Words of Wonder - ContentsPreface to the Second Edition viAcknowledgments for the First Edition ixPrologue xivAbout the Companion Website xxPart I The Library of Babel 11 Warramurrungunji's Children 52 Four Millennia to Tune In 24Part II A Great Feast of Languages 453 A Galapagos of Tongues 494 Your Mind in Mine: Social Cognition in Grammar 70Part III Faint Tracks in an Ancient Wordscape: Languages and Deep World History 835 Sprung from Some Common Source 856 Travels in the Logosphere: Hooking Ancient Words onto Ancient Worlds 1057 Keys to Decipherment: How Living Languages Can Unlock Forgotten Scripts 129Part IV Ratchetting Up Each Other: The Coevolution of Language, Culture, and Thought 1538 Trellises of the Mind: How Language Trains Thought 1579 What Verse and Verbal Art Can Weave 185Part V On the Brink 20510 Listening While We Can 207Part VI Afterword 231Epilogue: In the Shade of the Casuarina 233Outro: Reawakening the Word 236References 255Maps 257Index of Languages and Language Families 280Index 286
Nicholas Evans is Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at the Australian National University and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language and the Evolution of Cultural Diversity Initiative. He has published over 200 scientific publications, including nine monographs and nine edited books, and taught courses on linguistic typology, semantics, field methods, Australian and Papuan languages, and more.