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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5317 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 1 of 8 26 July 2010 at 9:57pm | IP Logged |
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As a lover of not only the languages themselves, but also the theory of language learning, etymology, language history, as well as motivational books, language dictionaries, etc., I think it would be pretty cool to have a thread (maybe stickied) where we could post what books there are on the topic (and also maybe indicate the sub-topic), a link, a review, etc etc.
What does everyone think? Im assuming either this board or general would be ideal seeing that we wont be dealing with specific languages nor their learning materials; only languages in general. I have a few books to list and comment on, but Ill wait to see what kind of feedback I hear first. Edited by Ubik on 26 July 2010 at 9:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adamdm Groupie Australia Joined 5438 days ago 62 posts - 89 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Dari, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 8 26 July 2010 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, good idea.
However, I suggest separate threads for books about languages (history, relationships etc), for books about language learning, and for dictionaries (at least - and maybe more divisions). Certainly a discussion of the merits or otherwise of dictionaries would be very valuable to those starting out, and looking to acquire the best dictionaries for their purposes. I've got quite a nice collection of good dictionaries, as well as a few duds which I could warn people against. Anyway, to start things off, here's a favorite little book of mine, one which contributed my early interest in language learning: "About Chinese", by Richard Newnham, Penguin Books 1971, 188pp. "This book is before all else an introduction to the Chinese language for non-learners. Such people may have too little time - or too much wisdom? - for a practical course in Chinese; but they would be interested in the language if it could be made to appear less remote and exotic ..." Don't be fooled by that reassuring introduction - if you get to the end of this very readable book, you'll probably be hooked ... The book focuses mainly on Mandarin, but discusses modern and classical language; historical sound change, various romanization methods; character structure, logic, and evolution, and character reform. Highly recommended reading, for a (prospective) student of Chinese, to give them a view from the mountain, before they start out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5317 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 3 of 8 27 July 2010 at 12:23am | IP Logged |
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Well when I speak of dicitonaries, Im talking about dictionaries of languages like "The Concise Compendium of the World's Languages" by George Campbell.
I also wouldnt be too keen on having multiple threads so unless its unaminous in that regard, Id like to keep it as one. Is that book only on the Mandarin language? Because I was kinda hoping to keep this a thread with information about books that talk about ALL languages... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adamdm Groupie Australia Joined 5438 days ago 62 posts - 89 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Dari, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 8 27 July 2010 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
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OK - I misunderstood.
On that topic, I posess a small and mixed bag: David Crystal "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language" - open it at random to learn something new and fascinating. D. Crystal "How Language Works " - haven't started this yet. Steven Pinker "The Language instinct" - also haven't started this Andrew Robinson "The Story of Writing" - a very interesting "sampler". I borrowed this from a library, and then had to hunt up a copy to buy for myself. After it gets you aroused, however, it's frustrating what isn't in it ... (there's always the dear old internet, but) John deFrancis "Visible Speech: the diverse oneness of writing systems" deFrancis was (until his recent death) one of the top Western pedagogues and scholars of the Chinese language. In this book, he looks in some detail at many diverse writing systems across geography and history. He pushes his personal thesis that all writing systems are fundamentally transcriptions of oral language, and that the idea of written language deriving primarily from ideographic symbols (in cases like ancient Egyptian and Chinese) is wrong. Somewhat heavy going - I'm only about 2/3 of the way through it. Fromkin/Rodman/Collins/Blair "An Introduction to Language" - a textbook which I was obliged to buy when I did a TESOL Grad Cert. Fairly uninspiring, like a great many textbooks. W.D.Elcock "The Romance Languages" - obviously, only about this group of languages. Pretty scholarly and very thorough, and seems to assume a wide prior knowledge of these languages from the reader. A linguistic companion to "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", perhaps? Charles Hamblin "Languages of Asia and the Pacific" & Charles Berlitz "Passport to the World" Both have basic vocabulary and common phrases for 25 languages (partially overlapping sets). Hamblin is in romanization only; Berlitz has the native script for the languages which do not use the Latin alphabet. Hamblin (very frustratingly for me) says absolutely nothing about language relationships; Berlitz gives a brief description of each one. Probably both handy books for an aspiring polyglot to have. Edward Sapir "Language: an introduction to the study of speech" - a classic. I've only recently acquired this (pdf download from web), and am not far into it ... Edited by Adamdm on 27 July 2010 at 4:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 5 of 8 27 July 2010 at 8:41am | IP Logged |
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My favorite book about languages, hands down, is The World's Major Languages, edited by Bernard Comrie. It has a chapter about, well, all the world's major languages (English, German, Dutch, Danish/Norwegian/Swedish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Polish, Czech/Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Sanskrit, Hindustani, Bengali, Persian, Pashto, Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish & the Turkish languages, Arabic, Hebrew, Hausa, Tamil & the Dravidian languages, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, Korean, Malay/Indonesian, Tagalog, Yoruba, Swahili & the Bantu languages), with overviews of the history, pronunciation, grammar and lexicon for each language. Whenever I have a random basic question about Turkish phonology, Arabic grammar, or the Vietnamese lexicon, this is the book I turn to.
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| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5317 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 6 of 8 27 July 2010 at 9:04am | IP Logged |
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Very good list! How Language Works is a GREAT GREAT resource. Its blocked off in
little chunks that are easy to digest and very informational! He starts rambling and getting unnecessarily subjective towards the end, but overall, I highly recommend it. Ive been meaning to get the Encyclopedia. Youve just reminded me. I own the Pinker book and something made me put it down halfway through, but it was good...cant remember what compelled me to shelve it. Ill be picking it up again soon. The rest I hadnt heard of so Ill be checking into those. The " Introduction to Language" looks really good. Levi: Im jealous that you OWN that tome of awesomeness. Ive only peeked at it. Its reference only at the library and I dont have the cash to buy one at the moment. Its on the wish list though. As for me, I think I started this thread prematurely as I dont know if Ill be able to contribute my own books until at least tomorrow night (after my final exam in Arabic). Ill be back though. Wish me luck. :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6920 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 8 27 July 2010 at 4:37pm | IP Logged |
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Here is my list:
One Thousand Languages Lost Languages Atlas of Languages In Praise of the Music of Language Don't Sleep There are Snakes The Power of Babel Confessions of a Language Fanatic In the Land of Invented Languages The Life of Language The Science of Words 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5317 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 8 of 8 27 July 2010 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks translator2! Some of those Ive heard of and used (Power of Babel was awesome!). Im going to look up the rest when I get home.
Quickly though: One that I have been reading for the last couple of days is The Third Ear. That one so far is very very good for motivation and techniques to learning languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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