Babel

Author: Gaston Dorren

Language: English

Summary: BABEL takes you to the 20 mightiest languages of our time. Half of the world population are native speakers of one of these 20. Well over three quarters can speak at least one of them. And just over 90% live in countries where one of them is used by central government. Continue reading “Babel”

Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages

Author: Gaston Dorren

Language: English

Summary: 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.

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Lost in Translation

Author: Nicole Mones

Language: English

Summary: Expatriate translator Alice Mannegan spends her nights in Beijing’s smoky bars, seeking fleeting encounters with Chinese men to blot out the shame of her racist father back in Texas. But when she signs on to an archaeological expedition searching for the missing bones of Peking Man in China’s remote Northwest deserts, her world cracks open. As the group follows the trail of the Jesuit philosopher/paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin to close in on one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries, Alice finds herself increasingly drawn to a Chinese professor who is shackled by his own painful memories. Love in all its forms–human, sexual, divine, between a nation and its history, a man and his past, a father and his daughter–drives the story to its breathtaking finish. Continue reading “Lost in Translation”

First Words – Prime Parole

Author: Tommaso Maggio and Eleni Maggio Perin Language: English and Italian Summary: This book for toddlers has a bold and colourful graphic; the animals are designed by using familiar and simple shapes to capture your children’s imagination and attention. Charmingly illustrated, it encourages vocabulary building, it will help your children to spot and recognise each animal, colours and shapes easily, developing the talking. Designed in … Continue reading First Words – Prime Parole

Perché il bambino cuoce nella polenta

Author: Aglaja Veteranyi

Language: Italiano

Summary: La piccola protagonista di questo magico romanzo è figlia di artisti circensi, la sua vera casa sono il tendone di un circo e le tante roulotte che cambiano di paese in paese. Suo padre è clown, acrobata e bandito, ma avrebbe voluto essere una star del cinema mentre sua madre, ogni notte, rimane appesa per i capelli sopra il pubblico e cammina nell’aria. È allora che lei ha paura e teme che alla madre possa accadere qualcosa di brutto. Continue reading “Perché il bambino cuoce nella polenta”

Through the language glass: why the world looks different in other languages

 

Author: Guy Deutscher

Language: English

Summary: The debate is ages old: Where does language come from? Is it an artifact of our culture or written in our very DNA? In recent years, the leading linguists have seemingly settled the issue: all languages are fundamentally the same and the particular language we speak does not shape our thinking in any significant way. Guy Deutscher says they’re wrong. From Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, and through a strange and dazzling history of the color blue, Deutscher argues that our mother tongues do indeed shape our experiences of the world. Audacious, delightful, and provocative, Through the Language Glass is destined to become a classic of intellectual discovery. Source: amazon.com

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