Languages: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #320

by Stephen R. Anderson, Bartosz Wojciechowski (Translator)

Interdyscyplinarna seria KRÓTKIE WPROWADZENIE piórem uznanych ekspertów skupionych wokół Uniwersytetu Oksfordzkiego przybliża aktualną wiedzę na temat współczesnego świata i pomaga go zrozumieć. W atrakcyjny sposób prezentuje najważniejsze zagadnienia XXI w. – od kultury, religii, historii przez nauki przyrodnicze po technikę. To publikacje popularnonaukowe, które w formule przystępnej, dalekiej od akademickiego wykładu, prezentują wybrane kwestie.
Książki idealne zarówno jako wprowadzenie do nowych tematów, jak i uzupełnienie wiedzy o tym, co nas pasjonuje. Najnowsze fakty, analizy ekspertów, błyskotliwe interpretacje.
Opiekę merytoryczną nad polską edycją serii sprawują naukowcy z Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego: prof. Krystyna Kujawińska Courtney, prof. Ewa Gajewska, prof. Aneta Pawłowska, prof. Jerzy Gajdka, prof. Piotr Stalmaszczyk.
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Języki to omówienie najważniejszych zagadnień związanych z wielością, różnorodnością i rozwojem sposobów komunikacji. Czy są jeszcze języki nieodkryte? Ile jest języków migowych i jak powstają? Jak porozumiewają się zwierzęta? Czy języki mogą wyginąć jak dinozaury?

Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics, Language, History, Education, Sociology, Social Science

135 pages, Paperback

Published September 7, 2012

About the author

Stephen Robert Anderson (born 1943) is an American linguist. He is the Dorothy R. Diebold Professor of Linguistics at Yale University and was the 2007 president of the Linguistic Society of America.

He received a B.S. in linguistics from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1966 and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969. Anderson taught at Harvard University from 1969 until 1975. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles in 1975. In 1988, he became a professor of cognitive science at Johns Hopkins University. Since 1994, he has been at Yale University. Anderson was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1993, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999, and the Linguistic Society of America in 2008. He is Vice President of CIPL, the Permanent International Committee of Linguists.

Reviews

[Սամուէլ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the last section the most interesting, and a substantial portion of the book is devoted to signed languages, which was interesting. I'm conflicted however, on whether I would recommend this to someone without a history in linguistics (yes, the book was more about linguistics really than language). On one hand, it does a good job of doing away with the idea that linguistics is not a scientific field, but on the other hand I can't imagine a non-linguist understanding the vocabulary the author chose to use. I almost felt like this book was written to explain to a biologist how scientific the study of language is. In doing this however, the author has targeted such a slim portion of the population (biologists who know the terminology of linguistics).

[Indira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although there are some interesting insights and facts in this book, I found it frustrating to read as I was getting quickly bored. Maybe I was expecting something different from this piece of work.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This small volume is extremely dense. The author packs in information on language loss, bilingualism, sign languages, and language diversity. A good volume for an introduction to sociolinguistic issues.

[Temi Abimbola · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would've given it a 1-star, but I found the sign language chapter the most intriguing and informative.

The author, Stephen R.Anderson, was too damn tedious with certain sections on what's meant to be a short intro into the structure and understand of human languages.

It was not a short introduction, it was more like a lecture on sentence structures and the repetitive analysis on the number of languages we have in the world.
I wish I didn't pay for this book, it felt more like reading a linguist's essay that studied Languages in College.
The only aspiring part was on sign-language, it interested me more to learn the ASL or BSL, it's quite fascinating how languages can reflect on the more isolated forms of communication, especially amongst the hearing-impaired.

Mr Anderson didn't do a great job at introducing us to the human language.
Just too tedious on areas that didn't need so much detail.
There should have been a lot more emphasis on child development around different languages i.e. care givers and exploring the multilingual societies mentioned in the book (China's Sinitic languages/Dialects; Switzerland's Swiss-German, French and Italian populations), These areas were interesting but too brief and should've been explored even more

[Karen Chung · Rating 4 out of 5]

The material in the first half of the book will be mostly familiar to seasoned linguists; the second half contained more things that were new to me. The parts I liked most were (1) its straightforward, objective treatment of the difference between a "language" and a "dialect"; and (2) its balanced and very reasonable presentation of the "universal grammar" vs. "language as a general cognitive skill" debate. There are more highlights, but this little book is worth reading for its discussion of these two cores issues in linguistics alone.

[Nguyễn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sau khi đọc xong cuốn sách, tôi hứng thú học ngoại ngữ. Tôi hình dung mình phải học tư duy diễn đạt, văn hoá của người bản xứ. Khi mà mình có cùng cách suy nghĩ như họ, mình mới có thể học tốt ngoại ngữ. Học cách diễn đạt mới làm cho mình tươi trẻ lại, như trẻ lên ba, cái gì cũng hay, cũng lạ, cũng mới.

