Proto
How One Ancient Language Went Global
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Proto
Letto da:
Emma Spurgin-Hussey
Acquista ora a 14,13 €
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Letto da:
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Emma Spurgin-Hussey
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Di:
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Laura Spinney
The enthralling story of how today’s largest language family, spoken by nearly half the world’s population, descended from one ancient dialect.
Daughter. Duhitár-. Dustr. Dukte. Listen to these English, Sanskrit, Armenian and Lithuanian words, all meaning the same thing, and you hear echoes of one of history’s most unlikely journeys. All four languages—along with hundreds of others, from French and Gaelic, to Persian and Polish—trace their origins to an ancient tongue spoken as the last ice age receded. This language, which we call Proto-Indo-European, was born between Europe and Asia and exploded out of its cradle, fragmenting as it spread east and west. Its last speaker died thousands of years ago, yet Proto-Indo-European lives on in its myriad linguistic offspring and in some of our best loved works of literature, including Dante’s Inferno and the Rig Veda, The Lord of the Rings and the love poetry of Rumi. How did this happen?
Acclaimed journalist Laura Spinney set out to answer that question, retracing the Indo-European odyssey across continents and millennia. With her we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the silk roads and the Hindu Kush. We retrace the epic journeys of nomads and monks, warriors and kings – the ancient peoples who carried these languages far and wide. In the present, Spinney meets the scientists on a thrilling mission to retrieve the lost languages and their speakers: the linguists, archaeologists and geneticists who have reconstructed that ancient diaspora. What they have learned has profound implications for our modern world, because people and their languages are on the move again. Proto is a revelatory portrait of world history in its own words.©2025 Laura Spinney
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Recensioni della critica
A compelling portrait of a people thought lost to time…a remarkable account of humanity’s quest to rediscover its ancient origins, using modern methods to illuminate the world as it was before the advent of written history. For Ms. Spinney, this distant and obscure past holds lessons for the future, as the preservation and purity of language is increasingly a contemporary concern. (Michael Patrick Brady)
Fluid... a global scientific odyssey. (Anjana Ahuja)
Beguiling and revelatory…Spinney is a stylish and erudite writer; it’s the rare science book that quotes Keats, Seamus Heaney, and Ismail Kadare. She also has a keen sense of the romance of her subject. (Laura Miller)
An impressive piece of work . . . Rewarding. (Dennis Duncan)
Laura Spinney tells engaging tales of archeologists traipsing through fields, linguists working toward professional vindication and many others active in the search for understanding of how these ancient languages traveled, fragmented, warred and traded to eventually became the dominant Indo-European languages today.
Proto is a rich and well-researched study of language development across thousands of miles and tens of thousands of years. But most importantly, it shows that we are more connected than we might have been led to believe. (Zuzanna Lachendro)
[PROTO traces] the origins of that great carrier of ideas, our shared language. Although it might read like a historical narrative, it’s really a brilliant—and well researched—argument: about the ways in which the spoken word has spread; about what we can and can’t know about the very distant past; about genetics, linguistics and science.
Ancient Greek and Latin can’t hold a candle to Proto-Indo-European as far as scope of influence is concerned. The latest from journalist Spinney aims to show just how great the impact of this little-remembered language still is. (John H. Maher)
The great leap in genetic analysis of late has meant that the story of how one language left the steppes of Ukraine and became the earth's dominant language family has become clearer and more exciting than ever before. Hooray for a book where the author's curiosity, diligence, and literary craft gets it all down in what will stand as the go-to source for a generation.
In this thought-provoking book Laura Spinney shows how recent advances in genetics and archaeological discoveries have thrown new light on the history of the Indo-European languages that a great part of the world now speaks … A lively and fascinating account of how these languages split from their root, developed in different ways, mingled with each other, crossed tracks, flourished and died. I loved it!
Proto is a real detective story told with a compelling combination of academic rigour, human interest, vivid description, and personal biography. A tour de force.
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