historical linguistics

"... [an] argument that speech--not evolution--is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements"--Amazon.com.

A natural history of language written especially for the lay person, looking at how the nearly six thousand languages on Earth as of 2001 evolved from a single, original source some 150,000 years earlier, and discussing dialects, language extinction, and other topics.

Traces the history of the world's greatest languages over the last five hundred years, exploring how cultural, political, social, and economic events impacted the development of languages.