stoutfellow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stoutfellow) wrote2007-08-19 02:36 pm
stoutfellow) wrote2007-08-19 02:36 pm
Empires of the Word
Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is rather different from other books of linguistics that I've read. Make no mistake, it is a book of linguistics; though Ostler rarely dips into the technical jargon of the field, he does not hesitate to do so when appropriate. But Ostler approaches the field in a rather new way. (He is not alone in this approach; he mentions, in the text and the bibliography, several other authors following the same track. But it was new to me.)
Let me start by quoting a summary passage from early in the text:
After a couple of introductory chapters, Ostler turns to the first imperial language, Sumerian, and continues with its successors in the Middle East: the Semitic triple of Akkadian, Aramaic, and Arabic, and the invasive Turkic and Persian languages. From there, he moves east and west with a comparative discussion of Egyptian and Chinese, which he sees as similar in their social histories despite their vast difference as languages. There follows a chapter on the remarkable, and largely peaceful, spread of Sanskrit, with a nod to the Prakrits as well. Greek gets a look, for its rapid spread, its almost equally rapid retreat, and its long status as a prestige language even after it had lost most of its territorial gains. This part of the book concludes with a discussion of the contest between the Celtic, Roman, Germanic, and Slavic languages for domination in Europe.
The next section of the book deals with the unprecedented seaborne spread of languages after about 1500. A chapter on Spanish also takes a brief look at the expansion of Nahuatl, Quechua, and other imperial languages of the Americas, and the impact this had on the growth of Spanish. Other colonial European languages - Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Russian - are compared next, with a brief glance at the failures of German and Japanese to make colonial headway. The survey concludes with a lengthy treatment of English.
In a final section, Ostler examines the current situation, looking both for recurrent patterns and novel conditions, and offers some tentative forecasts.
Ostler's approach is interesting and novel. There have been quite a few popular books on language of late, but most of them seem unsatisfactory, marred by English triumphalism, by a magpie focus on curiosities, or by "zero tolerance" prescriptivism. (I know of several that seem not to fall victim to these, but, alas, I haven't read them yet!) Ostler avoids these flaws, and I have added some of his bibliographic references to my to-get list. Though the book does occasionally dip into technicalities, I think it would be accessible to those without linguistic training; an interest in history, in language, and, perhaps, in the workings of different societies should be enough. Recommended.
Let me start by quoting a summary passage from early in the text:
This book traces the history of those languages which, in the part of human history that we now know, have spread most widely. Somehow, and for a variety of reasons, the communities that spoke them were able to persuade others to join them, and so they expanded. The motives for that persuasion can be very diverse - including military domination, hopes of prosperity, religious conversion, attendance at a boarding school, service in an army, and many others beside. But at root this persuasion is the only way that a language can spread, and it is no small thing, as anyone who has ever tried deliberately to learn another language knows.Ostler restricts himself to written languages, since he is most interested in the manner and reasons for their spread, and these are more difficult to discern without written evidence. Even with this restriction, he is able to display many different patterns of spread and, equally interesting, of retreat. (Why did English take root in India, while Dutch failed to do so in Indonesia? Why were the Celtic languages nearly extirpated by Latin on the Continent, but not in Britain - and why did the Britons lose ground to Germanic invaders, when the same invaders had so little linguistic success in Italy, France, and Spain?)
After a couple of introductory chapters, Ostler turns to the first imperial language, Sumerian, and continues with its successors in the Middle East: the Semitic triple of Akkadian, Aramaic, and Arabic, and the invasive Turkic and Persian languages. From there, he moves east and west with a comparative discussion of Egyptian and Chinese, which he sees as similar in their social histories despite their vast difference as languages. There follows a chapter on the remarkable, and largely peaceful, spread of Sanskrit, with a nod to the Prakrits as well. Greek gets a look, for its rapid spread, its almost equally rapid retreat, and its long status as a prestige language even after it had lost most of its territorial gains. This part of the book concludes with a discussion of the contest between the Celtic, Roman, Germanic, and Slavic languages for domination in Europe.
The next section of the book deals with the unprecedented seaborne spread of languages after about 1500. A chapter on Spanish also takes a brief look at the expansion of Nahuatl, Quechua, and other imperial languages of the Americas, and the impact this had on the growth of Spanish. Other colonial European languages - Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Russian - are compared next, with a brief glance at the failures of German and Japanese to make colonial headway. The survey concludes with a lengthy treatment of English.
In a final section, Ostler examines the current situation, looking both for recurrent patterns and novel conditions, and offers some tentative forecasts.
Ostler's approach is interesting and novel. There have been quite a few popular books on language of late, but most of them seem unsatisfactory, marred by English triumphalism, by a magpie focus on curiosities, or by "zero tolerance" prescriptivism. (I know of several that seem not to fall victim to these, but, alas, I haven't read them yet!) Ostler avoids these flaws, and I have added some of his bibliographic references to my to-get list. Though the book does occasionally dip into technicalities, I think it would be accessible to those without linguistic training; an interest in history, in language, and, perhaps, in the workings of different societies should be enough. Recommended.