[Daniel Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

A splendid introduction, full of judiciously chosen factoids as part of an encyclopaedic overview. The author's analogy between biological and linguistic evolution was particularly insightful.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a quick guide to the (not so briefly answered) question of how many human languages there are. SPOILER ALERT: There is either one or some number of thousands, depending upon one's philosophical leanings and a range of factors touched upon by this book. Given that there is clearly not a consensus answer, much of the book deals with what obstructions hinder a clear count, as well as some related questions that influence the number of languages over time.

With respect to the trouble spots of counting languages, the core question is what exactly is a language? Can two people who can understand each other (e.g. as I've been told Russians and Ukrainians can) be said to be speaking two different languages? If yes, the number of languages will be higher than if not. But then, how well do you have to understand each other? There are short and simple sentences in German that I understand, but that doesn't mean I could understand a German, or a German would understand me (well, they probably would because most speak English as an Other Language.)

The related questions dealt with in the book include: why is number of languages shrinking, and is it inevitable? Can a globalized world be consistent with thousands of tribal-scale languages, and -- if so -- how?

The book also discusses the diversity of sign languages, and how signed languages differ from (and are similar to) spoken languages. The final chapter considers a number of questions, including how language separates humanity from wildlife, or -- alternatively stated -- what is it that makes human language different from the communication systems of other species of which we're aware.

This is a readable book that deals in some interesting questions.

[Chuck Glenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only got about 2/3 of the way. Although it's all very interesting, I decided I don't really care about preserving endangered languages. The author's assertions are that 1. there is some knowledge embedded in the endangered language that could be lost, and 2. there are language features that might help us identify or codify language features. On the first point, colloquial knowledge, home remedies and such are sometimes useful, but more often just wrong, or dangerously wrong. Sorry, but I'll rely on what's been studied by scientists. Good riddance to folklore. On the second point, it seems like circular logic of the form: we must understand more languages because this helps us understand more languages. Also good riddance. If the entire world spoke 100, 10 or even 5 languages the world would be a better place overall IMHO. I guess one would expect a professor of linguistics to fight for languages to be preserved, but it seems like a self-serving desire.

I was able to borrow the kindle edition from my local (Glendale, AZ) library using the Libby app. See if your own local library has something similar!

[Rita P Smits · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this was not a great reading. I was looking for an introduction to languages from the point of view of a translation student without a linguistic background, and what I've got is not what I expected (or wanted): mostly a confusing and confused account of how many languages there are, and why it is hard to land on exact and uncontested number.

This theme was repeated over and over throughout the book, in different words, reminding me of a thesis made by some not overzealous student. And the writing style was equally dry and uninteresting. And OH, the damn biology parallels everywhere! They were so useless and annoying that I started to skip them altogether at some point, and that didn't leave much book left in 183 pages. My impression that this was just some scholarly homework that ended up published deepened.

In the end, and apart from a (slightly more) interesting chapter on sign language and some random language usage examples that I appreciated, I did not get much out of this book. As such, I do not recommend it.

[Michael Bond · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started out well and got progressively more tedious for me.

The title should probably be Counting Languages, which doesn't bother me, having read some other linguistics books, since it offered a new topic: How many languages are there in the world? The author begins to explain the challenges with distinguishing between languages and mentions there is a distinction between a language and a dialect, but I was looking for much more detail about that. In the end, the conclusion was an amalgam between the idea that there are uncountably many languages in the world and the opposite extreme that there is only one language in the world with minor variations. It feels like an overly academic mathematical proof with no practical basis.

A recurring theme was a comparison between the distinction between different languages and the distinction between different species of animal. It seemed like a good thought experiment and the beginning, but eventually also stopped being useful.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok book. Some parts stronger than others and it gets a little repetitive with the author’s constant reference to “how many languages are there?”, but it didn’t take long to realize that the book was less about languages and more about a theory of language. As so often is the case with these purportedly general overviews (and maybe it’s inevitable), the book eventually just becomes a defense of a given theoretical approach to language analysis. As Anderson is a linguist of the Chomskian bent, he spends most of the book leading up to the final chapter where he makes an impassioned claim for it being the only right approach to language analysis and makes no attempt at describing other approaches. Should be titled “Why Chomsky”. Giving it four stars because I like this stuff and learned some new things from the book, even if I think it was a little misleading and a different title for this author or a different author for this title should have been found.

[Sol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, gave me lots of interesting things to think about, such as; when is something a dialect and when is something a language? And should we try our best to try and keep languages from going extinct, or is that just a selfish desire?

The inclusion of topics such as social linguistics, the influence of politics on a language, and sign languages made it extra interesting.

