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324 books
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187 voters
Language Books
Showing 1-50 of 43,798
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way (Paperback)
by (shelved 814 times as language)
avg rating 3.91 — 43,918 ratings — published 1990
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (Paperback)
by (shelved 784 times as language)
avg rating 4.01 — 22,422 ratings — published 1994
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (Hardcover)
by (shelved 702 times as language)
avg rating 3.87 — 106,233 ratings — published 2003
Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It (Paperback)
by (shelved 552 times as language)
avg rating 4.08 — 12,736 ratings — published 2014
Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages (Hardcover)
by (shelved 504 times as language)
avg rating 3.91 — 7,300 ratings — published 2010
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (Paperback)
by (shelved 435 times as language)
avg rating 3.84 — 121,245 ratings — published 1998
The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language (Hardcover)
by (shelved 418 times as language)
avg rating 4.23 — 12,265 ratings — published 2011
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language (Hardcover)
by (shelved 413 times as language)
avg rating 4.05 — 12,392 ratings — published 2019
The Elements of Style (Hardcover)
by (shelved 390 times as language)
avg rating 4.18 — 86,692 ratings — published 1918
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World (Paperback)
by (shelved 369 times as language)
avg rating 4.07 — 3,072 ratings — published 2005
The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention (Paperback)
by (shelved 360 times as language)
avg rating 4.22 — 4,030 ratings — published 2005
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)
by (shelved 349 times as language)
avg rating 3.91 — 11,177 ratings — published 2007
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English (Paperback)
by (shelved 348 times as language)
avg rating 3.83 — 7,150 ratings — published 2008
The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language (Paperback)
by (shelved 347 times as language)
avg rating 4.00 — 3,205 ratings — published 2001
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries (Hardcover)
by (shelved 283 times as language)
avg rating 4.19 — 9,149 ratings — published 2017
In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language (Hardcover)
by (shelved 280 times as language)
avg rating 4.10 — 2,969 ratings — published 2009
Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States (Paperback)
by (shelved 267 times as language)
avg rating 3.92 — 15,934 ratings — published 1994
Metaphors We Live By (Paperback)
by (shelved 265 times as language)
avg rating 4.09 — 6,831 ratings — published 1980
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism (Hardcover)
by (shelved 255 times as language)
avg rating 3.81 — 113,864 ratings — published 2021
Lingo: A Language Spotter's Guide to Europe (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 245 times as language)
avg rating 3.92 — 4,631 ratings — published 2014
Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World (Paperback)
by (shelved 232 times as language)
avg rating 3.66 — 5,759 ratings — published 2014
The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language (Paperback)
by (shelved 222 times as language)
avg rating 3.94 — 5,120 ratings — published 2003
Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything (Hardcover)
by (shelved 218 times as language)
avg rating 3.78 — 2,776 ratings — published 2011
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language (Hardcover)
by (shelved 213 times as language)
avg rating 4.23 — 27,067 ratings — published 2019
The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (Hardcover)
by (shelved 205 times as language)
avg rating 4.04 — 9,150 ratings — published 2014
Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages (Hardcover)
by (shelved 194 times as language)
avg rating 3.79 — 4,132 ratings — published 2018
The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building (Paperback)
by (shelved 174 times as language)
avg rating 4.13 — 2,004 ratings — published 2015
The Story of English (Paperback)
by (shelved 169 times as language)
avg rating 4.09 — 2,396 ratings — published 1986
The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase (Hardcover)
by (shelved 163 times as language)
avg rating 4.35 — 7,264 ratings — published 2013
Babel (Hardcover)
by (shelved 162 times as language)
avg rating 4.15 — 438,546 ratings — published 2022
Words and Rules (Paperback)
by (shelved 161 times as language)
avg rating 3.91 — 1,922 ratings — published 1999
Wheelock's Latin (Paperback)
by (shelved 160 times as language)
avg rating 4.13 — 1,794 ratings — published 1956
Words on the Move: Why English Won't—and Can't—Sit Still (Like, Literally)
by (shelved 155 times as language)
avg rating 4.14 — 1,936 ratings — published 2016
The Story of English in 100 Words (Hardcover)
by (shelved 153 times as language)
avg rating 3.92 — 2,530 ratings — published 2011
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World (Hardcover)
by (shelved 151 times as language)
avg rating 3.99 — 3,890 ratings — published 2007
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style (Hardcover)
by (shelved 145 times as language)
avg rating 4.34 — 9,328 ratings — published 2019
The Stories of English (Paperback)
by (shelved 143 times as language)
avg rating 4.04 — 1,428 ratings — published 2004
The Story of Human Language (Audio CD)
by (shelved 141 times as language)
avg rating 4.40 — 3,094 ratings — published 2004
Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter — Then, Now, and Forever (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 139 times as language)
avg rating 3.94 — 4,223 ratings — published 2021
The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language (Hardcover)
by (shelved 132 times as language)
avg rating 3.73 — 1,428 ratings — published 2014
The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages (Paperback)
by (shelved 132 times as language)
avg rating 4.17 — 391 ratings — published 1943
Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners (Hardcover)
by (shelved 130 times as language)
avg rating 3.54 — 1,477 ratings — published 2012
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary (Paperback)
by (shelved 128 times as language)
avg rating 3.99 — 5,239 ratings — published 2003
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 128 times as language)
avg rating 4.34 — 314,376 ratings — published 2000
In Other Words (Hardcover)
by (shelved 127 times as language)
avg rating 3.75 — 15,567 ratings — published 2015
Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle (Hardcover)
by (shelved 125 times as language)
avg rating 3.97 — 6,008 ratings — published 2008
The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (Hardcover)
by (shelved 125 times as language)
avg rating 3.73 — 1,054 ratings — published 2007
The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 120 times as language)
avg rating 3.95 — 2,515 ratings — published 2012
How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die (Hardcover)
by (shelved 119 times as language)
avg rating 3.86 — 1,319 ratings — published 2006
Embassytown (Hardcover)
by (shelved 114 times as language)
avg rating 3.90 — 34,320 ratings — published 2011
“Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. ”
― Middlesex
― Middlesex
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
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