Log In
Or create an account -> 
Imperial Library
  • Home
  • About
  • News
  • Upload
  • Forum
  • Help
  • Login/SignUp

Index
Cover Title Page PREFACE PROLOGUE: A CLASH OF LANGUAGES PART I: THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE HISTORY 1 Themistocles’ Carpet The language view of human history The state of nature Literacy and the beginning of language history 2 What It Takes to Be a World Language; or, You Never Can Tell PART II: LANGUAGES BY LAND 3 The Desert Blooms: Language Innovation in the Middle East Three sisters who span the history of 4500 years The story in brief: Language leapfrog Sumerian—the first classical language: Life after death FIRST INTERLUDE: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ELAMITE? Akkadian—world-beating technology: A model of literacy Phoenician—commerce without culture: Canaan, and points west Aramaic—the desert song: Interlingua of western Asia SECOND INTERLUDE: THE SHIELD OF FAITH Arabic—eloquence and equality: The triumph of ‘submission’ THIRD INTERLUDE: TURKIC AND PERSIAN, OUTRIDERS OF ISLAM A Middle Eastern inheritance: The glamour of the desert nomad 4 Triumphs of Fertility: Egyptian and Chinese Careers in parallel Language along the Nile A stately progress Immigrants from Libya and Kush Competition from Aramaic and Greek Changes in writing Final paradoxes Language from Huang-he to Yangtze Origins First Unity Retreat to the south Northern influences Beyond the southern sea Dealing with foreign devils Whys and wherefores Holding fast to a system of writing Foreign relations China’s disciples Coping with invasions: Egyptian undercut Coping with invasions: Chinese unsettled 5 Charming Like a Creeper: The Cultured Career of Sanskrit The story in brief The character of Sanskrit Intrinsic qualities Sanskrit in Indian life Outsiders’ views The spread of Sanskrit Sanskrit in India Sanskrit in South-East Asia Sanskrit carried by Buddhism: Central and eastern Asia Sanskrit supplanted The charm of Sanskrit The roots of Sanskrit’s charm Limiting weaknesses Sanskrit no longer alone 6 Three Thousand Years of Solipsism: The Adventures of Greek Greek at its acme Who is a Greek? What kind of a language? Homes from home: Greek spread through settlement Kings of Asia: Greek spread through war A Roman welcome: Greek spread through culture Mid-life crisis: Attempt at a new beginning Intimations of decline Bactria, Persia, Mesopotamia Syria, Palestine, Egypt Greece Anatolia Consolations in age Retrospect: The life cycle of a classic 7 Contesting Europe: Celt, Roman, German and Slav Reversals of fortune The contenders: Greek and Roman views The Celts The Germans The Romans The Slavs Rún: The impulsive pre-eminence of the Celts Traces of Celtic languages How to recognise Celtic Celtic literacy How Gaulish spread The Gauls’ advances in the historic record Consilium: The rationale of Roman Imperium Mōs Māiōrum—the Roman way The desertion of Gaulish Latin among the Basques and the Britons Einfall: Germanic and Slavic advances The Germanic invasions—irresistible and ineffectual Slavonic dawn in the Balkans Against the odds: The advent of English 8 The First Death of Latin PART III: LANGUAGES BY SEA 9 The Second Death of Latin 10 Usurpers of Greatness: Spanish in the New World Portrait of a conquistador An unprecedented empire First chinks in the language barrier: Interpreters, bilinguals, grammarians Past struggles: How American languages had spread The spread of Nahuatl The spread of Quechua The spreads of Chibcha, Guaraní, Mapudungun The Church’s solution: The lenguas generales The state’s solution: Hispanización Coda: Across the Pacific 11 In the Train of Empire: Europe"’s Languages Abroad Portuguese pioneers An Asian empire Portuguese in America Dutch interlopers La francophonie French in Europe The first empire The second empire The Third Rome, and all the Russias The origins of Russian Russian east then west Russian north then south The status of Russian The Soviet experiment Conclusions Curiously ineffective—German ambitions Imperial epilogue: Kōminka 12 Microcosm or Distorting Mirror? The Career of English Endurance test: Seeing off Norman French English overlaid Spreading the Anglo-Norman package The waning of Norman French Stabilising the language What sort of a language? Westward Ho! Pirates and planters Someone else’s land Manifest destiny Winning ways Changing perspective—English in India A merchant venture Protestantism, profit and progress Success, despite the best intentions The world taken by storm An empire completed Wonder upon wonder English among its peers PART IV: LANGUAGES TODAY AND TOMORROW 13 The Current Top Twenty 14 Looking Ahead What is old What is new Way to go Three threads: Freedom, prestige and learnability Freedom Prestige What makes a language learnable Vaster than empires NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS About the Author PRAISE FOR Empires of the Word Copyright About the Publisher
  • ← Prev
  • Back
  • Next →
  • ← Prev
  • Back
  • Next →

Chief Librarian: Las Zenow <zenow@riseup.net>
Fork the source code from gitlab.

This is a mirror of the Tor onion service:
http://kx5thpx2olielkihfyo4jgjqfb7zx7wxr3sd4xzt26ochei4m6f7tayd.onion