A useful overview, strong on sociolinguistics, though historical linguists and philologists will find plenty to gainsay.
Pop history of the evolution of the Spanish language and its spread through conquest, commerce and culture.
The Phoenicians applied the name Hispania, write Canadian travelers Nadeau and Barlow (co-authors: The Story of French, 2006, etc.), to a strip of Mediterranean shore on which rabbitlike creatures abounded: thus “land of the hyraxes.” There, the language of native Celtic and pre-Celtic peoples met that of the conquering Romans, yielding a blend that would eventually spread across much of the Iberian Peninsula. From there, as the authors chart, it would travel around the world, absorbing streams of words from the languages it encountered—the Visigothic of once-despised masters, the Arabic of Spain’s former rulers, whole vocabularies from the New World. As the authors rightly note, Spanish is not static. A major world language (by their debatable reckoning, the world’s second in terms of number of speakers), it has spun off in many directions, with some 10 varieties spoken in Mexico alone and a highly influential, somewhat simplified version spreading outward from Spanish speakers in the United States. Nadeau and Barlow write engagingly of the “Latin American boom” in literature, which brought Spanish-language writers onto the world stage, and of the stultifying effects of the Franco regime on the language in its homeland. They are less successful in writing of the deep history of Spanish, confusing the causes of the split of Spanish and Portuguese and missing a couple of entertaining if perhaps fugitive theories on why people in Madrid lisp while those in Maracaibo do not.
A useful overview, strong on sociolinguistics, though historical linguists and philologists will find plenty to gainsay.Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-312-65602-7
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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