"But phonology, vocabulary and grammar are just the beginning of what makes languages differ. Just as each person has a distinctive manner of speaking, quite apart from a recognisable voice, there is a characteristic style of expression which goes with each language. This difference may be minimised when languages are in close proximity, and very often translated one into another, as tends to be the case, say, among the languages of western Europe. But it is always there implicitly, and stands out very clearly in the encounter of Nahuatl with Spanish."
"This book attempts to convey something of the characteristic viewpoint on the world of each language whose story it tells. Evidently, living in a particular language does not define a total philosophy of life: but some metaphors will come to mind more readily than others; and some states of mind, or attitudes to others, are easier to assume in one language than another. It cannot be a matter of indifference which language we speak, or which languages our ancestors spoke. Languages frame, analyse and colour our views of the world. 'I have three hearts,' claimed Ennius, an early master poet in Latin, on the strength of his fluency in Latin, Greek, and Oscan."
"Within twenty-five years of the prophet Muhammad's death in 632, they had conquered all of the Fertile Crescent and Persia, and thrust into Armenia and Azerbaijan. Their lightning advance was even more penetrating towards the west: Egypt fell in 641 and the rest of North Africa as far as Tunisia in the next decade. Two generations later, by 712, the Arabic language had become the medium of worship and government in a continuous band of conquered territories from Toledo and Tangier in the west to Samarkand and Sind in the east. No one has ever explained clearly how or why the Arabs could do this."
"Over half the languages in the world, for example, have fewer than five thousand speakers, and over a thousand languages have under a dozen."
"From the language point of view, the present population of the world is not six billion, but something over six thousand."
Here are some of the quotes from the book written by Nicholas Ostler, "Empires of the Word: A language history of the world." If you share the same interest in languages and feel great passion for learning all that is possible about the language history and curiosities, I highly recommend this book.
Many years ago, while studying Philology at the University, I found this book in a bookshop. At that time I did not realise how valuable it was. How magical it is that the right book will always find you at the end. I have never really stopped reading it. There is a permanent exhilaration about the structure of the book as it is very complex and detailed, but still quite understandable to a general audience. It followes chronologically the development of all the main languages throughout the history from the cultural and geopolitical point of view. Besides, it gives the information from the historical point of view, it analyses people migrations and its results, the assimilations of the tribes, the expansion of some languages and the possible explanations of the expansion. The inscriptions appear in front of you as if you were standing in front of them on some stunning archaeological site.
This book is interesting for all of us who speak a few languages and understand what it means to think in different languages. I make many comments about the language history in my classes and all of my students have always only showed interest in all the facts from the book.
I do understand that it can be too much of effort to sit and read the book in one breath, as it is quite complex and offers a very wide picture of language history; therefore, you should read it one step at a time. You'll see, you'll never stop investigating it. We could say that this book is a sort of a Bible for all the linguists and language lovers.
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