Language defines us as a species, placing humans head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators. But it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries, allowing us to ponder why different languages emerged, why there isn't simply a single language, how languages change over time and whether that's good or bad, and how languages die out and become extinct. Now you can explore all of these questions and more in an in-depth series of 36 lectures from one of America's leading linguists. You'll be witness to the development of human language, learning how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today and gaining an appreciation of the remarkable ways in which one language sheds light on another. The many fascinating topics you examine in these lectures include: the intriguing evidence that links a specific gene to the ability to use language; the specific mechanisms responsible for language change; language families and the heated debate over the first language; the phenomenon of language mixture; why some languages develop more grammatical machinery than they actually need; the famous hypothesis that says our grammars channel how we think; artificial languages, including Esperanto and sign languages for the deaf; and how word histories reflect the phenomena of language change and mixture worldwide.

Inhoud

CH1. What Is Language? CH2. When Language Began CH3. How Language Changes: Sound Change CH4. How Language Changes: Building New Material CH5. How Language Changes: Meaning and Order CH6. How Language Changes: Many Directions CH7. How Language Changes: Modern English CH8. Language Families: Indo-European CH9. Language Families: Tracing Indo-European CH10. Language Families: Diversity of Structures CH11. Language Families: Clues to the Past CH12. The Case Against the World's First Language CH13. The Case For the World's First Language CH14. Dialects: Subspecies of Species CH15. Dialects: Where Do You Draw the Line? CH16. Dialects: Two Tongues in One Mouth CH17. Dialects: The Standard as Token of the Past CH18. Dialects: Spoken Style, Written Style CH19. Dialects: The Fallacy of Blackboard Grammar CH20. Language Mixture: Words CH21. Language Mixture: Grammar CH22. Language Mixture: Language Areas CH23. Language Develops Beyond the Call of Duty CH24. Language Interrupted CH25. A New Perspective on the Story of English CH26. Does Culture Drive Language Change? CH27. Language Starts Over: Pidgins CH28. Language Starts Over: Creoles I CH29. Language Starts Over: Creoles II CH30. Language Starts Over: Signs of the New CH31. Language Starts Over: The Creole Continuum CH32. What Is Black English? CH33. Language Death: The Problem CH34. Language Death: Prognosis CH35. Artificial Languages CH36. Finale: Master Class