What Language Is: And What it Isn't and What it Could Be

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What Language Is: And What it Isn't and What it Could Be

3.68 of 5 stars 3.68 · rating details · 210 ratings · 57 reviews

New York Times bestselling author and renowned linguist, John McWhorter, explores the complicated and fascinating world of languages. From Standard English to Black English; obscure tongues only spoken by a few thousand people in the world to the big ones like Mandarin - What Language Is celebrates the history and curiosities of languages around the world and smashes our a...more

Hardcover, 240 pages

Published August 4th 2011 by Gotham

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Mar 09, 2013 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: language, non-fiction

A linguist explains for the layman, in easy, readable prose and affable wit, the professional view on languages: they are Ingrown, Disheveled, Intricate, Oral, and Mixed. He tries to dispel the ludicrous and unfounded belief that some languages are more “real” than others (which are thought of as “primitive”) simply because they are better known or have a tradition of literature. Rationally, with no dogmatic axe to grind, he explains the prescriptivist view of language – all languages – as ever-...more A linguist explains for the layman, in easy, readable prose and affable wit, the professional view on languages: they are Ingrown, Disheveled, Intricate, Oral, and Mixed. He tries to dispel the ludicrous and unfounded belief that some languages are more “real” than others (which are thought of as “primitive”) simply because they are better known or have a tradition of literature. Rationally, with no dogmatic axe to grind, he explains the prescriptivist view of language – all languages – as ever-changing oral traditions, most of them a macedoine of borrowings from neighbors, colonists, conquerors, and subcultures. He inverts the layman’s suppositions about “primitive” creoles – it’s writing which is the perversion of language, not the other way around; and it’s the baffling impenetrability of, say, Navajo that is unusual, rather than the more simplistic grammars of Persian and English - which have been streamlined over time by an influx of adult immigrants who honed off some of the intricacies while learning them orally, as well as infusing some of their own language into the pot.

This is a terrific book, full of fascinating tidbits about individual languages (the English word “notch” used to be “otch” but the initial n was transferred to the indefinite article; Mandarin uses some shape-based classifiers for its numbered nouns; the African language Serer has ten genders; Twi uses various particles to indicate how you have come to know a statement; Berik nouns specify the time of day things happened to them) as well as wise, compelling pronouncements on language as whole. McWhorter looks at a language’s entire background – its history of colonization or conquest, its geographic setting – to explain its own individual quirks. As McWhorter notes, languages have fetishes over different things – English's insistence on differentiating the indefinite and definite articles of nouns baffles Mandarin and Russian speakers, who don’t use any articles, while other languages are anal about specific counting words or the relations of objects to the speaker. This doesn’t make them “strange” or not “real” languages, just individual, and it’s that variation that is so endlessly fascinating to us language geeks. Where I think McWhorter fails to convince is in his argument that textspeak and the slipping of written standards results in just as “real” a language than the AP Manual of Style; this may be true, from a linguistic point of view, but the actual criticism is that slipping standards are worse, not less real, than the heavy precedent of our vast, complex written tradition, which has ennobled us, and which is being forgotten. This aside, the book is charming, captivating, and compelling; anyone who makes misinformed comments about what language is – and that is so many otherwise perfectly rational people – should be forced to read it.(less)

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Aug 25, 2011 Audra (Unabridged Chick) rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm hardly a linguist by any stretch, but I'm chatty and I love trivia. As someone learning a second language as an adult, I'm interested in the ways languages have grown and changed.

The title -- and subtitle -- pretty succinctly summarizes the point of this book: what language is, isn't, and could be. Written for, I presume, an American audience (certainly an English-speaking audience), the book argues that 'normal' languages like English are in fact, not normal, and that many of the obscure, s...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Shoshana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, nonfiction

If you've ever taken a linguistics class, you'll already have an understanding of the primary arguments of What Language Is. It also won't matter, because the heart of the book is a series of case studies of really interesting languages and how they evolved to be so interesting! If you haven't taken a linguistics class, and/or you are a strict grammarian, this book will help you loosen up by exposing you to the (much more sensible) way linguists understand language. (Since reading various articl...more

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Nov 26, 2011 Birgit rated it 4 of 5 stars

Languages are intricate and complicated and often quite messy. Especially when you're trying to learn a new one, you'll realize just how many rules there are, and even more exceptions to those rules. Blessed those with a talent for learning foreign tongues. In What Language Is John McWorther introduces the reader in a both insightful and fun way to languages, shedding light not only on their history but also on the way they evolve and change.
Very entertainingly written, yet a bit heavy on actual...more

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Oct 11, 2011 Shelley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: misc

