Boy's Will.

This audiobook makes learning French easy for children. This is done through explaining why language skills are useful, in a way children can understand. The French language is then introduced in a manner that children can effortlessly use in a travel setting, such as answering questions, ordering food or common vocabulary. Repetition is key to recall, and the audiobook is paced to reinforce key concepts and lock them into memory.