They do sometimes make comparisons between linguistic diversity and biological diversity (such as animal species), which can help to understand some more abstract ideas, but it can also be quite jarring to suddenly read about some squirrel species in america.

Overall, great book for language enjoyers, and a great starting point for anyone who wants to learn more about language as a whole, but doesn't quite know how or where to start.

[Harriet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short guide to languages. I liked that there was a whole chapter on signed languages!
I'm not too sure who this is aimed at; people already really interested in languages probably know most of this stuff already, whereas people new to the topic may be confused by some of the terminology. I suppose the target audience is people in the middle of those two groups.
I also didn't love that so much of the book was dedicated to how many languages there are in the world. It's an interesting question to consider, but it doesn't need pages and pages about it, especially in such a short book.
Overall, not bad - it only covers a few very limited topics within languages but if you're interested in them, you'll enjoy the book.

[Mahaliah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not what I expected, but still super interesting. I think this book might be a bit inaccessible for people without a base in linguistics, especially linguistic terminology. I thought the comparisons of language to biology/genetics/evolutionary concepts were really interesting and not something I had thought of before. The chapter on signed languages was my favourite, and I appreciated the author’s explanation of I-language and E-language, as well as a nice explanation of poverty of the stimulus. I would recommend to anyone who loves thinking about languages and wants some new ideas to spark their own further research (like learning more about Georgian!)

[Ryan Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anderson uses the question "How many languages are there in the world?" as his driving question to explore the nature of language and language difference. I learned a few things.

For me, the biggest problem with the book was his propensity for using biological taxonomy as a comparable phenomenon. I just don't think it is all that comparable, even if you want to follow the last chapter's argument that all human language, from a very outside perspective, is essentially one (a proposition that linguists are having trouble supporting).

[River C. J. Ander Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest, I just couldn’t put myself into the author’s shoes. The last section of the last chapter is such an anticlimax. Does the coordinate structure constraint have to be introduced / explained in such a fashion that it hardly makes any sense?

[Uriel Aceves · Rating 1 out of 5]

It starts ok, but quickly becomes repetitive. Half of the time is also devoted to (wrongly) draw analogies between language and biology.

All in all, as a non-linguist I would definitely not recommend it. There must be a better book somewhere else.

[Nicola Di Leva · Rating 4 out of 5]

È la prima volta che leggo un saggio, per di più introduttivo, con finale a sorpresa! Piacevole e informativo allo stesso tempo.

[Taxiu · Rating 4 out of 5]

读这本的时候英语阅读能力还不算高，有很多内容理解的不透彻。了解到了语言学的一些基本研究对象，了解到了ethnologue…算是开了开眼界。虽然对语言很有兴趣，但是确实是没精力学那么多外语了。

[Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this and learned some from it, but it was a bit technical for someone with no background in the subject.

[MrKillick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Angenehm zu lesendes Buch über verschiedene Aspekte des Phänomens "Sprache", engagiert geschrieben aber nicht übermässig fakten-lastig. Der durchgehende rote Faden ist die Frage nach der Anzahl der Sprachen auf der Welt und welche Probleme bei der Ermittlung auftreten. Ein weiteres wiederkehrendes Motiv ist der Vergleich zwischen Sprachen und biologischen Arten: beide haben eine Geschichte, einen Stammbaum, ihre Klassifizierung weist ähnliche Probleme auf und beide können aussterben.

Etwas mehr harte Fakten wären nett gewesen (z.B. Sprachfamilien) und etwas über die evolutionäre Entstehung der Sprache beim Menschen, aber auch so ein netter appetizer.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book in a day. very nice introduction to linguistics. had expexted something different but enjoyed it nonetheless. To understand it entirely, I recommend a background in languages or linguistics.

[Adam Balshan · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars [Linguistics]
The first book I've read in the "Very Short Introduction" series by Oxford. It was a large disappointment.

Most of the small book was written on the topic of gauging the number of languages in the world. And despite there being another Oxford series VSI on Linguistics, this book contained far more material better classified as Linguistics than Language (there is a distinction). In fact, there was even more info on BIOLOGY than there was Language. The author decided to regale the reader with parallels between linguistic and biological classifications. So that does not bode well for the entire series. Mismatching the title with the book's content is something worthy of rookie authors and/or publishers, not the highest name in publishing.

If you must read part of it, I recommend only pp. 1-21, 38-58 (only if you haven't previously read about language extinction, otherwise there are superior explanations to Anderson's), and 91-122a. Part of that last series was on signed languages--which at first I thought out of place in the book (for more than one reason), but I ended up enjoying it.

Finally, I would mention that it was quite high-brow in its lexical choice and assumption of prior or parallel knowledge. I am already an experienced linguist, and even I thought it became obtuse a time or two. Definitely not for the beginning reader as its title implies.

So, go somewhere else for an introduction to Language. And note the best sections list above.