Oh, man, I love him and I love linguistics and it's all so FUN. I love how he views languages and how he explains them - it makes such good sense to me. Language is evolving all the time because it's a living, breathing thing created by people. We change, it changes. We speak a bastardized version of Old English that Vikings massacred in their attempts to learn it, but it doesn't take away from our language at all. The constant evolution of Black English and informal internet writing styles aren...more

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Oct 10, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wanted to enjoy this book and with all the pop culture allusions McWhorter uses, I should have. Instead, it was just work. A lot of examples in tiny languages like Ket, Berik, and Saramaccan to prove, often, arguments I thought were either obscure or already self-evident.
McWhorter's premise is that Languages are "Ingrown", "Dissheveled"(McWhorter spells it with two s's), "Intricate", "Oral", and "Mixed". the acronym spells Idiom, meaning the language, dialect or style of speaking humans have....more

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Sep 20, 2011 Carl rated it 4 of 5 stars

An entertaining book on linguistics. I had trouble putting it down.

The main point of the book was that if a language is only spoken by an isolated small group of people, it gradually gets more and more complicated, until it is a wonder that toddlers can learn to speak it. There are 6000 languages in the world, and most of them are like this. Examples are a language in New Guinea with 100 genders, and Navajo, where there are no regularities. English is not a normal language. In spite of its diffi...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Carla Thomas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Carla by: find books by title / author / isbn

Shelves: nonfiction

To truly appreciate this book, you have to fall into one of these three categories: ( 1) you are a teacher (preferably of the English professorial persuasion); ( 2) you are a linguist, either by hobby or trade; or (3)you are a fanatical fan of languages and the development and fallout thereof.

While I am indeed a casual linguist (2) and I enjoy a rousing history of words as the next gal (3), I will focus my review on the impact of this book on my teaching (of reading) and my teaching of the teach...more To truly appreciate this book, you have to fall into one of these three categories: ( 1) you are a teacher (preferably of the English professorial persuasion); ( 2) you are a linguist, either by hobby or trade; or (3)you are a fanatical fan of languages and the development and fallout thereof.

While I am indeed a casual linguist (2) and I enjoy a rousing history of words as the next gal (3), I will focus my review on the impact of this book on my teaching (of reading) and my teaching of the teaching of reading. Because (does starting my sentence with ‘because’ make you cringe? If so, this is definitely the book for you!) I do see an impact that this book and these viewpoints could have on the way we currently teach our young people to read, or more specifically, for the remediation of students who have trouble mastering the art of reading.

In training, teachers are generally taught the we should have learn students learn to read by looking at the words and thinking about them and their connections to the words around them and other words similar to them (there’s a lot of thinking going on!). This author is advocating that language really isn’t meant to be understood by looking but by listening. Most of the students that I see do have trouble making that connection between what is written and what they hear. How could our teaching of reading change if we changed our practices to become more oral- and less sight-based? No more lists of ‘sight’ words; no more memorization of prepositions; no more drilling of the endless lists of exceptions that makes even native speakers of English want to pull out their hair.

How much and what should our students be learning so they make the transition to better comprehension and a true understanding of how the words work and fit together to make sense? McWhorter says, “The reason I have shown you things in such a wide and even weird variety of language (Archi? Keo?) is to get across how language looks to people who have fallen into the odd circumstance of studying it as a career. It filters how we read what is being said about languages in the newspaper, how we hear what people say about languages in passing, and how we perceive languages themselves when we hear them spoken, including our own.”

We are all studying ‘English’ in school. In our informational and technologically driven age, this book has created for me a set of questions about our current teaching of reading and language. I wish I had more answers but, right now, the questions this book has raised for me seem terribly important and troubling.
Overall, I understand more clearly than ever than learning English and being able to write clearly and effectively is akin to an art, much like singing or composing. I shall use it as an impetus on a new search for methods of teaching this thing called reading and thank the author for new ideas as yet undiscovered.

With all That Being Said (original title, much better than the settled on tongue twister), I enjoyed the book. Just enjoyed it as a read, no small task with such heavy content. McWhorter’s writing style is fluid and easy to follow for even a near novice of linguistics. There is a wicked sense of humor that lies hidden throughout the pages like a camouflaged snake, ready to strike. I found myself laughing out loud and then, when asked why I was laughing, couldn’t for the life of me explain because the audience did not fit into one of the three categories listed above.

I hope the author felt me chuckling. It’s tragic when such witty puns fall flat. Good read, John McWhorter!(less)

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Jul 31, 2011 Jules rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: blog-tour, reviewed, sent-4-review

My full review with the 3.5 rating can be viewed at http://onebookshy.blogspot.com

John McWhorter has brought us an original and upbeat look at language. The full title tells it all: What Language Is (And What It Isn't and What It Could Be). I knew this book would be interesting, I just didn't realize it would also be fun.

