Overview

It is at the same time a history of language, a guide to foreign tongues, and a method for learning them. It shows, through basic vocabularies, family resemblances of languages--Teutonic, Romance, Greek--helpful tricks of translation, key combinations of roots and phonetic patterns. It presents by common-sense methods the most helpful approach to the mastery of many languages; it condenses vocabulary to a minimum of essential words; it simplifies grammar in an entirely new way; and it teaches a languages as it is actually used in everyday life. But this book is more than a guide to foreign languages; it goes deep into the roots of all knowledge as it explores the history of speech. It lights up the dim pathways of prehistory and unfolds the story of the slow growth of human expression from the most primitive signs and sounds to the elaborate variations of the highest cultures. Without language no knowledge would be possible; here we see how language is at once the source and the reservoir of all we know.

Full Product Details

9780393300345

Table of Contents

Reviews

Rewarding and delightful . . . for everyone who has the slightest curiosity or ambition in self expression, this is a book that contains months or years of pleasurable profit. --Christopher Morley

Rewarding and delightful . . . for everyone who has the slightest curiosity or ambition in self expression, this is a book that contains months or years of pleasurable profit. -- Christopher Morley

Author Information

Frederick Bodmer is a distinguished Swiss philologist.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available