Comprehensive report by veteran science writer Davis (Mapping the Code, 1990, etc.) on the glories and mysteries of language. Evidence that animals can talk is, Davis says, ``scant at best'': Language remains a distinctively human trait and perhaps our crowning achievement, and it may play a key role in the creation of the sense of an ``I,'' by which we know ourselves and the world. According to Davis, language is at least 100,000 years old, although its origins remain misty. We do know that all extant languages are equally complex (no so-called ``primitive'' language exists) and that all languages evolve—a process for which Davis uses English (the ``single most important spoken and written language'') as a fascinating case history, tracing how ``dramatic changes in vowel pronunciation'' turned Chaucer's English into the language spoken today. This sort of study arises from the blossoming of linguistics, which Davis traces from its origins in ancient Greece and India through the breakthrough work, in the 18th century, of Sir William Jones (who first noticed that Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin are related) to the transformational grammar of Noam Chomsky, who perceives innate language structures in the mind. But minds require brains, and Davis explains in great detail how the brain stores and processes information, as well as how it produces language. It turns out that language abilities are spread throughout our gray matter and that, in multilingual people, different areas of the brain handle different languages. The stages of language acquisition in infants are also covered—from crying to gurgling to babbling to real talking (which begins at about one year). Seven appendices offer a bounty of language miscellany, from a pronunciation guide for phonetic symbols to a chart of Indo-European tongues. A first-rate overview of language from A to Z, and then some.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1993
ISBN: 1-55972-206-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Birch Lane Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1993
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
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