With tidbits such as the fact that the written word is only about 5500 years old versus the 150000 years of the spoken word; we are taken on a wild linguistical journey from An...more

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May 11, 2011 Jaylia3 rated it 5 of 5 stars

Insightful, surprising and humorous, John McWhorter’s latest book is a tour of human languages through time and around the world. He presents an almost biological view of language as a living, evolving organism, and does great job illustrating how languages proliferate, transform, and disperse, with fascinating examples of everyday speech from native tongues of the past and present.

If you are not familiar with his ideas this book may turn your unexamined assumptions about language upside down....more Insightful, surprising and humorous, John McWhorter’s latest book is a tour of human languages through time and around the world. He presents an almost biological view of language as a living, evolving organism, and does great job illustrating how languages proliferate, transform, and disperse, with fascinating examples of everyday speech from native tongues of the past and present.

If you are not familiar with his ideas this book may turn your unexamined assumptions about language upside down. For instance, he has an expanded view of what constitutes a “real” language, including speech commonly considered defective or improper even by the people using it, and he explains why a language is not primitive or lacking in clarity just because it does not have a written version. Most of the languages of the world are unwritten and it’s actually the unwritten languages that tend to be especially complex, with intricate, hard to learn grammars and lots of micro-specific qualifiers, noun cases, genders and verb tenses. In contrast, some of our most familiar modern languages, Persian, Swahili, Mandarin and English, have been drastically simplified-- dumbed-down and streamlined though perfectly functional--because they long ago had to be learned by legions of adults who had already outgrown the childhood knack of language acquisition (for English these adults were the Vikings).

Among the corollaries to the idea that languages evolve like living creatures is that it is natural to expect that languages will change and silly to try to prevent it. The form of Modern English cherished and defended by language purists today developed from Old English through hundreds of “mistakes”. Other topics covered in McWhorter’s book are why it’s natural for language to be filled with all kinds of illogical constructions that you just have to know, why Black English is more like nonstandard dialects of Great Britain than any African language, why the Navaho language could be used as an unbreakable code during WWII, and how languages can be used like DNA to track human migration.

Note--That Being Said seems to be the working title, but I believe the book will be published in August with the title What Language Is: And What it Isn't and What It Could Be(less)

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Sep 30, 2011 Marian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

This was interesting which makes me what to find others by the same author. The author has real respect for all languages, including "creole" languages that others--including its speakers--look down on. He has definitely made me more aware. As I write this, I note the contrast between my spoken language and this written one. (He notes that many people mistakenly consider "written" language the "real" language)

In general, the chapters are organized around a few principles that he wants you to rem...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Dale rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

The meme going around in my grade school so very many years ago was that English is one of the hardest languages to learn. It turns out that that is completely not true. In fact, English grammar is one of the simplest there is (Persian being another). If you want a language that's really hard to learn, look at languages that are spoken only within very small, insular societies; languages that aren't influenced by an influx of adult learners. There are languages in which virtually every verb is i...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Amy L. Campbell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebook, netgalley, advanced-copy, 2011, blogged, non-fiction, reviewed

Note: Review copy provided by Netgalley.

McWhorter doesn't an excellent job of describing the weird grammatical turns that language takes. While he focuses mostly on foreign language, he does frequently bring it back to English for comparison and to point out that it has the same problems. I found the effect of writing on language (and vice versa) to be especially interesting. McWhorter also did a great job of explaining that writing is a representation of language and not a language itself. And...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Stewart rated it 3 of 5 stars

