A masterpiece of linguistics scholarship, at once erudite and entertaining, confronts the thorny question of how--and whether--culture shapes language and language, culture.

Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world's great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements...

"A landmark new translation of Homer's most popular epic by distinguished author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn. In 1961, the University of Chicago Press published Richmond Lattimore's translation of Homer's The Iliad. For more than sixty years, it has served to introduce readers to the ancient Greek world of gods and heroes and has been one of the most popular and respected versions of the work. Yet through all those decades, Chicago never published...

A tour of the world's twenty most-spoken languages explores the history, geography, linguistics, and cultures that have been shaped by languages and their customs. "English is the world language, except that most of the world doesn't speak it--only one in five people does. Gaston Dorren calculates that to speak fluently with half of the world's 7.4 or so billion people in their mother tongues, you would need to know no fewer than twenty languages....

"Set in Tokyo over the course of one night, Aki and Hiro have decided to be together one last time in their shared flat before parting. Their relationship has broken down after a mountain trek during which their guide died inexplicably. Now each believes the other to be a murderer and is determined to extract a confession before the night is over. Who is the murderer and what really happened on the mountain? In the battle of wills between them, the...

"A bestselling, prizewinning novel of obsession and psychological intrigue about two enigmatic unmarried women, one of whom manipulates the other from afar, by one of Japan's most acclaimed young writers"-- Provided by publisher.

"Utterly original and compulsively readable, a detective story about a woman who uses her uncanny ability to analyze words and speech patterns to help solve crimes. Maggie Moore--tattooed, pierced, and a bit of a mess--is a word genius, able to solve any linguistic puzzle. When she's talent-scouted from the top of her forensic linguistics class and asked to analyze harrowing notes left by a stalker-turned-rapist, she's all over it. And she succeeds....

"By revealing the machinery and dynamics of the interplay between influencers, algorithms, and online crowds, DiResta illustrates the way propagandists deliberately undermine belief in the fundamental legitimacy of institutions that make society work. These invisible rulers create bespoke realities to revolutionize politics, culture, and society. Their work is driven by a simple maxim: if you make it trend, you make it true. DiResta predicts the consequences...

Marjoleine Boonstra visits the people who have translated this little masterpiece from French into Tibetan, Tamazight, Sami, and Nawat. All of these languages are under threat. Passionately enthusiastic language researches, teachers, and translators talk about how the observation of an alien prince on earth are interpreted in their own culture.

Presents a history of English spelling through chapters that cover such topics as the introduction of the Roman alphabet, each letter's origins, and the development of long and short vowels.