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Lingo
Welcome to Europe as you've never known it before, seen through the peculiarities of its languages and dialects. Combining linguistics and cultural history, Gaston Dorren takes us on an intriguing tour of the continent, from Proto-Indo-European (the common ancestor of most European languages) to the rise and rise of English, via the complexities of Welsh plurals and Czech pronunciation. Along the way we learn why Esperanto will never catch on, how the language of William the Conqueror lives on in the Channel Islands and why Finnish is the easiest European language. Surprising, witty and full of extraordinary facts, this book will change the way you think about the languages around you. Polyglot Gaston Dorren might even persuade you that English is like Chinese.
Babel
If you were to master the twenty languages discussed in Babel, you could talk with three quarters of the world's population. But what makes these languages stand out amid the world's estimated 6,500 tongues? Gaston Dorren delves deep into the linguistic oddities and extraordinary stories of these diverse lingua francas, tracing their origins and their sometimes bloody rise to greatness. He deciphers their bewildering array of scripts, presents the gems and gaps in their vocabularies and charts their coinages and loans. He even explains how their grammars order their speakers' worldview. Combining linguistics and cultural history, Babel takes us on an intriguing tour of the world, addressing such questions as how tiny Portugal spawned a major world language and Holland didn't, why Japanese women talk differently from men, what it means for Russian to be 'related' to English, and how non-alphabetic scripts, such as those of India and China, do the same job as our 26 letters. Not to mention the conundrums of why Vietnamese has four forms for 'I', or how Tamil pronouns keep humans and deities apart. Babel will change the way you look at the world and how we all speak.
2020年7月號 HOW IT WORKS 知識大圖解 中文版 NO.70
HIW70專題 綜觀人體微生物 人體可謂「生意盎然」。在各角落和縫隙中，皆存有微型生態系，充滿了細菌、古菌、真菌、原生生物和病毒。它們構成了身體的重要一環，可協助消化食物，與免疫系統相互作用，甚至影響情緒。正如地球上各種動植物的棲地各異，不同微生物所占據的身體部位也不一樣。手臂和腿上的皮膚既乾燥、溫度變化又大，就像座沙漠，少有物種能頑強到以此為家。不過，腸道好似溫暖、潮溼且肥沃的熱帶地區，可供養相當多元的微生物。在體內各微生態系中，微生物群落即所謂的「微生物區」（microbiota...
That's The Way It Crumbles
Are we tired of hearing that fall is a season, sick of being offered fries and told about the latest movie? Yeah. Have we noticed the sly interpolation of Americanisms into our everyday speech? You betcha. And are we outraged? Hell, yes. But do we do anything? Too much hassle. Until now. In That's The Way It Crumbles Matthew Engel presents a call to arms against the linguistic impoverishment that happens when one language dominates another. With dismay and wry amusement, he traces the American invasion of our language from the early days of the New World, via the influence of Edison, the dance hall and the talkies, right up to the Apple and Microsoft-dominated present day, and explores the f...
Talk on the Wild Side
Language is a wild animal: rough, ambiguous, inconsistent in countless ways. But that just makes it all the more tempting to tame it. Many have tried, from sticklers for supposedly correct grammar to inventors of supposedly perfect languages; from software engineers working on machine translation to governments that see language management as politics by another means. But when you enter the lair of a wild beast, you can be lucky to escape with your wits. Join Lane Greene on a journey of discovery into the deep strangeness of language. Learn why grammar rules can never capture the extraordinary variety of ordinary usage. See what happens when you try to design a language that really makes sense. Find out why, for all the talk of decline in English, no language in recorded history has ever gone to the dogs, or ever could. And learn the fate of those bold individuals who, through heroism or ignorance, ventured to teach their tongue some new tricks.
Jerusalem and Other Holy Places as Foci of Multireligious and Ideological Confrontation
Jerusalem and Other Holy Places as Foci of Multireligious and Ideological Confrontation brings together the papers that were read at an international conference at the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem in May 2018. The contributions to this volume develop a multi-disciplinary perspective on holy places and their development, rhetorical force, and oft-contested nature. Through a particular focus on Jerusalem, this volume demonstrates the variety in the study of holy places, as well as the flexibility of geographic and historical aspects of holiness.
Assembling Flowers and Cultivating Homes
Colombia is a major exporter of fresh-cut flowers. As in other global assembly line industries, women constitute a majority of Colombia's floriculture workforce. This ethnographic study explores the links between agro-industrial employment in the context of economic adjustment programs and the individual experience of employment and economic change at the household level. Author Greta Friedemann-Sánchez's challenges the current academic consensus that transnational assembly line industries reinforce patriarchal ideologies of reproduction and the exploitation of women. What from a global perspective may be perceived as exploitation can be seen from the local perspective as an opportunity within the community. Specifically, the study focuses on how the interrelated factors of formal employment, wage income, property ownership, social capital, and self-esteem articulate with women's resistance to male dominated households and domestic violence. Expertly combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies, Assembling Flowers and Cultivating Homes contributes greatly to the study of gender and power, household economics and structure, and Latin American society.
How Language Began
In his groundbreaking new book Daniel Everett seeks answers to questions that have perplexed thinkers from Plato to Chomsky: when and how did language begin? what is it? and what is it for? Daniel Everett confounds the conventional wisdom that language originated with Homo sapiens 150,000 years ago and that we have a 'language instinct'. Drawing on evidence from a wide range of fields, including linguistics, archaeology, biology, anthropology and neuroscience, he shows that our ancient ancestors, Homo erectus, had the biological and mental equipment for speech one and half million years ago, and that their cultural and technological achievements (including building ocean-going boats) make it overwhelmingly likely they spoke some kind of language. How Language Began sheds new light on language and culture and what it means to be human and, as always, Daniel Everett spices his account with incident and anecdote. His book is convincing, arresting and entertaining.
The Economist Style Guide
Over a million copies sold Clear writing is the key to clear thinking. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible. That's the thinking that underpins this much-loved guide, and the mantra for anyone wanting to communicate with the clarity, style and precision for which The Economist is renowned. The Economist Style Guide guides the reader through the pleasures and pitfalls of English usage. It offers advice on the consistent use of punctuation, abbreviations and capital letters, identifies common errors and clichés and contains an exhaustive range of reference material - covering everything from business ratios to mathematical symbols and common Latin phrases. It also ...
The Game of the Rose
The Dutch no longer rule supreme in the world flower market. Since the late eighties, developing countries such as Colombia and Kenya have seized a large - and growing - market share. The Game of the Rose is a report from the frontlines of this new War of the Roses (and Other Cut Flowers). Are Southern growers cornering the market? European growers fear their tropical competitors, and with reason. Yet they also do thriving business with growers in Africa, India and South America. The South pays highly for the services of Northern managers, crop specialists, marketing experts, for Northern plant material and for Northern equipment. Many of the African growers themselves are European. The developing countries furnish the flower trade with cheap labour, with scarce arable land and even scarcer water resources. They expose their populations to carelessly sprayed toxic pesticides. Who profits? The profits from the flower industry are highly uncertain - and are in any case being drained off to the North. Why, then, are Northern development consultants advising governments and entrepreneurs in the South to adopt such a risky and disadvantageous strategy?