John McWhorter tries to dispel several misconceptions people have about language in this 2011 book "What Language Is (And What It Isn’t And What It Could Be)."
McWhorter, who taught at UC Berkeley for many years and as of this writing in 2011 teaches at Columbia, says that many languages, spoken by few people and isolated from the influences of other languages, become “ingrown,” that is, become amazingly complicated and prone to making distinctions that, to an outsider, can seem most trivial.
...more John McWhorter tries to dispel several misconceptions people have about language in this 2011 book "What Language Is (And What It Isn’t And What It Could Be)."
McWhorter, who taught at UC Berkeley for many years and as of this writing in 2011 teaches at Columbia, says that many languages, spoken by few people and isolated from the influences of other languages, become “ingrown,” that is, become amazingly complicated and prone to making distinctions that, to an outsider, can seem most trivial.
On the other hand, you have languages like Persian and English. Old Persian was a language with a great grammatical complexity, spoken in an empire 550–330 BCE that embraced many peoples and languages. Because these other peoples had to some extent to learn Persian as adults to live and work in the empire, the Persian language (Farsi) evolved to a language of greater simplicity, a kind of creole, McWhorter points out.
English is a prime example of a language who grammar was simplified as it moved from Old English to Middle English to Modern English. The Angles and Saxons in Britain of 1,500 years ago spoke a language that rubbed against those spoken by the Celts and the many invaders of Britain over the centuries, especially the Vikings, Danes, Romans, and Norman French. Old English is as complicated as modern German and Russian in its grammar, whereas English today has lost its noun, adjective, and article declensions; much of its verb conjugations; and is the only Indo-European language in Europe without grammatical gender.
McWhorter also makes the point that all languages are complex in their own way and that there is no thing as a “pure” language. English is the least pure of almost any of the world’s thousands of languages. Over the centuries, it has taken words and expressions from a long list of languages, both well-known and obscure: from Old German, classical Greek, Latin (half the vocabulary of English is originally from Latin), Russian (sputnik, intelligentsia, bolshevik, etc.) to Chinese (ketchup, tea, gung ho, etc.) to Nahuatl (chocolate, tomato) to Tshiluba (gumbo) to Malay (amok) to Guugu Yimidhirr (kangaroo), to name a few.
This book is not as insightful as his 2003 book "Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care," which I read several years ago, and I think this later book will be of interest only for students of linguistics.
(less)

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Jan 06, 2012 Ilya rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: linguistics

This short popular book argues that language is five things. It is ingrown, which is to say by the virtue of its grammar each utterance provides more information than strictly necessary. In English, a sentence must indicate whether the event happened in the past or will happen in the future; in a language of West Papua, a sentence must indicate whether it was light or dark outside. It is disheveled, which is to say it contains illogical rules and exceptions. English has quite a few of these (why...more

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Feb 15, 2012 Cheryl Gatling added it

Linguistics has got to be one of the dryest subjects on earth, with all its tenses and cases and inflections. Except in the hands of John McWhorter, who addresses the subject with such enthusiasm, and with such a perky style of writing that he makes it fun. His witty asides are the spoonful of sugar, but even without them, the medicine would still go down easily enough, because he explains complex concepts clearly, a little at a time. The big concept is that languages, left alone over time, grow...more

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Oct 09, 2011 Terence rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Language enthusiasts

Recommended to Terence by: NYRB advert

Shelves: science-general, science-language-linguistics

John McWhorter’s What Language Is is essentially an expansion of his efforts in Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English to explore the intricacies of language. As such, it is not as “serious” an effort as The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language or some other works but I think its conclusion is important:

Language is whatever a group of people use to communicate with each other.

(view spoiler)...more John McWhorter’s What Language Is is essentially an expansion of his efforts in Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English to explore the intricacies of language. As such, it is not as “serious” an effort as The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language or some other works but I think its conclusion is important:

Language is whatever a group of people use to communicate with each other.

(view spoiler)

McWhorter divides the book up into five chapters based on the acronym IDIOM, which stands for “ingrown,” “disheveled,” “intricate,” “oral” and “mixed.” He makes the point that English (and any widespread, widely spoken language) is not “normal.” “Normal” languages tend to accumulate a baroque collection of irregularities and ornamentation that make them difficult for non-natives to learn fluently. In Chapter one, he uses several examples of this, including Pashto, which conjugates verbs differently in the past tense depending upon whether they are transitive or intransitive. In Kikuyu, a speaker makes a much finer distinction between “here”-ness and “there”-ness than English. And, as I know from personal experience, a Mandarin speaker has to use a classifier when indicating quantity.

In Chapter two, McWhorter uses Navajo as an example of dishevelment: In Navajo, nearly every verb is irregular. As he notes, it’s as if every verb in English declined like be. And thus it goes through every chapter as he draws on many examples to showcase the complexities of language.

Just as some people get enraptured by biology or astronomy (or, shudder, economics), I get starry-eyed over language & linguistics so I give this book a strong recommendation. As I mentioned, it’s not as strong as McWhorter’s more academic efforts but it’s an enjoyable read for anyone interested in “our magnificent bastard tongues.”(less)

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Sep 30, 2011 Lara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Did you know that I minored in Linguistics in college? Not that a linguistic minor makes me any sort of expert on language or anything, but it does mean that I really love language and that all of its intricacies absolutely fascinate me. As a Vocal Performance major, I was required to study the diction of English, Latin, Italian, French and German, plus take the 101 level class in at least 3 of those languages (well, not English). So I took Latin 101, Italian 101, and German 101. You'll notice t...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-books, nonfiction

If you've ever wondered why the English language is structured the way it is ~ and why other languages are structured differently ~ What Language Is: And What It Isn't and What It Could Be by John McWhorter will shed light on the situation. McWharter, a renowned linguist, helps us understand how language develops over time, how each language relates to others and how brand new languages emerge within the modern world.

He presents this information using IDIOM as an acronym: Language, according to...more

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May 19, 2011 Fran Wilson rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an excellent introduction with limited technical jargon as to how linguist’s view language. This thoroughly enjoyable read discusses what a language is and how, because of acculturation, languages can be held in low esteem. From a quick trip through aspects of the world’s 6,000 languages, one learns that some languagages have no regular verbs at all while others love to use prefixes, suffixes and infixes. This book is a must read for any verbivore.

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Oct 02, 2012 Vinitra rated it 4 of 5 stars

Such an interesting book! I picked it up not expecting much out of it, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a lot of trivia and you definitely have to be interested in languages and how they've evolved in order to think this book was a worthwhile read, but if you fulfill those conditions I think it's definitely enjoyable. I've always been curious about linguistics and this was an easy-to-understand yet not dumbed-down look at why languages that are complicated have evolved that way while other...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Adrian Lee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Get the sense that the author is trying to be too clever by half; the book is peppered with numerous throwaway comments and asides to buttress his self-avowed credentials as a linguist, while never really focusing on delivering a convincing argument for the book's main premise: that language is IDIOM: ingrown, dissheveled, intricate, oral, and mixed. Would have appreciated a less patronising tone, less technicality, and more wonder.

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Jul 01, 2012 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

I thought physics and cosmology books were hard but reading this book on language was just as hard! I found myself getting lost if I didn't pay 100% attention to what I was reading. I never understood how technical and complex linguistics can be.
I especially loved reading about "Black English" and how it's grammar differs in ways that make it similar to other languages like Russian! The explanation of what "yo" means at the end of a sentence was amazing.

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Jan 10, 2013 Phosie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am a homeschooler and have read several other books of John McWhorter's and I LOVE ALL OF THEM! I found the parts about written vs. spoken language fascinating, as well as the analysis of 'Black English', and the light humorous tone made it a lot easier to read than, say, a textbook covering the same subjects. I enjoyed this book tremendously and would recommend it to anyone who loves languages.

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Nov 29, 2011 A. rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book was over my head. I just could not follow along with all the comparisons between languages. I understood about 3 facts from the entire book. It was a little too textbook like and also just tried to cover too many different languages in one book. I think the author had a good idea but got bogged down in the details. The book could have also been much longer. I think a longer book would have been easier to follow than the short choppy chapters.

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Feb 21, 2013 Allie Bates rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ambitious attempt is made to present the transformation and growth and development of language as both holistic and in a constant evolution. I did find it heavily academic, plus the electronic version I had was badly formatted and in places very difficult to decode. Reviewed here.

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Sep 12, 2011 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: languages

Loved this one. I think this is the third McWhorter I've read, on top of viewing his linguistics lectures at The Teaching Company. He's always a delight--we love how he gets sidetracked. His humor is more than just an added bonus--he really uses humor to illustrate his points well. This was fascinating and fun---what an amazing thing human language is.

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Sep 18, 2012 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: linguistics

Awesome book! I love McWhorter's style - light-hearted, engaging, and full of personality, with relevant (and funny) pop culture references and his own opinions here and there. There were so many fascinating insights; I wish I could remember them all. Highly recommended for anyone interested in linguistics. I used to be a "grammar snob" - but McWhorter's books completely changed how I look at grammar.

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Jun 26, 2012 Francine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very enjoyable book, but not for everybody unless you're a language nut. I'm a big John McWhorter fan. The Tamil speaking patient we had might well have responded to our common Como esta Ud? since Portuguese made its way into Malaysia and infiltrated the languages. Who knew!

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Aug 15, 2011 Eugene rated it 5 of 5 stars

Columbia University Professor and socical critic John McWhorter is what I call America's premier public linguist. And his latest book is an accessible and comprehensive overview on language that friendly in tone, and formidable in sscholarship - a must read!

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About John H. McWhorter

Dr. John McWhorter is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He earned his B.A. from Rutgers University, his M.A. from New York University, and his Ph.D. in Linguistics from Stanford University. Before taking his position at the Manhattan Institute, he held teaching positions at Cornell University, where he held the position of Assistant Professor, and at the University of California, Berkele...more

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Books by John H. McWhorter

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English

The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language

Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America

Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care

Word On The Street: Debunking The Myth Of A Pure Standard English

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